...but then I heard someone say it again a week later or so, and today when I finished paying in a gas station here in Bern, the lady behind the counter wished me a "Schönes weekend". What's going on? Did the word "weekend" suddenly get adopted into swiss-german or something? I know alot of english words are getting adopted here and there, but why the word "weekend" and why suddenly? I've been here 10 years and never heard it, and suddenly now 3 time in the last month I hear it!
A couple of weeks ago I heard 2 people talking in front of a store in heavy schwiizer-deutsch, and at the end of the conversation, one said to the other "Schönes weekend!" It raised an eyebrow to me, because I never heard anyone say that during a swiss-german conversation, but I thought maybe it was some private joke or something between them.
German equivalent of franglais ( le weekend ).
English is everywhere in bits and bobs - just look at advertising.
I hear "sorry " a lot (same meaning).
I also hear "sorry" alot too, but that's been around for a while. I think because even native German speakers have trouble saying "entschuldigung"
English is the new German !
World is getting smaller and languages are mixing up. It's awful -and yet it is great fun too.
French expressions in English always make me laughh - due to pronunciation. My favourite if 'genrE'- and also 'double entrendrE' (capital to highlight that Brits emphasise the final E, which is not done in French). 'Ménage à trois' (twah) ...'laissez-faire attitude', and so many more.
My neighbour always says 'no soucy' (pronounced like 'eye') her version of the French 'pas de soucis' (no worries/akunamatata) just to pretend she speaks English, lol - and always 'bye bye' or 'ciao'. It is just a bit of fun.
Of course the Brits are used to that sort of thing, from Celtic, to Roman, to Angle, SAxon, Pict, Jute and so many more, Danish, Norwegian and then Norman French- and so many others recently - a great big mish mash- and a wonderful language. Well, all languages are wonderful
It's in switzerland, words from different languages are used together.
"Weekend" has been around in German (not only Swiss German") since the 1950s. First time I heard it was around 1955 in the wonderful mongrel form, "Weekendhäuschen."
On the other hand, I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, "Why do Americans call Saturday plus Sunday 'weekend' when Sunday is considered the first day of the week?"
Nothinmg new, it is used since ages. I think Wolli even used "äs schöns Weekend" in Kindergarten.
Because we're all nose to the grindstone Puritans. The working week starts on a Monday, so that's what important - and therefore in popular usage is the first day. You have to earn your rest as a reward for your labors, so naturally Saturday and Sunday are the end of the week.
Besides, there's that Genesis thing about the seventh day and resting and all.
My impression is that in the Valais I hear " Bonne fin de semaine " far more often than " Bon weekend ". Note that I spend most of my time in remote alpine villages that may be less linguistically mongrelized than the big cities.
I'll go back to the gas-station and ask the lady there who wished me a "Schönes weekend", maybe she knows ...actually, why Americans? The German word "Wochenende" also literally means "end of the week" or "weekend".
Of course it does, but in the German speaking areas of the world, Sunday is considered the last day of the week.
Not really true, at least not before the mid 70ies (but they copied the stalinist mess from the East).
Anyway Sunday in Christian tradition is the first day (took that over from Jewish point of view) and shifted the shabat from the seventh day to the first.
Here in Basel I've been hearing this for the past six years. In fact I often get a funny look when I say Schoenes Wochenende
You are kidding, aren't you? Even my late Grandma's Appenzeller Kalenders from before WWI list every week with Monday as the first day.
Indeed.
"What are you doing?"
"I am a designer"
"Fashion?"
"No, meat and sausages..."
I have heard several versions: schönes Wochenende, schönes weekend and nice Wochenende as well. You take it what it means as expats contribute to limitless language evolution.
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Weekend was taken into SwissGerman decades ago and was common already in the 1970ies
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BUT never forget that words change their meanings when taking over
- City in Switzerland means downtown (centre-ville)
- Dancing means a place where people dance
- Shopville is neither a shop nor a town but a shopping area in Zch
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In the 50ies, Sunday of course was the first day of the week, at least in Zürich. But it over the years, clearly in the 80ies became the last day of the week (nr. 7)
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NO, in my Kindergarten years and schooltime, it was not "ä schöns Weekend" but still "än schöne Sunntig"
Was she maybe Lenin's tenant?
Honestly, I don't know who started when with counting Monday as first day (maybe infact when the first agendas came up and people didn't want to start the week with a white entry page?). In Hebrew Sunday is "Iom Rishon"/"1st day" and so was considered by Christian tradition.
I own hundreds of old pocket calendars in credit card size, issued by banks, insurance companies and other businesses, all from Switzerland, some of them dating back to the 1930. It's not an obsession but the result of a necessitiy caused by another obsession of mine, namely model railroad building, where those thin plastic sheets can serve many purposes.
As you may imagine, they all have 12 or 15 rectangles, one for each month of the year plus sometimes three more for the last months of the previous year or the first months of the next year. Each month square has five (February sometimes only four) lines, one for each week.
Without a single exception, they all have Monday as the first day of the week, no matter how far back I go.
By the way, in the 1950s, we had a silly joke. We asked a class mate, "Do you know what 'Modimidofrsaso' means?" Of course no one knew. "What, you don't know? Are you blind or what? You've seen it so many times!" Take your pocket calender out of the wallet and show them, "Mo Di Mi Do Fr Sa So" (for Mo ntag, Di enstag, Mi ttwoch" etc.. Duh.