Alman is a simplified dialect of German designed to reduce the complexity of the language while maintaining mutual intelligibility with Standard German.

“What English accomplished by accident, German shall have by regulation: a gender-equitable world language, and an alternative path to fluency for the millions learning it.”

It systematically eliminates several complex grammatical features:

Gender System: Uses a single article form for most contexts

Case Markings: Removes most case-based inflections

Noun Declensions: Simplifies noun endings across cases

Job Titles: Eliminates gender-specific forms in occupational titles

While Alman reduces grammatical complexity, it preserves:

Core vocabulary

Basic word order

Verb conjugations

Essential syntactic structures

This project seems quixotic, especially given the prevalence of English as an L2 language for so many Germanic language speakers, including Standard High German, and so many Europeans. I can understand the urge for Europeans to displace English as a lingua franca, though.

24 points · 6 comments · view on lemmy.world

6 Comments

AzuraTheSpellkissed@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 22d

First time I'm hearing of this. As a German, I approve. I can't imagine to be taken serious when taking like that, though.

Warning: I don't think the subject is interesting to [non-linguists] don't know German and who haven't dipped their toes into the struggle of learning it.

bigbangdangler@reddthat.com · 5 pts · 22d

Pretty neat! Some details from the Spezifikation:

for non-genitive cases (nom, acc, dat), the article is always die
for genitive, the article is always der, with no additional morpheme on the noun
no suffixes for what would usually be dative plural
no weak noun endings (thus no weak noun category)

The indefinite ein is also invariant, and adjectives always take -e, so you get things like: ein alte Frau.

Put simply, it's still highly inflected, but various idiosyncrasies have been removed, and inflectional categories have been flattened.

Fascinating as an exercise, though I suspect it won't get much real application.

switcheroo@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 22d

I'd be interested (if this is a real thing)! As a dummy from country-that-shouldnt-be-named, I'd love to learn a new language, but I really struggle with the ones with "gender systems".

warbond@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 22d (2 replies)

That's really neat. It would be interesting to hear how it's perceived, what it sounds like, etc

AzuraTheSpellkissed@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 22d (1 reply)

To me (a German) it sounds like "broken" or entry-level German, like how a foreigner with only basic German skills might talk, while making some "mistakes" (compared to standard German). Not toddlers, but immigrant vibes. When talking to certain immigrants or tourists, you would kind of expect some of these "mistakes" because they are simplifications after all. It is indeed highly intelligible, but it might subject you to racist reactions or make you appear as unprofessional (compared to talking standard German).

warbond@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22d

Cool, thank you for that. Is the existence of this language a well-known thing?