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Mixed languages are stable languages stemming from at least two parental languages from which they inherit larger parts of their linguistic system, e.g. gram-matical structure from one parental language and lexicon from another parental language. Amish Shwitzer, spoken by a group of Old Order Amish in Adams County, Indiana (US), is such a mixed language: The lexicon is derived from Bernese Swiss German (the language spoken by the ancestors of this group of Amish) but the grammar from Pennsylvania Dutch (the language spoken by most other Old Order Amish). Mixed languages emerge under specific sociolinguistic circumstances, and they are markers of a distinct identity. In this article, we will contextualize Amish Shwitzer in the existing frameworks of mixed languages and their emergence. In particular, we will use known mechanisms of mixed language emergence in order to reconstruct how and why Amish Shwitzer emerged and became the way it is today. We will argue that Amish Shwitzer expresses a new (rather than an old) identity and a threefold separation, namely from the American majority society, from Non-Swiss Amish communities and from Non-Amish Swiss communities. The specific mixed structure of Amish Shwitzer emerged first as an L2 variety spoken by Non-Swiss Amish whose native language was Pennsylvania Dutch. This variety was nativized by their children and was adopted ultimately by the Adams County Swiss Amish com-munity as a whole.

Das Deutsche gilt gemeinhin als eine Sprache mit einem Vierkasussystem, wobei es allerdings eine ganze Reihe von formalen und funktionalen Überlappungen zwischen den einzelnen Kasus gibt. Die im Beitrag vorgestellte diachrone Analyse zeigt, dass es im Kasussystem neben Abbautendenzen auch bemerkenswerte Stabilität gibt, namentlich die scharfe Trennung zwischen einem zentralen (Nominativ/Akkusativ) und einem peripheren (Genitiv/Dativ) Bereich. In Bezug auf den peripheren Bereich fällt die komplementäre Distribution von Genitiv vs. Dativ (als strukturell regierte Kasus) auf. Ich mache den Vorschlag, dass die beiden letztgenannten Kasus im heutigen Deutschen in eine allomorphische Beziehung getreten sind und dieses somit nur über ein Dreikasussystem verfügt. In kolloquialen Varietäten ist diese Allomorphie wieder beseitigt, indem das traditionell als Genitiv bezeichnete Allomorph geschwunden ist. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist das eigentlich Erklärungsbedürftige der Erhalt des Genitivs in der Standardvarietät, der aber als stilistischer Marker eine neue Funktion erhält.

Language is a potential source of predictors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs), as changes in speech characteristics, communication habits, and word choice may be indicative of increased suicide risk. We reviewed the current literature on STBs that investigated linguistic features of spoken and written language. Specifically, we performed a search in linguistic, medical, engineering, and general databases for studies that investigated linguistic features as potential predictors of STBs published in peer-reviewed journals until the end of November 2021.We included 75 studies that investigated 279,032 individuals with STBs (age = 29.53 ± 10.29, 35% females). Of those, 34 (45%) focused on lexicon, 20 (27%) on prosody, 15 (20%) on lexicon and first-person singular, four (5%) on (morpho)syntax, and two (3%) were unspecified. Suicidal thoughts were predicted by more intensifiers and superlatives, while suicidal behaviors were predicted by greater usage of pronouns, changes in the amount of verb usage, more prepend and multifunctional words, more nouns and prepositions, and fewer modifiers and numerals. A diverse field of research currently investigates linguistic predictors of STBs, and more focus is needed on their specificity for either suicidal thoughts or behaviors.

As is well-known, the Alps are a zone of long-standing, intensive contact and multilingualism among Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages and varieties. In this introductory paper, some reflections are presented on the viability of the Sprachbund hypothesis to encompass the occurring phenomena of convergence observed throughout the whole area.