Armin Wiebe's Wiebe Site

The Gutenthal Galaxy Speaks

The language of my Gutenthal novels contains a mild additive I refer to as Flat German. This is an actual language spoken mostly by people of Russian Mennonite descent in places such as southern Manitoba, Mexico, Paraguay and Russia.

I tried to capture the rhythms of the Flat German language through the use of non-standard sentence patterns and careful insertions of Flat German words or literal  English translations of Flat German expressions. That is why you will encounter strange words in my Gutenthal novels.

Don't let this scare you though. The strange words provide texture but are not essential for following the story and most of the time the context should give you the meaning..

If you use English phonics skills your pronunciation should be pretty near cracked or funny.

The Second Coming of Yeeat Shpanst contains "An Illiterate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gutenthal Galaxy"-- a glossary covering my three Gutentahl novels. This book also contains "Gutenthal Family Bushes"--characters' family trees and the meanings of their nicknames.

Here are three pages of sound bites to give you a chance to hear sounds of Flat German. The sound files are mp3 files which should work with the plug-ins on most browsers.

|Gutenthal Speaks Page One  |Gutenthal Speaks Page Two|Armin's Main Page |