When I hear the Bernese dialect – especially with an Emmental accent – I remember my youth. My brother and I spent the school holidays at my grandfather’s farm in Biglen, in the Emmental, until we were sixteen. It was a happy, carefree time that I remember fondly. We learned a lot for life there; not least also working. My grandfather didn’t have a tractor; and also, no horse like its neighbor. But cows that were cocked in front of the plow or in front of the hay wagon. (They then only gave half as much milk as when they were in the stable or in the pasture!)

I still remember how we switched from Basel to Bernese dialect when we changed train in Burgdorf. There we were picked up by our two cousins ​​at the train station in Biglen. And not infrequently – especially when we were in puberty – there was already the first brawl there. (Did we fight for girls’ favor at that time?)

During the day we stood in the field, mowing grass, planting potatoes or harvesting the grain. In the evening we brought the milk to the cheese dairy in Kleinroth and drove back with the cheese milk, which we fed to the pigs with rotten potatoes. In the evening we sat at the table with the grandfather in the farmer’s parlor, where we learned to play cards with him. Not to the delight of the grandmother who was a Sunday school teacher! For her, playing cards was the devil …

PS. Why now, in Mexico, these memories? Well, Ursula and Markus from Konolfingen, in the Emmental, are also at home at Charly’s place. When I hear them speaking Bernese dialect, pictures from that time appear automatically.