Alman is a simplified dialect of German designed to reduce the complexity of the language while maintaining mutual intelligibility with Standard German. 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 makes Alman easier to learn while remaining fully comprehensible to Standard German speakers.

Goals

The main goal of this project is to enshrine and formalize a German dialect that is as easy to learn as English or Spanish, and to eventually get it recognized by the German state.

We are developing under the following constraints:

  • Maintain full mutual intelligibility with Standard German
  • Preserve the essential character of German syntax
  • Systematically simplify grammar without loss of expressiveness

Language of this website

The specification and related documentation are primarily written in English, because the target audience is non-native speakers of German. German and Alman versions of the specification are currently under development.

The Alman specification is open source and can be edited on GitHub.