Bachelor 2016, Sefa Pala
“Ischwöre lan, wallah! Maaschallah, sehr schön, sehr schön! Krass lan! Iftara haben wir noch fünf Stunden. Hadi Tschüss!”
Pala describes his work as follows: “My first day in Berlin came with a few surprises. A friend picked me up from the airport and said that we had to start by getting something to eat. Friends back in Turkey had recommended that I try out Berlin’s famous currywurst and pair it with a cold beer. I was surprised to find myself instead sitting in a Turkish restaurant eating the same meal that I had eaten in Izmir the day before: pide with minced meat and ayran! Plus, everyone around me was speaking Turkish! Or at least something like it, interspersed with German words: “Zwei Ayran getir! Abi Speisekarte lazim mi? Afiyet olsun, Tschüss!”
I’ve heard this sociolect in the subway, on the bus, on the street, and in my neighborhood countless times since. My journey into “Deukisch” started on my very first day in Berlin. My book, Deukisch, follows the development of the language spoken by Germans of Turkish descent through to the present day, spanning the German spoken by Gastarbeiter around the mid-20th century, Kanak Sprak, and Kiezdeutsch.”