Documentation of the folk poetry of the ethnic Germans in Hungary: The possible use of a book of nursery rhymes written in a dialect in the teaching of German language and folklore

Abstract

The study focuses on the collection of German nursery rhymes in Hungary, the editing of nursery rhyme books, and the teaching of German nursery rhymes in primary schools. The authors review the most important stages in the collection of German folk poetry in the 19^th century, and then take stock of the Hungarian German folktale collections of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, with a special focus on those that include texts in a German dialect. The paper summarises the conditions for the successful collection of German dialect texts and the criteria for compiling a book of nursery rhymes. The second part of the paper discusses the role of nursery rhymes in German dialect in the educational process. It discusses the fields of competence to which German dialect nursery rhymes relate. Illustrated with e example of a nursery rhyme in dialect, it sets out concrete methodological steps that teachers of German can follow to successfully teach such rhymes to their pupils.