Bavarian is mostly spoken in the Upper Palatinate, although not in Regensburg, which is a primarily Central Bavarian–speaking area, according to a linguistic survey done in the late 1980s.
[4] According to the same linguistic survey,[1] the dialect is flourishing in the areas where it is spoken, despite the fact that most speakers actively use Standard German.
Compare Standard German Brief [briːf], Bruder [ˈbruːdɐ], Brüder [ˈbryːdɐ] and Northern Bavarian [ˈb̥rei̯v̥], [ˈb̥rou̯d̥ɐ], [ˈb̥rei̯d̥ɐ].
Compare Standard German Schaf [ʃaːf], Stroh [ʃtroː] and Northern Bavarian [ʒ̊ɔu̯v̥], [ʒ̊d̥rɔu̯].
Compare Standard German Schnee [ʃneː], böse [ˈbøːzə] with Northern Bavarian [ʒ̊n̥ɛi̯], [b̥ɛi̯z̥].
Another example is Butter, which is feminine in Standard German, but it can be all three genders in Northern Bavarian depending on your location and local variation of the dialect.
[8] As in Standard German there are four cases in Northern Bavarian: nominative, accusative, genitive and dative.
Weak neuter nouns have almost been lost, with only strong remaining, and therefore inflection for case is basically nonexistent.
Compare with the Standard German hoch, höher and höchsten, in English high, higher and highest.
At the time of a linguistic survey carried out in the late 1980s,[1] pronouns also existed for unstressed first person plural accusative and unstressed second person plural accusative, [iz] and [iç], respectively, but they have probably fallen out of usage today.
The third ending is used with verbs having a certain stem-final consonant, such as [z̥iŋɐ], Standard German singen, English to sing.
Only one verb with a distinct simple past tense form remains, [z̥ai̯], Standard German sein, English to be, with the simple past tense form [βoə̯], Standard German war, English was.
The verbs [hɔm] and [z̥ai̯], Standard German haben and sein, English to have and to be, can be seen conjugated in the scheme below in the present, as they are irregular.
The subjunctive of verbs is formed with the suffix -[ɐd̥], as in [βisn̩] > [βisɐd̥], Standard German wissen > wüßte, English to know > I would know.
However, the number of weak verbs with morphophonological variations is high, especially change in vowel length is common.
[1] ɪç bɪn ɪn ʒdoːᵈl ɡɔŋə, ᶷn do βoən daːm drɪnə, ᶷn dao ɪz uəm və də mlʲ aː ɪz uəm troi̯t aːvɡʒit kβeːzd... Ich bin in den Stadel gegangen, und da waren Tauben drinnen, und da ist oben von der Mühle auch ist oben Getreide aufgeschüttet gewesen...