Münster’s Sociolect Masematte – from Secret Language to Common Language?

Münster’s sociolect Masematte is a Rotwelsch dialect that was spoken in four districts of the city until the end of World War II. Over a long period of time Masematte was considered almost forgotten but in the recent past it has become more and more present in Münster’s linguistic landscape, as shown in the first analysis of this paper. It becomes evident that Masematte is nearly exclusively used for marketing purposes. As a second step, we analyze which functions Masematte has or aims to have as a PR strategy. The basis for this analysis is data from semi-structured interviews with representatives of selected enterprises that use Masematte in their marketing. It becomes apparent that Masematte is particularly used to express local identity and evoke such among the target group. At the same time, Masematte obviously also serves as a kind of unique selling point of the enterprises.