Asterix has been translated into over 100 languages and dialects worldwide, including numerous regional German varieties. In 2021, a new addition joined the “Mundart” (dialect) collection: Asterix d’r Jallier, a translation of Asterix the Gaul into Öcher Platt, the local dialect of Aachen. This edition was translated by Markus Krings and published by Egmont Comic Collection.
On the cover of this edition, a red sticker reads:
“Uus et Jotdütsch övversatzt va d’r Markus Krings”,
which translates to: “Translated from Jotdütsch by Markus Krings.”
As of April 2025, there is no known published version of any Asterix album in Jotdütsch (also spelled Jotdeutsch or Jüdischdeutsch). The well-documented fan project asterix-obelix.nl, does not list Jotdütsch among the many languages and dialects into which Asterix has been officially or unofficially translated.
Am I missing something? Is there a Jotdütsch Asterix album that has never been published? If you know the answer, please let me know.
The answer
The word “Jotdütsch” should be read as Öcher Platt (Aachen dialect), where the “j” sound replaces the standard German hard “g,” so “Jot” becomes “Gut” (good), and “Jotdütsch” means “Gutdeutsch” or “Hochdeutsch” (Standard German). This softening of the “g” sound is common across several Rhineland dialects, including Kölsch (Cologne dialect), where you also hear phrases like “Allet weed jot” meaning “Alles wird gut” (“Everything will be fine”). These dialects share many similarities in pronunciation and vocabulary while retaining their own local flavor.
Judeo-German
In standard German Jotdütsch (also known as Jüdischdeutsch, Judendeutsch, or Judeo-German) is a historical sociolect of German used by Ashkenazi Jews in Central Europe from the medieval period up through the early modern era. It served as a transitional linguistic stage between early Middle High German dialects and Yiddish, and is best understood as a Jewish ethnolect of German that incorporated Hebrew-Aramaic vocabulary and elements of Jewish culture into a Germanic linguistic framework.
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