of the High German . Declension is rather different: The genitive case does not exist at all and is entirely replaced by constructs with the dative case. In most instances, words are not altered when in the dative case. Exceptions are mostly pronouns. The same holds for the accusative case. It is accepted practice to use the nominative case instead of the accusative. Diphthongs are less common than in Standard German. This is because the Standard German diphthongs ei and au are each the result of a merger of two Middle High German vowels – however, these mergers did not take place in the Saarland, and only one of the two merged vowels is pronounced as a diphthong. The front rounded vowels ö, ü, and eu are replaced by e, i, and ei respectively. Both the Rhine Franconian and Moselle Franconian dialects (and Luxemburgish) have merged the palatal fricative sound as in with the post-alveolar fricative as in 'fresh', causing High German minimal pairs such as 'church' and 'cherry' to be pronounced in the same way. French has had a considerable influence on the vocabulary, although the pronunciation of imported French words is usually quite different from their originals. Popular examples include (from ), (from ), and the imperative or greeting (from ). The English sentence "My house is green" is pronounced almost the same in the Rhine Franconian variant: . The main difference lies in the pronunciation of the sound. Regional beer brewer Karlsberg has taken advantage of the Saarlandish dialect to create clever advertising for its staple product, UrPils. Examples include a trio of men enjoying a beer, flanked by baby carriages, the slogan reading (meaning "Mum's at work" in Saarlandish, but plays on the High German word 'motherhood'); another depicts a trio of men at a bar, with one realizing his beer has been drunk by one of the others, the slogan reading (meaning "It was no one" [] in Saarlandish, but playing on the High German word 'connoisseur', translating to "It was a connoisseur"); a third shows an empty beer crate in outer space, the text reading (meaning "empty" in Saarlandish, but playing on the same High German word meaning "outer space"). French The French language has a special standing in Saarland due to its geographical proximity to France. Today, a large part of the population is able to speak French, and it is compulsory at