Pennsylvania German (Dutch) Language
The German immigrants migrating to the American colonies (1683—1808) brought a very distinctive mother language with them, and that language had an important impact on the culture of southeastern Pennsylvania and the other areas where it was spoken, in Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Virginia, and Canada.
Although sometimes referred to as a dialect by both native speakers and scholars, it is more properly recognized as a language that traces its origins from the regions of early German emigration, including the Rhenish Palatinate, Baden-Wurttemberg, Alsace, Lorraine, Hessen, Silesia, and the Saarland. The original German settlers in Pennsylvania did not all speak the same dialect or language, but in the course of time these various dialectal differences passed through a leveling and blending process, developing into a fairly homogeneous language referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania German. Speakers refer to their language as Pennsylfaanisch Deitsch, although most scholars use the term Pennsylvania German in referring to both the language and the people who speak it. There are certain regional variations in spoken Pennsylvania German, but the language is sufficiently homogeneous so that speakers from all areas are easily understood by each other. Twenty-first-century speakers of Pennsylvania German can go to the Pfalz region of southwest Germany and communicate fairly easily with people who know the indigenous, regional dialects of German there; however, speakers of Pennsylvania German have difficulty communicating with speakers of high or standard German.English has had a significant impact on the dialect, and many English words have become “dutchified.” In many cases the German settler borrowed the English term and subjected it to the phonetic patterns of the native word and in the process “dutchi- fied” the word: for example, the English word constable became Kunschdaaler, sheriff became Schrief.
Frequently, a speech compromise was made in the form of a hybrid compound; that is, the word was formed with an English stem plus a German stem, or vice versa—Schmokhaus for smokehouse, Bisnessleit for businesspeople. Many English words were directly incorporated into the dialect, and the percentage of English loan words varies according to the speaker, but the percentage increased in the last half of the twentieth century.Pennsylvania German was not a written language. Pennsylvania Germans used high or standard German as their literary language in the early nineteenth century and English by the early twentieth century. In the middle of the nineteenth century, at the same time that English was replacing standard German as the main literary language for most Pennsylvania Germans, a literature developed in Pennsylvania German. This literature usually included nostalgic or earthy stories. The literature developed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, broadened to include
plays, and in 2005 can still be found in some columns of regional newspapers. There is still no agreement upon orthography for writing in Pennsylvania German. Intellectuals have generally favored a standardized system based on high or standard German—the Buffington-Barba system— but many Pennsylvania German writers do not know standard German and use a variety of anglicized spelling systems.
In the nineteenth century the dialect had three major influences: English, high German, and the native mother language (or dialect). In the twentieth century there were two major influences: the Muddersch- prooch and contemporary English. There has been constant pressure on Pennsylvania German language use throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This pressure became especially intense as the result of school policies that encouraged the use of English in the nineteenth century and two wars with Germany in the twentieth century.
Nevertheless, the Pennsylvania German language is still in use in the early twenty-first century and is quite frequently the daily language used by the sectarian groups such as the Old Order Mennonites and Amish. There is considerable loss in its use by other “church” Pennsylvania Germans (Lutherans and German Reformed— now United Church of Christ), who constitute more than 90 percent of all Pennsylvania Germans (Donner 2003). Among these nonsectarian church groups, it is very rare for someone born after World War II to be fluent in the language, although there is still some ability among the people born before 1940. These older “church” speakers have initiated many educational programs to maintain the language and have developed special activities and events, such as the Grundsow (groundhog) lodges and Fersommlings (gatherings), where Pennsylvania German is spoken.David L. Valuska and William W Donner,
See also Amish; Kansas, German Dialects in;
Pennsylvania; Texas, German Dialect
References and Further Reading
Buffington, Albert, and Preston Barba. A
Pennsylvania German Grammar. Pennsylvania German Folklore Society 27. Allentown: Schlecter’s, 1965.
Donner, William W (Bill). “Research Note: Pennsylvania German Demographics.” The Pennsylvania German Review, Fall 2003, 41-51.
Haag, Earl C., ed. A Pennsylvania German Anthology. Susquehanna: University/ Associated University, 1988.
------. A Pennsylvania German Reader and Grammar. State College, PA: Keystone- Penn State Press, 2002.
Louden, Mark. “The Development of Pennsylvania German Linguistics within the Context of General Dialectology and Linguistic Theory.” In A Word Atlas of Pennsylvania German. Eds. Lester Seifert, Mark Louden, Howard Martin, and Joe Salmons. Madison, WI: Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, 2001, pp. 7-52.
Stine, Eugene S. Pennsylvania German Dictionary. Birdsboro: Pennsylvania German Society, 1994.
Valuska, David L., and William W Donner. “The Past and Future of the Pennsylvania German Language: Many Ways of Speaking German; Many Ways of Being American.” In Globalization and the Future of the German Language. Eds. Andreas Gardt and Bernd Huppauf. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004, pp. 229-242.