The American English language has been, and still is being, influenced by many different languages spoken by immigrants. One of those languages is German, which was brought to America in two major waves during the 17th and 19th centuries. Particularly in the Lancaster County area of Southeastern Pennsylvania, one dialect of German is commonly known as Pennsylvanian German or Pennsylvanian "Dutch".

This paper will examine the Pennsylvanian German dialect. Where did it come from? How is it used today? Can the dialect resist 'Americanization'? What are the differences and similarities between German, English, and Pennsylvanian German?

The Origin of Pennsylvanian German

Since the discovery of America many immigrants from all over the world have come to the new country in search of a better life. Among those immigrants were many Germans, who came to America in two major waves.

The first immigrants came to Pennsylvania in 1683. They originated from the Rhenish Palatinate (Marckwardt 59) and Switzerland (Huffines 259). By 1775 there were about 90,000 Germans in Pennsylvania (Marckwardt 59). Those immigrants developed a dialect which combined the American and the German languages, or more precisely, the German dialect they spoke in the Rhenish Palatinate. This Dialect is called Pennsylvanian German, or Pennsylvanian "Dutch". However, although it is a common belief, the word Dutch in Pennsylvanian Dutch does not refer to the people originating from the Netherlands. It means Deitsch, which in a German dialect means German. The immigrants speaking that dialect called themselves Deitsch, which Americans understood as being "Dutch".

The second wave of Germans came in 1830 and reached its peak in 1849 because of political changes in Germany at that time. The settlement was mainly urban, although many rural communities also sprang up (Marckwardt 59). Due to their gathering in large groups, where they could have German schools and churches, the Germans were able to maintain their own language and culture even if they lived in big cities like New York, Chicago, and Milwaukee.

One can divide Pennsylvanian Germans into two major groups, which Marion Lois Huffines defines in her article Fading Future for Ferhoodled English (Pennsylvania German) (259), as "the Plain and the Fancy." According to Huffines, the Plain groups include the numerous sects of the Amish and Mennonites who settled in southeastern Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, seeking religious freedom. The Fancy Pennsylvanian Germans include the mainstream Lutherans and members of the Reformed Church who also settled in Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War.

Pennsylvanian German Today

Pennsylvanian German today is spoken as a mother tongue by older people belonging to the Plain group. They learn English at schools in their own communities only to be able to communicate with outsiders. Otherwise, they speak German among themselves. In the future, this may change, as the communities are no longer as conservative as they used to be, and are slowly adapting to modern society. As Huffines observes (259), the increasing number of preschoolers who speak English indicates that English [rather than only German] is being used to some extent in the home.

In the Fancy group the number of Pennsylvanian German speakers is decreasing. Many of them, especially older people, can understand the dialect but are not able to speak it themselves. "In nonplain communities Pennsylvanian German is used to speak with certain elderly members of the family and neighbourhood and in an attempt to keep secrets from children and grandchildren" (Huffines 259). Reading this, one can see that young people do not learn Pennsylvanian German as a mother tongue but as a second language.

Can Pennsylvanian German Escape Americanization?

In the early days of the Pennsylvanian German communities it was easy to maintain the dialect and not be too influenced by English, as the communities were in a way isolated from the world, having their own religion and way of living. Being a large number people who shared that same culture, they were able to survive without interacting with outsiders. "Where large numbers of Pennsylvanian Germans banded together to the almost exclusion of other groups, traces of old-country language persisted in their English long past the three-generation period¹" (Dillard 82).

The phenomenon of maintaining the mother tongue by only adding a few Standard English words can often be seen when a community does not communicate much with outsiders. This may have geographical reasons, like on Tangier Island, as reported by the American Tongues Transcript, or in the Appalachian or Ozark Mountains (Hopkins). It may also result from religious reasons, as with the Amish people, who do not interact a lot with outsiders, which prevents an intermingling of people speaking different languages who would influence each other's language.

As noted in the previous section, nowadays even the Pennsylvanian German dialect is affected by Americanization. Many parents raise their children to speak English because it is the language of the school system. According to their parents, speaking Pennsylvanian German "ruin[s] their English" (Huffines 260). In the film American Tongues from the Center for New American Media, one woman said: "But why make fun of me because I sound Dutchified, you're dumb, just as soon as it's Dutchified or German, you're dumb" (American Tongues Transcript), which shows what outsiders think of the Pennsylvanian German dialect.

There are some more stories of Pennsylvanian Germans being teased in school because of their German accent. "One man related that a teacher literally washed out his mouth with lye soap because he spoke Pennsylvanian German at school" (Huffines 260). This negative attitude towards the dialect and the fear of parents that their children could be discriminated against because of their German-sounding English leads to an Americanization in the Pennsylvanian German counties.

Differences between Pennsylvanian German, English and German

Pennsylvanian German is a mixture of English and the German dialect spoken in the Southwest of Germany and in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. As a comparison is easiest with examples, two stanzas² of the poem Das alt Schulhaus an der Krick, by Dr. Heinrich Harbaugh, will be analyzed. As the poem is from 1861 (Geocities), it shows the original Pennsylvanian German dialect. Today the poem uses a lot more English words; it has only a few German words left and uses a different grammar.

Original: Heit iss 's 'xaektli zwansig Jaar, Dass ich bin owwe naus; Nau bin ich widder lewig z'rick Un schteh am Schulhaus an d'r Krick, Juscht neekscht an's Dady's Haus.

German Translation3: Heute ist es genau zwanzig Jahre (her), dass ich web bin; Jetzt bin ich wieder lebend zurück Und steh am Schulhaus an der Krick, Direkt neben Vaters Haus.

Wann's Dinner war, un Schul war aus, Nor'd hot mer gut gefielt; Dheel iss 'n Balle-Gehm gelunge, Dheel hen mitnanner Rehs g'schprunge, Un Dheel hen Sold'scher g'schpielt.

Wenn es Essen gab und die Schule aus war, 4 Einem Teil ist ein Ballspiel gelungen, Ein Teil ist miteinander wie ein Reh gesprungen, Und ein Teil hat Soldat gespielt.





Original: Heit iss 's 'xaektli zwansig Jaar, Dass ich bin owwe naus; Nau bin ich widder lewig z'rick Un schteh am Schulhaus an d'r Krick, Juscht neekscht an's Dady's Haus.

English Translation5: Today it is exactly twenty years, since I left; Now I am lively back again and stand at the school-house near the creek, Just next to daddy's house.

Wann's Dinner war, un Schul war aus, Nor'd hot mer gut gefielt; Dheel iss 'n Balle-Gehm gelunge, Dheel hen mitnanner Rehs g'schprunge, Un Dheel hen Sold'scher g'schpielt.

When it was dinner time and school was out, Some played a ball-game, Some jumped around together, And some played soldiers.

One can clearly see the mixture of the two languages, especially when knowing the dialect spoken in the Southwest of Germany.⁶

Structural Differences Between Pennsylvania German and English

One big difference between Pennsylvanian German and English is the sentence structure. Pennsylvanian Germans stuck to the German sentence structure. When translating the first line of the first stanza word by word, this would be: "Today is it exactly twenty years". Having an adverb of time at the beginning of the sentence, the German language changes the sentence structure from subject-verb-object to verb-subject-object. Although Pennsylvanian German tends to mix the "easy" parts of the English and the German language, this rather complicated grammatical rule has not been unlearned by the Pennsylvanian Germans.

Spelling and Pronunciation Distinctions

Spelling is a difficult aspect of the Pennsylvanian German dialect, as there are no standardized spelling rules. One can see in the poem that Pennsylvanian German is a phonetically written language. Every word is written like it is pronounced, in comparison to English, where the vowel shift made it impossible to guess how a word is written. The Pennsylvanian Germans chose to use English words but spelled them the way they were pronounced. Some examples in the text for this phenomenon are nau, meaning now, and 'xaektli, meaning exactly. In the dialect, the spelling of the word showed how an /a/, which can be pronounced in many different ways in the English language, is pronounced in each word by using /ae/ for [æ] like in 'xaektli and using /a/ for [a] like in father. They also wrote all the diphthongs phonetically, as one can see in the spelling of nau. The English /ow/, pronounced [aυ], is written with /au/, so that there is no confusion about how to pronounce the word.

The pronunciation is one aspect whereby all Pennsylvanian Germans are recognized as not being English native-speakers. They mix the voiced and unvoiced consonants. "The Germanism of confusing b,p; t,d; k,g is present in Pennsylvanian Dutch" (Haldeman 11)

Retention of German Capitalization of Nouns

Another feature of the German language which is maintained by the Pennsylvanian German is the capitalization of nouns. Examples of this can be seen clearly in the two stanzas above.

English Loan Words in Pennsylvanian German

There are several English words in the Pennsylvanian German. They only differ from the original English word in their spelling as they are phonetically written. In the poem words like juscht, neekscht, Dady Creek, Dinner, Balle-Gehm and Sold'scher originate from English, just to list a few. An interesting part is the slightly different pronunciation of the words. Instead of saying "just", Pennsylvanian Germans added a /sch/ to the word, making it sound more like the dialect they used to speak in Germany. The dialect in the Southwest of Germany tends to pronounce /s/ like a [∫] in some cases. This is maintained in the American dialect in Pennsylvania.

Mixtures of German and English Grammar

The grammar, too, is a mixture of German and English grammar. As mentioned above, the Pennsylvanian German kept the German sentence structure but took over the use of apostrophes in the genitive form of a word. In the first stanza of the poem the genitive form of Dady is written Dady's, as it would be in English even if the spelling would be Daddy's. In German the genitive form would only add an 's' to the word without using the apostrophe.

Nowadays, the dialect is adjusting more and more to Standard English, there are no longer as many differences. In the following paragraphs some of the main differences will be listed.

The adverb once is usually at the end of the sentence in commands: (Huffines 262)

Not wait once.
Show it to her once!

The present tense is used for activities begun in the past and continuing in the present: (Huffines 262)

I live there for quite a few years.
We're five years here.

Using the present tense for such sentences is a German grammar rule which has been maintained throughout the years.

In sentences that include the verbs to be and to have with a preposition, the preposition appears without any expressed object: (Huffines 262)

That had a little bit of meat on.
There's seeds in.

This, too, is common in German grammar.

The Future of Pennsylvanian German?

Pennsylvanian German is understandable for any German native speaker who knows English, even if there have been many changes in the dialect over the decades, which is obvious when one compares the poem which was written in 1861 to the examples listed above which were printed in a book in 2006. As the Pennsylvanian Germans are increasingly losing their Amish background because of globalization and the trend towards an Americanized society, the Pennsylvanian German dialect is losing its uniqueness. It is being mixed more with Standard English than in previous years.

The clear trend is that Pennsylvanian German will not be learned as a mother tongue as often in future as it was in the past; it will only be learned in school as a second language to be able to communicate with other, especially older, people of the local community. Nevertheless, the Pennsylvanian German dialect is unlikely to become extinct in the coming decades, as there are many institutions trying to preserve the language and the culture of Pennsylvanian German.

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Notes

1. Compare the classical immigrant paradigm in Dillard's All-American English

2. I chose the first and the twenty-first stanzas, as I think that these are good ones to compare to English and German. The whole poem can be found here (HTML).

3. I translated the poem on my own as I did not find a German translation on the internet. I also translated the poem into English, as I wanted to keep the translation as simple as possible to make a comparison easier. A better translation can be found here (PDF, 7.2 Mb!).

4. Unfortunately, I do not understand this line and chose to leave the translation out, so as not to translate it incorrectly. There is also no English translation of this stanza on the internet.

5. See Note 2.

6. Although it would be appropriate to translate the poem into the dialect spoken in the Southwest of Germany, I chose to translate it into Standard German, as there are no grammar and spelling rules for the dialect.

Works Cited

• Boyer, Paul S. Das alt Schulhaus an der Krick. 9 April 1998. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University. Viewed 14 October 2008.

• American Tongues Transcript. Center for New American Media, 1987. Viewed 14 October 2008.

• Dillard, J.L. All American English: A History of the English Language in America. New York: Random House Inc., 1975.

• Pennsylvania Dutch Dialect - History. Geocities. Viewed 14 October 2008.

• Haldeman, Samuel S. Pennsylvanian Dutch: A Dialect of South German with an Infusion of English. Philadelphia: Reformed Church Publication Board, 1872.

• Harbaugh, Heinrich. Harbaugh's Harfe, Gedichte in Pennsylvanisch-Deutscher Mundart. Ed. B. Bausman. Philadelpia: Reformed Church Publiation Board, 1870.

• Hopkins, John D. American Institutions Survey Map Information.. 9 September 2008. TRENPK8a FAST-US-2 American Institutions Survey, Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere, Finland.

• Huffines, Marion Lois. Fading Future for Ferhoodled English (Pennsylvanian German). American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast. Eds. Walt Wolfram and Ben Ward. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 258-63.

• Marckwardt, Albert H. American English. New York: Oxford UP, 1958.