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Pennsylvania Dutch (, or ), referred to as Pennsylvania German in scholarly literature, is a
variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
of Palatine German, also known as Palatine Dutch, spoken by the
Old Order Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsace, Alsatian origins. They are close ...
,
Old Order Mennonites Old Order Mennonites (Pennsylvania German: ) form a branch of the Mennonite tradition. Old Order are those Mennonite groups of Swiss German and south German heritage who practice a lifestyle without some elements of modern technology, who still d ...
, Fancy Dutch, and other descendants of
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
immigrants in the United States and Canada. There are possibly more than 300,000 native speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in the United States and Canada. It has traditionally been the dialect of the
Pennsylvania Dutch The Pennsylvania Dutch ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ), also known as Pennsylvania Germans, are a cultural group formed by German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. They emigrated primarily from German-spe ...
, descendants of late 17th- and early to late 18th-century immigrants to
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...
,
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
,
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...
, and
North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
primarily from
Southern Germany Southern Germany () is a region of Germany which has no exact boundary, but is generally taken to include the areas in which Upper German dialects are spoken, historically the stem duchies of Bavaria and Swabia or, in a modern context, Bavaria ...
and, less so, from the eastern
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
regions of
Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...
and
Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gra ...
, and parts of
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. Although the term Pennsylvania Dutch is often taken to refer to the
Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churc ...
and related Old Order groups, it does not imply a connection to any particular religious group. The word Dutch does not refer to the
Dutch language Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. '' Afrikaans'' ...
or
people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
, but is derived from the
endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
''Deitsch''. Ultimately, the terms Deitsch, Dutch,
Diets The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their ...
and Deutsch are all descendants of the
Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic br ...
word , meaning "popular" or "of the people". The continued use of the term was strengthened by the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 19th century as a way of distinguishing themselves from later (post-1830) waves of German immigrants to the United States, with the Pennsylvania Dutch referring to themselves as ''Deitsche'' and to the new settlers as ''Deitschlenner'' (literally "Germany-ers'") whom they saw as a related but distinct group. Speakers of the dialect today are primarily found in Pennsylvania,
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
,
Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...
, and other Midwestern states of the United States, and in
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
in Canada. Historically, the dialect was also spoken in several other regions where its use has largely or entirely faded. The practice of Pennsylvania Dutch as a street language in urban areas of Pennsylvania, such as
Allentown Allentown may refer to several places in the United States and topics related to them: *Allentown, California, now called Toadtown, California *Allentown, Georgia, a town in Wilkinson County *Allentown, Illinois, an unincorporated community in Taze ...
,
Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...
, Lancaster, and
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
, was declining by the arrival of the 20th century, but in more rural areas it continued in widespread use until
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Since that time, its use has greatly declined. It is best preserved in the Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities, and presently the members of both groups make up the majority of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers.


European origins

The ancestors of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers came from various parts of the southwest corner of the German-speaking region of Europe, mainly the Palatinate, but also including the
Electoral Palatinate The Electoral Palatinate (german: Kurpfalz) or the Palatinate (), officially the Electorate of the Palatinate (), was a state that was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The electorate had its origins under the rulership of the Counts Palatine of ...
(german: link=no, Kurpfalz), the
Duchy of Baden A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a medieval country, territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or queen in Western European tradition. There once existed an important difference between ...
, Hesse,
Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a ...
,
Swabia Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
,
Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...
, Alsace (German ),
German Lorraine The region of German Lorraine (german: Deutsch-Lothringen or ''Deutschlothringen'') was the German-speaking part of Lorraine, now in France, that existed for centuries until into the 20th century. The name is also used more specifically in to re ...
, and
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. Most of them spoke
Rhine Franconian __NOTOC__ Rhenish Franconian or Rhine Franconian (german: Rheinfränkisch ) is a dialect chain of West Central German. It comprises the varieties of German spoken across the western regions of the states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, nor ...
, especially Palatine German (Palatinate German) and to a lesser degree Alemannic dialects, and it is believed that in the first generations after the settlers arrived, the dialects merged. The result of that
dialect levelling Dialect levelling or leveling (in American English) is the process of an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of features between two or more dialects. Typically, this comes about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain ...
was a dialect very close to the eastern dialects of Palatine German, especially the rural dialects around
Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...
/
Ludwigshafen Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning " Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it ...
. Pennsylvania Dutch is mainly derived from Palatine German, spoken by 2,400,000 Germans in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region (a region almost identical to the historical Palatinate). There are many similarities between the German dialect that is still spoken in this small part of southwestern Germany and Pennsylvania Dutch. When individuals from the Palatinate ''(Pfalz)'' region of Germany today encounter Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, conversation is often possible to a limited degree.


Comparison with Standard German

Pennsylvania Dutch for the most part does not reflect the diverse origins of the early speakers from regions along the upper
Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , source ...
River (
Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...
,
Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...
,
Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...
, Saarland,
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
and the Elsass/
Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...
) but almost exclusively the strong immigrant group from the Palatine. Pennsylvania Dutch is not a corrupted form of
Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (not to be confused with High German dialects, more precisely Upper German dialects) (german: Standardhochdeutsch, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the standardized variety ...
, since Standard German originally developed as a written standard based on the various spoken
German dialects German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant s ...
in a very long process that started in the time of classical
Middle High German Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...
(1170–1250). Pennsylvania Dutch instead reflects the independent development of Palatine German, especially from the region that is called in German. Several vowels and consonants in Pennsylvania Dutch represent older forms of the German language ("p" instead of "pf" or "v" instead of "b"), since Pennsylvania Dutch is largely derived from Palatinate German, which did not undergo the
High German consonant shift In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development ( sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases. It probabl ...
to the same extent that Standard German did. They appear as shifts only if Standard German is erroneously seen as the basis from which Pennsylvania Dutch evolved. The correspondences between Standard German and Pennsylvania Dutch occur with a fair degree of regularity. The American English influence is most significant on vocabulary and to a much lesser degree on pronunciation; the English influence on grammar is relatively small. The question of whether the large loss of the
dative case In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...
— the most significant difference compared with Palatine German – is due to English influence or reflects an inner development is disputed.


Grammar

As in Standard German, Pennsylvania Dutch uses three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Pennsylvania Dutch has three cases for
personal pronouns Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
: the
accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
,
nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...
, and
dative In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...
, and two cases for nouns: the common case, with both accusative and nominative functions, and the dative case. There is no genitive case in Pennsylvania Dutch. The historical genitive case has been replaced by the dative, and possession is indicated with a special construction using the dative and the possessive pronoun: 'the man's dog' becomes (literally: 'to the man his dog'). Studies have shown variability in the use of the dative case in both sectarian and non-sectarian communities. The trend is towards use of the common case for nouns and the accusative case for pronouns, instead of the dative. Thus, , for example, has frequently become . The dative case in Pennsylvania German is used to express possession, to mark objects of
prepositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
, to mark indirect objects, and to indicate the direct objects of certain verbs. It is expressed, as in Standard German, through the use of dative forms of personal pronouns and through certain
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
s of articles and adjectives modifying nouns. In non-sectarian speech in central Pennsylvania, the dative is widely used among the older generations who are fluent in Pennsylvania German, whereas younger semi-speakers tend not to use the dative as much. Many semi-speakers used the
English possessive In English, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns and most pronouns, as well as some noun phrases. These can play the roles of determiners (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns. For nouns, noun ...
''-'s''. In contrast, Anabaptists in central Pennsylvania had almost completely replaced the dative with the accusative case. Meanwhile, members of the entirely Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking community in
Kalona Kalona is a city in Washington County, Iowa. It is part of the Iowa City metropolitan area. The population was 2,630 at the time of the 2020 census. Kalona is the second-largest city in Washington County. History Amish settlement in what is now ...
, all of whom were Amish or Mennonite, showed strong age-related variation. Speakers under the age of 40 never used the dative, while older speakers showed strongly variable behavior. There was little difference between members of the different religious denominations in the Kalona. Many verbs of English origin are used in Pennsylvania Dutch. Most English-origin verbs are treated as German weak verbs, receiving a
past participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
with a prefix and a suffix, thus for example the past participle of 'change' is usually . Verbs with unstressed first syllables generally do not take the prefix, so the past participle of 'adopt' is ''adopted'', as in English. This follows the pattern of words with inseparable prefixes in German. However, English-origin verbs which are stressed on the first syllable may also appear without the prefix. Thus, 'realize' is conjugated simply as ''realized'', and 'farm' may be conjugated as ''farmed'' or . Some German-origin verbs may also appear without the prefix. 'talk, speak', may be conjugated as or simply as . Both English influence and overall simplification may be at work in the dropping of the prefix. Pennsylvania Dutch, like Standard German, has many
separable verb A separable verb is a verb that is composed of a lexical core and a separable particle. In some sentence positions, the core verb and the particle appear in one word, whilst in others the core verb and the particle are separated. The particle cann ...
s composed of a root verb and a prefix. Some of these in Standard German are completely semantically transparent, such as 'to go with', from 'with' and 'go'. Others, like which means 'to inform' and not the sharing of concrete entities, are not semantically transparent. That is, their meaning is not the sum of their parts. Separable verbs are used widely in Pennsylvania Dutch, and separable verbs can even be formed with English roots and prefixes. Virtually all separable verbs in Pennsylvania Dutch are semantically transparent. Many semantically opaque separable verbs such as , meaning, 'to move house', has been replaced by the English word ''move''. Adjectival endings exist but appear simplified compared to Standard German. As in all other South German dialects, the past tense is generally expressed using the perfect: ('I have run into the field') and not the simple past ( I ran into the field', which is retained only in the verb "to be", as or , corresponding to English ''was'' and ''were''. The
subjunctive mood The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
is extant only as ( is totally lost) in a limited number of verbs. In all other verbs it is expressed through the form of of the verbs 'to do' () and 'to have' (''/'') combined with the
infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...
or the
past participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
, e.g., ('I would eat'), ('I would have eaten'). Several Pennsylvania Dutch grammars have been published over the years. Two examples are ''A Simple Grammar of Pennsylvania Dutch'' by J. William Frey and ''A Pennsylvania German Reader and Grammar'' by Earl C. Haag.


Pronunciation

The tables below ''appear'' to use IPA symbols to compare sounds used in Standard German (to the left) with sounds found to be their Pennsylvania Dutch equivalent. These sound correspondences do not mean that Pennsylvania Dutch pronunciation is derived from standard German pronunciation.


Vowels


Consonants

In
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Lancaster County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Lengeschder Kaundi), sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the south central part of Pennsylvania ...
, there have been numerous other shifts that can make their Pennsylvania Dutch particularly difficult for modern High German speakers to understand. A word beginning in generally becomes , which is more easily pronounced, and so German > > and German > > . Likewise, German > > /tʃaɪt/. German > > /tʃɹɪk/. The shift is rather common with German children learning to speak. The softened after guttural consonants has mixed with the guttural of earlier generations and also turned into an American and so German > > and German > > /tʃɹɪnt/. The changes in pronunciation, combined with the general disappearance of declensions as described above, result in a form of the dialect that has evolved somewhat from its early Pennsylvania origins nearly 300 years ago and is still rather easy to understand by German dialect speakers of the Rhineland-Palatinate area.


Interaction with English

The people from southern Germany, eastern France and Switzerland, where the Pennsylvania Dutch culture and dialect sprung, started to arrive in North America in the late 17th and the early 18th centuries, before the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. To a more limited extent, that is also true of a second wave of immigration in the mid-19th century, which came from the same regions, but settled more frequently in Ohio, Indiana, and other parts of the Midwest. Thus, an entire industrial vocabulary relating to electricity, machinery and modern farming implements has naturally been borrowed from the English. For Pennsylvania Dutch speakers who work in a modern trade or in an industrial environment, this could potentially increase the challenge of maintaining their mother tongue. Numerous English words have been borrowed and adapted for use in Pennsylvania Dutch since the first generations of Pennsylvania German habitation of southeastern Pennsylvania. Examples of English loan words that are relatively common are ( 'I bet you can speak Pennsylvania Dutch'), ( 'it depends somewhat on who you are'); for 'chap' or 'guy'; and for 'to jump'. Today, many speakers will use Pennsylvania Dutch words for the smaller numerals and English for larger and more complicated numbers, like $27,599. Conversely, although many among the earlier generations of Pennsylvania Dutch could speak English, they were known for speaking it with a strong and distinctive accent. Such
Pennsylvania Dutch English Pennsylvania Dutch English is a dialect of English that has been influenced by the Pennsylvania Dutch language. It is largely spoken in South Central Pennsylvania, both by people who are monolingual (in English) and bilingual (in Pennsylvania Ge ...
can still sometimes be heard. Although the more-recently coined term is being used in the context of this and related articles to describe this Pennsylvania Dutch-influenced English, it has traditionally been referred to as "Dutchy" or "Dutchified" English. Some features of Pennsylvania Dutch have diffused through Pennsylvania Dutch English to influence the general spoken English of eastern and central Pennsylvania. One notable example is a nonstandard handling of senses normally expressed with a present participle. In standard English, one would say "That needs fixing," but regional speakers who are not themselves Pennsylvania Dutch may produce a German-like "That needs fixed."


Written language

Pennsylvania Dutch has primarily been a spoken dialect throughout its history, with very few of its speakers making much of an attempt to read or write it. Writing in Pennsylvania Dutch can be a difficult task, and there is no spelling standard for the dialect. There are currently two primary competing models upon which numerous orthographic (i.e., spelling) systems have been based by individuals who attempt to write in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect. One 'school' tends to follow the rules of American English orthography, the other the rules of Standard German orthography (developed by Preston Barba and Buffington). The choice of writing system is not meant to imply any difference in pronunciation. For comparison, a translation into Pennsylvania Dutch, using two spelling systems, of the
Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
, as found in the common traditional language English translation, is presented below. The text in the second column illustrates a system based on American English orthography. The text in the third column uses, on the other hand, a system based on Standard German. The English original is found in the first column, and a
Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (not to be confused with High German dialects, more precisely Upper German dialects) (german: Standardhochdeutsch, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the standardized variety ...
version appears in the fifth column. (Note: The German version(s) of the Lord's Prayer most likely to have been used by Pennsylvania Germans would have been derived in most cases from Martin Luther's translation of the New Testament.)


Publications

Since 1997, the Pennsylvania Dutch newspaper ''
Hiwwe wie Driwwe , which means "Hither like thither" (compare german: Hüben wie Drüben), is the title of the only existing Pennsylvania German-language newspaper. Publication Since 1997, the publication is distributed twice a year. More than 100 Pennsylvani ...
'' allows dialect authors (of whom there are still about 100) to publish Pennsylvania Dutch poetry and prose. ''Hiwwe wie Driwwe'' was founded by Michael Werner. It is published twice a year (2,400 copies per issue)—since 2013 in cooperation with the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at
Kutztown University Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (Kutztown University or KU) is a public university in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) and is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher ...
. Since 2002, the newspaper is published both online and in print. In 2006, the German publishing house Edition Tintenfaß started to print books in Pennsylvania Dutch. In 2014, Jehovah's Witnesses began to publish literature in Pennsylvania Dutch.


Survival

Pennsylvania Dutch, which is now in its fourth century on North American soil, had more than 250,000 speakers in 2012. It has shifted its center to the West with approximately 160,000 speakers in
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
,
Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...
,
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
,
Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...
and other Midwest states. There is even a small but growing number of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers in Upper Barton Creek and Springfield in Belize among Old Order Mennonites of the Noah Hoover group. The dialect is used vigorously by the
horse and buggy ] A horse and buggy (in American English) or horse and carriage (in British English and American English) refers to a light, simple, two-person carriage of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn usually by one or sometimes by two ...
Old Order Mennonites in the northern part of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Speakers without an
Anabaptist Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek : 're-' and 'baptism', german: Täufer, earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. ...
background in general do not pass the dialect to their children today, but the
Old Order Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsace, Alsatian origins. They are close ...
and horse-and-buggy
Old Order Mennonites Old Order Mennonites (Pennsylvania German: ) form a branch of the Mennonite tradition. Old Order are those Mennonite groups of Swiss German and south German heritage who practice a lifestyle without some elements of modern technology, who still d ...
do so in the current generation, and there are no signs that the practice will end in the future. There are only two car driving Anabaptist groups who have preserved the dialect: The
Old Beachy Amish The Old Beachy Amish or Old Beachy Amish Mennonites, also called Midwest Beachy Amish Mennonites, are a Plain, car-driving Beachy Amish group, that preserves the old ways of the Beachy Amish including the German language. They live in Kentucky and ...
and the
Kauffman Amish Mennonite The Kauffman Amish Mennonites, also called Sleeping Preacher Churches or Tampico Amish Mennonite Churches, are a plain, car-driving branch of the Amish Mennonites whose tradition goes back to John D. Kauffman (1847-1913) who preached while being ...
s, also called Sleeping Preacher Churches. Even though Amish and Old Order Mennonites were originally a minority group within the Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking population, today they form the vast majority. According to sociologist John A. Hostetler, less than 10 percent of the original Pennsylvania Dutch population was Amish or Mennonite. As of 1989, non-sectarian, or non-Amish and non-Mennonite, native Pennsylvania-Dutch speaking parents have generally spoken to their children exclusively in English. The reasons they cited were preventing their children from developing a "Dutch" accent and preparing them for school. Older speakers generally did not see a reason for young people to speak it. Many of their children learned the language from hearing their parents using it and from interactions with the generation older than their parents. Among the first natively English speaking generation, oldest siblings typically speak Pennsylvania Dutch better than younger ones. There have been efforts to advance the use of the dialect.
Kutztown University Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (Kutztown University or KU) is a public university in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) and is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher ...
offers a complete minor program in Pennsylvania German Studies. The program includes two full semesters of the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect. In the 2007–2008 school year, the classes were being taught by Professor Edward Quinter. In 2008–2009, Professor Robert Lusch served as the instructor. According to one scholar, "today, almost all Amish are functionally bilingual in Pennsylvania Dutch and English; however, domains of usage are sharply separated. Pennsylvania Dutch dominates in most in-group settings, such as the dinner table and preaching in church services. In contrast, English is used for most reading and writing. English is also the medium of instruction in schools and is used in business transactions and often, out of politeness, in situations involving interactions with non-Amish. Finally, the Amish read prayers and sing in Standard, or High, German () at church services. The distinctive use of three different languages serves as a powerful conveyor of Amish identity." Although "the English language is being used in more and more situations," nonetheless Pennsylvania Dutch is "one of a handful of minority languages in the United States that is neither endangered nor supported by continual arrivals of immigrants." Because it is an isolated dialect and almost all native speakers are bilingual in English, the biggest threat to the dialect is gradual decay of the traditional vocabulary, which is then replaced by English loan words or words corrupted from English.


Speaker population

In the United States, most Old Order Amish and all "horse and buggy" Old Order Mennonite groups speak Pennsylvania Dutch, except the Old Order Mennonites of Virginia, where German was already mostly replaced at the end of the 19th century. There are several Old Order Amish communities (especially in Indiana) where
Bernese German Bernese German (Standard German: ''Berndeutsch'', gsw, Bärndütsch) is the dialect of High Alemannic German spoken in the Swiss plateau (Mittelland) part of the canton of Bern and in some neighbouring regions. A form of Bernese German is spoke ...
, a form of Swiss German and Low Alemannic Alsatian, not Pennsylvania Dutch, are spoken. Additionally, English has mostly replaced Pennsylvania Dutch among the car driving Old Order
Horning Horning is an ancient village and parish in the English county of Norfolk. It covers an area of 11 km2 and had a population of 1,033 in the 2001 census. Horning parish lies on the northern bank of the River Bure south of the River Thurne ...
and the Wisler Mennonites. Other religious groups among whose members the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have once been predominant, include:
Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...
and German Reformed congregations of Pennsylvania Dutch background, Schwenkfelders, and Schwarzenau (German Baptist) Brethren. Until fairly recent times, the speaking of Pennsylvania Dutch had absolutely no religious connotations. In Ontario, Canada, the Old Order Amish, the members of the Ontario Old Order Mennonite Conference, the David Martin Old Order Mennonites, the Orthodox Mennonites and smaller pockets of others (regardless of religious affiliation) speak Pennsylvania Dutch. The members of the car driving Old Order
Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference The Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference (MWMC) is a Canadian, progressive Old Order Mennonite church established in 1939 in Ontario, Canada. It has its roots in the Old Order Mennonite Conference in Markham, Ontario, and in what is now called th ...
have mostly switched to English. In 2017, there were about 10,000 speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in Canada, far fewer than in the United States. There are also attempts being made in a few communities to teach the dialect in a classroom setting; however, as every year passes by, fewer and fewer in those particular communities speak the dialect. There is still a weekly radio program in the dialect whose audience is made up mostly of the diverse groups, and many Lutheran and Reformed congregations in Pennsylvania that formerly used German have a yearly service in Pennsylvania Dutch. Other non-native speakers of the dialect include those persons that regularly do business with native speakers. Among them, the Old Order Amish population was probably around 227,000 in 2008. Additionally, the Old Order Mennonite population, a sizable percentage of which is Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking, numbers several tens of thousands. There are also thousands of other Mennonites who speak the dialect, as well as thousands more older Pennsylvania Dutch speakers of non-Amish and non-Mennonite background. The Grundsau Lodge, which is an organization in southeastern Pennsylvania of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, is said to have 6,000 members. Therefore, a fair estimate of the speaker population in 2008 might be close to 300,000, although many, including some academic publications, may report much lower numbers, uninformed of those diverse speaker groups. There are no formal statistics on the size of the Amish population, and most who speak Pennsylvania Dutch on the Canadian and U.S. censuses would report that they speak German, since it is the closest option available. Pennsylvania Dutch was reported under ethnicity in the 2000 census. There are also some Pennsylvania Dutch speakers who belong to traditional Anabaptist groups in Latin America. Even though most Mennonite communities in Belize speak Plautdietsch, some few hundreds who came to Belize mostly around 1970 and who belong to the
Noah Hoover Mennonite The Noah Hoover Mennonites, called "Old Order Mennonite Church (Hoover)" by the Mennonite World Conference, and sometimes called " Scottsville Mennonites”, are a group of very plain Old Order Mennonites that originally came from the Stauffer Men ...
s speak Pennsylvania Dutch. There are also some recent
New Order Amish The New Order Amish are a subgroup of Amish that split away from the Old Order Amish in the 1960s for a variety of reasons, which included a desire for "clean" youth courting standards, meaning they do not condone the practice of bundling, or no ...
immigrants in
Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
,
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
, and
Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...
who speak Pennsylvania Dutch while the great majority of conservative Mennionites in those countries speak Plautdietsch.


Examples

In
Mario Pei Mario Andrew Pei (February 16, 1901March 2, 1978) was an Italian-born American linguist and polyglot who wrote a number of popular books known for their accessibility to readers without a professional background in linguistics. His book ''The St ...
's book ''Language'', a popular poem in the dialect (with significant English influence in the form of loanwords) is printed; the free-translation is, in the main, by J. Cooper. Following the links, there are two examples of spoken Pennsylvania Dutch: ('the mother tongue') and ('Are you born as a Christian?'). More example of spoken Pennsylvania Dutch can be found at the page "American Languages – our nation's many languages online" of the University of Wisconsin. An example of a Pennsylvania Dutch song is "" ('My father and mother are German'), here sung by John Schmid.''Mei Vadder un Mudder sinn Deitsch''
at youtube.com.


In popular culture

''
The Office ''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries. The original ser ...
'' character
Dwight Schrute Dwight Kurt Schrute III () is a fictional character on '' The Office (U.S.)'' and is portrayed by American actor Rainn Wilson. Dwight's character was a salesman and the assistant to the regional manager, at the fictional paper distribution comp ...
and his family, including his cousin Mose, are known to be Pennsylvania Dutch. Nevertheless, in the series Dwight speaks High German rather than the Pennsylvania dialect. ''
Orange is the New Black ''Orange Is the New Black'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''OITNB'') is an American comedy-drama streaming television series created by Jenji Kohan for Netflix. The series is based on Piper Kerman's memoir '' Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a ...
'' character Leanne Taylor and family are featured speaking Pennsylvania Dutch in flashbacks showing her Amish background before ending up in prison. Science-fiction writer
Michael Flynn Michael Thomas Flynn (born December 24, 1958) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general and conspiracy theorist who was the 24th U.S. National Security Advisor for the first 22 days of the Trump administration. He resigned in light of ...
wrote the novella ''
The Forest of Time "The Forest of Time" is an alternate history novella by American writer Michael Flynn (writer), Michael Flynn. It was originally published in the June 1987 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, ''Analog'' magazine. In 1988, the story was nomin ...
'', depicting an
alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alte ...
in which the United States was never established, but each of the
Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centu ...
went its own way as an independent nation. In that history, Pennsylvania adopted the Pennsylvania Dutch language as its national language and developed into a German-speaking nation, with its own specific culture, very distinct from both its English speaking neighbors and European Germany.


Pennsylvania German authors and translators

* Preston Barba * C. Richard Beam * John Birmelin * David B. Brunner * Solomon DeLong * Moses Dissinger * Richard Druckenbrod *
H. L. Fischer H. L. Fischer (1822 – November 5, 1909) (Henry Lee Fischer) was a Pennsylvania German language writer and translator. He was born in what was called the Dutch Settlement in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, United States in 1822, and died in 19 ...
* Arthur D. Graeff * Ezra Light Grumbine * Lee Light Grumbine * Earl C. Haag * Henry Harbaugh * Abraham R. Horne *
Harry Hess Reichard Harry Hess Reichard (August 27, 1878 – August 26, 1956) was a Pennsylvania German writer and scholar. Biography Reichard was born in Lower Saucon Township, Pennsylvania.Rosenberger, p. 248 In 1901, he graduated from Lafayette College in East ...
* Clarence G. Reitnauer * Emmanuel Rondthaler * G. Gilbert Snyder * Pierce E. Swope * William S. Troxell *
Louise Adeline Weitzel Louise Adeline Weitzel (December 2, 1862 – May 6, 1934) was an American writer of German descent. She was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Her family moved to Lititz, Pennsylvania while she was still young. Given the socio-cultural context in whi ...
* Dr. Michael Werner * Louis August Wollenweber * Astor C. Wuchter * Thomas C. Zimmerman


See also

* German-Pennsylvanian Association *
Pennsylvania Dutch Country The Pennsylvania Dutch Country ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Deitscherei'' Dutchery', also called Pennsylvania Dutchland ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Pennsylvania Deitschland'', german: Pennsylvania Deutschland), or simply the Dutch Country or Dutchland ( ...
*
Hutterite German Hutterite German (German: ''Hutterisch'') is an Upper German dialect of the Bavarian variety of the German language, which is spoken by Hutterite communities in Canada and the United States. Hutterite is also called Tirolean, but this is an ana ...
*
Languages in the United States The United States does not have an official language at the federal level, but the most commonly used language is English (specifically, American English), which is the de facto national language. It is also the language spoken at home by the g ...
*
Wisconsin German The term Wisconsin German refers to both Wisconsin High German and to heritage dialects of German spoken in Wisconsin. By 1853, a third of Wisconsin's population was coming from German-speaking lands; by the end of the 19th century, Wisconsin's l ...
* Texas German *
Kurrent () is an old form of German-language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing, also known as ("cursive script"), ("German script") and ''German cursive''. Over the history of its use into the first part of the 20th century, many ...
handwriting * ''
Assabe and Sabina ''Assabe and Sabina'' was a regionally popular Pennsylvania German dialect radio program that was broadcast from radio station WSAN in Allentown, Pennsylvania from 1944 until 1955. The show centered on the relationship between ''Der Assabe Mumbaue ...
'' * Jersey Dutch *
Hunsrik language Hunsrik (natively and Portuguese ''Hunsrik'' or ''Hunsrückisch''), also called ''Riograndenser Hunsrückisch'' or ''Katharinensisch'', is a Moselle Franconian language derived primarily from the Hunsrückisch dialect of West Central German. T ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* Keiser, Steven Hartman. ''Pennsylvania German in the American Midwest'' (Duke University Press, 2012), 197 pp
online review
* Richard Druckenbrod, ''Mir Schwetz Deitsch: A Guide for Learning the Skills of Reading, Writing and Speaking Pennsylvania German'' (1977) *Richard Druckenbrod, ''Mir Lanne Deitsch: A Guide for Learning the Skills of Reading, Writing and Speaking Pennsylvania German'' (1981, 1997) *
Otto Springer Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded ...

A Working Bibliography for the Study of the Pennsylvania German Language and Its Sources
digitized and hyperlinked by Richard Mammana 2017—


External links

Organizations
German Society of Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania German Society

Deutsch-Pennsylvanischer Arbeitskreis / German-Pennsylvanian Association
Pennsylvania German
Hiwwe wie Driwwe
– The Pennsylvania German Newspaper Further information
Recordings of native speakers






{{DEFAULTSORT:Pennsylvania Dutch language Central German languages German dialects Diaspora languages Fusional languages German-Canadian culture in Ontario German-American culture in Indiana German-American culture in Ohio German-American culture in Pennsylvania German-American history Amish in Canada Amish in the United States History of Pennsylvania Languages of Canada Christian liturgical languages