German Dialects in the USA

[mvbeleg]

Dialect samples may be found at the link below.


German Dialects in the USA (http://csumc.wisc.edu/AmericanLanguages/german/germ_us.htm)

[Go to left side of page under States.]


For example:

Pennsylvania Deitsch Dialect
http://csumc.wisc.edu/AmericanLanguages/search.php?sect=nonamish&state=pa

[Stefan]

I found these videos, and I'm interested in what native German speakers think. I have absolutely no linguistic knowledge or fluency in the German language, but I am very interested in the state of PA Deitsch today.

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Can you understand what they're saying? How much English influence would you estimate there is in the language, if so? What is most exotic, the English words/diction or the grammar/syntax. What region/dialect of German would you intuitively relate it to (without cheating?) Any other comments? Thank you! I figured this post didn't need an entirely new thread since only a few people are probably qualified to answer anyway.

[Stefan]

I found a great article on this topic. I just thought I'd post it for those who are interested. Click the link to read the whole thing, I only quoted the first few paragraphs.

http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/PADutch.html


Norm Adam’s appearance and biography aren’t anything out of the ordinary. He is a native Pennsylvanian, having spent his whole life in Kutztown. He is typical—a white, American male, over the age of 50, living his whole life in a rural, but developed and relatively affluent area of the country. Then he opens his mouth. Though Norm Adam is a native English speaker, to the untrained ear, his accent and vocabulary are so foreign that he is hard to understand. Norm is a Pennsylvania Dutchman, or Pennsylvania German.

Despite his cultural and linguistic idiosyncrasies, Norm is not an anomaly in Berks County. German immigrants came to Pennsylvania in 1683 and settled in the appropriately-named “Germantown,” now a section of Philadelphia. As Pennsylvania grew, more Germans came to the colony and more them pushed further inland, settling in Berks and Lehigh counties in the 17th century. Many of their descendants, like Norm Adam and his family, still live there today. Over the past several decades, the usage and maintenance of the Pennsylvania German language among non-sectarians, people who are not Amish or Mennonite, has drastically dropped. But, as the population of secular, native Pennsylvania Dutch speakers ages, people like Norm are becoming rarities. The history of the Pennsylvania Germans is integral to the history of the state of Pennsylvania, and with the loss of their dialect comes a loss of part of the state’s history.

[Geminus]

I watched the first video and it's rather hard to understand what he's saying. I probably got the gist of it, but it's kinda difficult as they're speaking a mixture of German and English. From time to time you can hear a German word you know, but very often it's in a dialect and the language also seemed to have changed compared to Standard German.
I usually "switch" when hearing or talking English and "switch back" when I speak German again. But as both is mixed here it's not so easy ;)

[Libertas]

Where did German-Americans originate?

Bavaria, Prussia, Rhineland?

[Stefan]

Where did German-Americans originate?

Bavaria, Prussia, Rhineland?

Depends on the region of the U.S.

The majority of Germans who have come to the U.S are from Western Germany. The majority came from the Rhineland, Baden, Switzerland, Swabia, Alsace, etc.

The most prevalent dialects relate to Rhine Franconian.

In the western states, most German speakers speak a dialect called Hutterite German which is an Austro-Bavarian variety.

In Texas they speak standard high German it seems, but they seem to have ancestry from Eastern Germany, around Weimar.

[Stefan]

I found some excellent videos. From reading the comments, it seems to me as if Germans from Rhineland-Palatinate can understand it quite well, while others cannot. That is consistent with linguistic classification of the dialect, but it's nice to see verification in the comments.

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[Balmung]

Where did German-Americans originate?

Bavaria, Prussia, Rhineland?

All over.

It wasn't like Italy where practically all were from the south (until the gold rush in California where a decent portion came from the North). They came from all regions with heavy Southern concentration. Northern German surname practices can be found in the US just as the more Southern practices can.

Today? I have no idea, but i do know we have a shitload of German entrepreneurs over here.