Pennsylvania Dutch language: Difference between revisions

Variety of West Central German

Pennsylvania Dutch (Deitsch, Pennsilfaanisch-Deitsch ⁱ or Pennsilfaanisch), sometimes referred to as Pennsylvania German,^[a] is a variety of Palatine German, also known as Palatinate German or Palatine Dutch,^[3] spoken by the Pennsylvania Dutch, including the Old Order Amish, Old Order Mennonites, Fancy Dutch, and other descendants of German immigrants in the United States and Canada. There are approximately 300,000 native speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in the United States and Canada.

The language traditionally has been spoken by the Pennsylvania Dutch, who are descendants of late 17th- and early to late 18th-century immigrants to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina who arrived primarily from Southern Germany and, to a lesser degree, from eastern French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, and parts of Switzerland. Although the term Pennsylvania Dutch is often taken to refer to the Amish 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 or people; it is derived from the endonym Deitsch.^[4][5][6][7] The terms Deitsch, Dutch, Diets, and Deutsch are all descendants of the Proto-Germanic word *þiudiskaz, which translates in English as “popular” or “of the people”.^[8] The continued use of the term was strengthened by the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 19th century as a means to distinguish themselves from German immigrants who arrived in the United States after 1830. The Pennsylvania Dutch refer to themselves as Deitsche and to the later German settlers as Deitschlenner (literally “Germany-ers'”) who they saw as a related but distinct group of Germans.^[9]

Speakers of the dialect today are primarily found in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and other Midwestern states of the United States, and in Ontario in Canada. The dialect historically was also spoken in other regions where its use has largely or entirely faded. The practice of Pennsylvania Dutch as a street language in urban areas of Pennsylvania, including Allentown, Reading, Lancaster, and York, was declining by the beginning of the 20th century. But in more rural Pennsylvania areas, it continued in widespread use until World War II. Since that time, its use in Pennsylvania rural areas 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[edit]

The ancestors of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers came from various parts of the southwestern regions of German-speaking Europe, including Palatinate, Electoral Palatinate (German: Kurpfalz), the Duchy of Baden, Hesse, Saxony, Swabia, Württemberg, Alsace (German Elsass), German Lorraine, and Switzerland. Most of the people in these areas spoke Rhine Franconian, especially Palatine German and, to a lesser degree, Alemannic dialects; it is believed that in the first generations after the settlers arrived, the dialects merged.^{[citation needed]} The result of that dialect levelling was a dialect very close to the eastern dialects of Palatine German, especially the rural dialects around Mannheim/Ludwigshafen.

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.^[10] There are 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[edit]

Pennsylvania Dutch for the most part does not reflect the diverse origins of the early speakers from regions along the upper Rhine River (Rhineland, Württemberg, Baden, Saarland, Switzerland and the Elsass/Alsace) but almost exclusively the strong immigrant group from the Palatine.^[11]

Pennsylvania Dutch is not a corrupted form of Standard German, since Standard German originally developed as a written standard based on the various spoken German dialects in a very long process that started in the time of classical Middle High German (1170–1250). Pennsylvania Dutch instead reflects the independent development of Palatine German, especially from the region that is called Vorderpfalz in German.^[11]

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 to the same extent that Standard German did. The correspondences between Standard German and Pennsylvania Dutch…