PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH.
PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH:
A DIALECT OF SOUTH GERMAN WITH AN
INFUSION OF ENGLISH.
BY
S. S. HALDEMAN, A.M.
PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
PHILADELPHIA.
LONDON:
TRÜBNER & CO., 8 AND 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1872.
_All Rights reserved._
HERTFORD:
PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS.
NOTICE.
While I was engaged with the third part of my _Early English
Pronunciation_, Prof. Haldeman sent me a reprint of some humorous
letters by Rauch, entitled _Pennsylvanish Deitsh_. _De Campain Breefa
fum Pit Schwefflebrenner un de Bevvy, si alty, gepublished olly woch in
"Father Abraham."_ Perceiving at once the analogy between this debased
German with English intermixture, and Chaucer's debased Anglo-saxon with
Norman intermixture, I requested and obtained such further information
as enabled me to give an account of this singular modern reproduction of
the manner in which our English language itself was built up, and insert
it in the introduction to my chapter on Chaucer's pronunciation, _Early
English Pronunciation_, pp. 652-663. But I felt it would be a loss to
Philology if this curious living example of a mixture of languages were
dismissed with such a cursory notice, and I therefore requested Prof.
Haldeman, who by birth and residence, philological and phonetic
knowledge, was so well fitted for the task, to draw up a more extended
notice, as a paper to be read before the Philological Society of London.
Hence arose the following little treatise, of which I, for my own part,
can only regret the brevity. But the Philological Society, having
recently exhausted most of its resources by undertaking the publication
of several extra volumes, was unable to issue another of such length,
and hence the present Essay appears independently. Owing to his absence
from England and my own connexion with the paper, which I communicated
and read to the Philological Society, on 3 June, 1870, Prof. Haldeman
requested me to superintend the printing of his essay, and add anything
that might occur to me. This will account for a few footnotes signed
with my name. The Professor was fortunately able to examine one revise
himself, so that, though I am mainly responsible for the press work, I
hope that the errors may be very slight.
Sufficient importance does not seem to have been hitherto attached to
watching the growth and change of living languages. We have devoted our
philological energies to the study of dead tongues which we could not
pronounce, and have therefore been compelled to compare by letters
rather than by sounds, and which we know only in the form impressed upon
them by scholars of various times. The form in which they were
originally written is for ever concealed. The form in which they appear
in the earliest manuscripts has practically never been published, but
has to be painfully collected from a mass of various readings. The form
we know is a critical, conjectural form, patched up by men distinguished
for scholarship, but for the most part entirely ignorant of the laws
which govern the changes of speech. The very orthography is medieval. We
are thus enabled to see as little of the real genesis of language, in
form, in sound, in grammatical and logical construction, in short in the
real pith of philological investigation--the relation of thought to
speech-sounds--as the study of a full-grown salmon would enable us to
judge of the marvellous development of that beautiful fish. Such studies
as the present will, I hope, serve among others to stimulate exertion in
the new direction. We cannot learn life by studying fossils alone.
ALEX. J. ELLIS.
KENSINGTON,
23 APRIL, 1872.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER.
I. People, History, Location, Condition, pp. 1-6.
II. Phonology, pp. 7-16.
§ 1. Use of the Alphabet, p. 7.
§ 2. Vowels, p. 8.
§ 3. Dipthongs, p. 9.
§ 4. Nasal Vowels and Dipthongs, p. 10.
§ 5. Consonants, p. 11.
§ 6. Stein or Schtein? p. 12.
§ 7. Vowel changes, p. 13.
§ 8. Dipthong changes, p. 14.
§ 9. Words lengthened, p. 15.
§ 10. Words shortened, p. 15.
III. Vocabulary (of peculiar words), pp. 17-23.
IV. Gender, pp. 24-27.
§ 1. Gender of English Words in Pennsylvania German, p. 24.
§ 2. The German Genders, p. 26.
V. § 1. The English Infusion, p. 28.
§ 2. Newspapers, p. 29.
VI. Syntax, pp. 34-40.
VII. Comparisons with other Dialects, pp. 41-48.
§ 1. PG. not Swiss, p. 41. PG. Poem, p. 42.
§ 2. PG. not Bavarian. Specimen, with PG. translation,
p. 43.
§ 3. PG. not Suabian, p. 44. Curious colloquy, p. 44.
§ 4. PG. not Alsatian, p. 45. German-French example,
p. 46.
§ 5. PG. is akin to several South German Dialects, p.
46. Examples, p. 47.
VIII. Examples of PG., pp. 49-56.
§ 1. Wiider aa˛geschmiirt! (Prose), p. 49.
§ 2. Wii kummt ſ? (Prose), p. 52.
§ 3. Will widd'r Biiwǝli sei˛ (Verse), p. 55.
§ 4. Anglicised German (Prose), p. 56.
IX. English influenced by German, pp. 57-63.
§ 1. German words introduced, p. 57.
§ 2. Family names modified, p. 60.
X. Imperfect English, pp. 64-69.
§ 1. Broken English, p. 64.
§ 2. The Breitmann Ballads, p. 66.
PENNSYLVANISCH DEITSCH.
CHAPTER I.
PEOPLE--HISTORY--LOCATION--CONDITION.
The reciprocal influence of languages affords an interesting subject of
investigation, and it is the object of this essay to present an outline
of a dialect which has been formed within a century, and which continues
to be spoken, subject to the influences which developed it. Of such
languages, English, Wallachian, and Hindûstânî, are familiar examples.
Like other languages, the dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch
presents variations due to the limited intercourse of a widely-scattered
agricultural population, and to the several dialects brought from
abroad, chiefly from the region of the Upper Rhine, and the Neckar, the
latter furnishing the Suabian or Rhenish Bavarian element. The language
is therefore South German, as brought in by emigrants from Rhenish
Bavaria, Baden, Alsace (Alsatia), Würtemberg, German Swisserland, and
Darmstadt. There were also natives from other regions, with certain
French Neutrals deported from Nova Scotia to various parts of the United
States, including the county (Lancaster) where the materials for this
essay have been collected. These, and probably some families with French
names from Alsace, are indicated by a few proper names, like
_Roberdeau_, _Lebo_, _Deshong_ and _Shunk_ (both for _Dejean_), and an
occasional word like _júschtaménnt_ (in German spelling), the French
_justement_, but which a native might take for a condensation of
_just-an-dem-ende_.
Welsh names like _Jenkins_, _Evans_, _Owen_, _Foulke_, _Griffith_,
_Morgan_, and _Jones_ occur, with the township names of _Brecknock_,
_Caernarvon_, _Lampeter_, _Leacock_ ('Lea' as _lay_), and in the next
county of Chester--_Gwinedd_ and _Tredyffrin_; but there seems to have
been no fusion between Welsh and German, probably because the Welsh may
have spoken English. Local names like _Hanōver_, _Heidelberg_ and
_Manheim_, indicate whence some of the early residents came.
The French-American _ville_ appears in German Pennsylvania, in
_Bechtelville_, _Engelsville_, _Greshville_, _Lederachsville_,
_Scherksville_, _Schwenksville_, _Silberlingsville_, _Wernersville_,
_Zieglerville_; paralleled by the English _town_ in _Kutztown_,
_Mertztown_, _Schäfferstown_, _Straustown_; _burg_ in _Ickesburg_,
_Landisburg_, _Rehrersburg_; and the German _dorf_ has a representative
in _Womelsdorf_.
Pennsylvania German does not occur in the counties along the northern
border of the state, but it has extended into Maryland, Western
Virginia, Ohio, and farther west; and it has some representatives in
western New York, and even in Canada. In many of the cities of the
United States, such as Pittsburg, Chica’go, Cincinnăt’ĭ, and
Saint Louis, recent large accessions from Germany have brought in true
German, and to such an extent that the German population of the city of
New York is said to exceed that of every European city except Berlin and
Vienna. The newer teutonic population differs from the older in living
to a great extent in the towns, where they are consumers of beer and
tobacco--luxuries to which the older stock and their descendants were
and are but little addicted. The numerous allusions to the 'Fatherland'
to be met with, belong to the foreign Germans--the natives caring no
more for Germany than for other parts of Europe, for they are completely
naturalised, notwithstanding their language.
Several thousand Germans had entered Pennsylvania before the year 1689,
when a steady stream of emigration set in, and it is stated that their
number was 100,000 in 1742, and 280,000 in 1763. They occupied a region
which has located the Pennsylvania dialect chiefly to the south-east of
the Alleghenies, excluding several counties near Philadelphia.
Germantown, six miles from Philadelphia, although settled by Germans,
seems to have lost its German character. The language under the name of
'Pennsylvania Dutch' is used by a large part of the country population,
and may be constantly heard in the county towns of Easton on the
Delaware, Reading (i.e. red-ing) on the Schuylkill, Allentown on the
Lehigh, Harrisburg (the State capital) on the Susquehanna, Lebanon,
Lancaster, and York.
A fair proportion of the emigrants, including the clergy, were educated,
and education has never been neglected among them. The excellent female
boarding school of the Moravians were well supported, not only by the
people of the interior, but also by the English-speaking population of
the large cities, and of the Southern States--a support which prevented
the German accent of some of the teachers from being imitated by the
native teutonic pupils--for the education was in English, although
German and French were taught. Booksellers find it to their advantage to
advertise the current German and English literature in the numerous
German journals of the interior, and there is a _Deutsch-Amerikanisches
Conversations Lexicon_ in course of publication, which gives the
following statistics of one of the German counties.
"The German element is strongly and properly represented in
Allentown, and in Lehigh county generally, where the German
language has retained its greatest purity, and so strong is this
element, that in the city itself there are but few persons who
speak English exclusively. An evidence of this is found in the fact
that in seventy of the eighty Christian congregations in the
county, some of which are over one hundred years old, Divine
service is conducted in the German language. Allentown has seven
German churches: (two Lutheran, one Reformed, two Methodist, one
United Brethren, and one Catholic); and nine German journals, of
which are published weekly--_Der Unabhängige_[1] _Republikaner_
(fifty-nine years old), _Der Friedensbote_ (fifty-seven years old),
_Der Lecha County Patriot_ (forty-three years old), _Der Weltbote_
(fifteen years old, with 12,000 subscribers), and _Die Lutherische
Zeitschrift_. The _Stadt-und Land-Bote_ is a daily, the
_Jugendfreund_ semi-monthly, with twenty thousand subscribers; and
Pastor Brobst's _Theologische Monatshefte_ is monthly. Since the
beginning of the year 1869, the German language has been taught in
the public schools."[2] The Reading _Adler_ is in its
seventy-fourth, and the Lancaster _Volksfreund_ in its sixty-second
year.--Dec. 1869.
The convenient quarto German almanacs (with a printed page of about
five and a half by seven and a half inches in size), were preferred to
the duodecimo English almanacs, even among the non-Germans, until the
appearance of English almanacs in the German format about the year 1825.
The early settlers were extensive purchasers and occupiers of land, and
being thus widely scattered, and having but few good roads, the
uniformity of the language is greater than might have been supposed
possible. These people seldom became merchants and lawyers, and in the
list of attorneys admitted in Lancaster County, commencing with the year
1729, the names are English until 1769, when _Hubley_ and _Weitzel_
appear. From 1793 to 1804, of fifty-two names, three are German; from
1825 to 1835, twenty-four names give _Reigart_ and _Long_ (the latter
anglicised). After 1860 the proportion is greater, for among the nine
attorneys admitted in 1866, we find the German names of _Urich_, _Loop_,
_Kauffman_, _Reinoehl_, _Seltzer_, and _Miller_. At the first school I
attended as a child, there were but three English family names, and in
the playground, English and German games were practised, such as
'blumsak' (G. plumpsack), 'Prisoner's base,' and 'Hink'l-wai[3] was
graabscht du do?' which was never played with the colloquy translated.
Pennsylvania Dutch (so called because Germans call themselves
_Deutsch_[4]) is known as a dialect which has been corrupted or
enriched by English words and idioms under a pure or modified
pronunciation, and spoken by natives, some of them knowing no other
language, but most of them speaking or understanding English. Many
speak both languages vernacularly, with the pure sounds of each, as in
distinguishing German _tōd_ (death) from English _toad_; or English
_winter_ from German _winter_, with a different _w_, a lengthened _n_,
a flat _t_, and a trilled _r_--four distinctions which are natural
to my own speech. Children, even when very young, may speak English
entirely with their parents, and German with their grandparents, and
of two house-painters (father and son) the father always speaks German
and the son English, whether speaking together, or with others. The
males of a family being more abroad than the females, learn English
more readily, and while the father, mother, daughters, and servants
may speak German, father and son may speak English together naturally,
and not with a view to have two languages, as in Russia. Foreign
Germans who go into the interior usually fall into the local dialect
in about a year, and one remarked that he did so that he might not
be misunderstood. Some of these, after a residence of fifteen or
twenty years, speak scarcely a sentence of English, and an itinerant
piano-tuner, whose business has during many years taken him over the
country, says that he has not found a knowledge of English necessary.
The English who preceded the Germans in Pennsylvania brought their names
of objects with them, calling a thrush with a red breast a _robin_;
naming a bird not akin to any thrush a _blackbird_; and assigning to a
yellow bird the name of _goldfinch_, but adopting a few aboriginal names
like _racoon_, _hackee_ and _possum_. The Germans did this to some
extent, for _blackbird_ saying 'schtaar' (G. _staar_,[5] starling,) for
the _goldfinch_ (oriole) 'goldamschl,' for the _thrush_ (G. _drossel_)
'druschl,' for a _woodpecker_ 'specht' (the German name), and for a crow
'krap.'
The _ground-squirrel_ is named 'fensǝmeissli' (fence-mouselin, _fence_
being English); a large grey squirrel is called 'eech-haas' (for
_eich-hase_, oak-hare); and in Austria a squirrel is akatzel and
achkatzel (oak-kitten). The burrowing marmot (Arctomys monax), known
as ground-hog, is called 'grun'daks' (from a fancied analogy with the
German _dachs_ or badger) and in York County 'grundsau,' a translation
of the English name. The English _patridge_ (partridge, Dutch patrijs)
is Germanised into 'pattǝreesǝli'--also called 'feld-hinkli' (little
field-chicken),--hinkl being universally used for _chicken_ or
_chickens_.
The usual perversions by otōsis occur, as in the city of Baltimore,
where foreign Germans say 'Ablass' for _Annapolis_ and 'Kälber Strasze'
(Street of Calves) for Calvert Street--but the citizens themselves have
replaced the vowel of _what_ with that of _fat_, in the first syllable
of this name; and the people of New York now pronounce 'Beekman Street'
with the syllable _beak_ instead of _bake_ according to the earlier
practice.
A German botanist gave 'Gandoge' as the locality of an American plant; a
package sent by express to 'Sevaber' (an English name), and a letter
posted to the town of 'Scur E Quss, Nu Yourck,' arrived safely; and I
have seen a handboard directing the traveller to the English-named town
of 'Bintgrof.' As these present no special difficulty, they are not
explained.
English _rickets_ for 'rachîtis' is a familiar example of otōsis, and
it appears in the following names of drugs furnished by a native
druggist who speaks both languages, and who was able to determine the
whole from the original prescriptions.
Allaways, Barrickgerrick, Sider in de ment, Essig of Iseck, Hirim
Packer, Cinment, Cienpepper, Sension, Saintcun, Opien, High cyrap, Seno
and mano miset, Sking, Coroces suplement, Red presepeite, Ammeline,
Lockwouth, Absom's salts, Mick nisey, Corgel, Chebubs, By crematarter
potash, Balderyon, Lower beans, Cots Shyneel.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Un-ab-häng-ig, un-off-hang-ing, in-de-pend-ent, Polish
nie-za-wis-ty.
[2] Allentown has just completed one of the finest public
school buildings in Eastern Pennsylvania.--_Newspaper, February, 1870._
[3] As if 'hühn-kel weihe' _chicken hawk_, 'wai' rhyming with
_boy_.
[4] In an article on (the) "Pennsylvania Dutch" in the
'Atlantic Monthly' (Boston, Mass., Oct., 1869, p. 473), it is asserted
that "the tongue which these people speak is not German, nor do they
expect you to call it so." On the contrary, the language is strictly a
German dialect, as these pages prove. The mistake has arisen from the
popular confusion between the terms _Dutch_ and _German_, which are
synonymous with many. In Albany (New York) they speak of the _Double
Dutch Church_, which seems to have been formed by the fusion of a
'German Reformed' with a 'Dutch Reformed' congregation. These are
different denominations, now greatly anglicised. In 1867 the Rev. J. C.
Dutcher was a Dutch Reformed pastor in New York.
[5] Words in single quotations are Pennsylvania German. The
system of spelling is described in the next chapter. High German words
are commonly in italics, or marked G.