81-852: The Pennsylvania Dutch Country ( Pennsylvania Dutch : Pennsylvanie Deitschland ), or Pennsylvania Dutchland , is a region of German Pennsylvania spanning the Delaware Valley and South Central and Northeastern regions of Pennsylvania . By the American Revolution in the 18th century, the region had a high percentage of Pennsylvania Dutch inhabitants. Religiously, they were predominantly Lutherans but also included German Reformed , Moravian , Amish , Mennonite , Schwarzenau Brethren , and other German Christian denominations. Catholics settled around early Jesuit missions in Conewago near Hanover and Goshenhoppen, now known as Bally . The term
162-461: 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. Since Pennsylvania Dutch is largely derived from Palatine German, which did not fully undergo
243-631: 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 and the Wisler Mennonites. Other religious groups among whose members the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have once been predominant, include: Lutheran and German Reformed congregations of Pennsylvania Dutch background, Schwenkfelders , and Schwarzenau (German Baptist) Brethren . Until fairly recent times,
324-625: A lesser degree, the regions of Alsace and Lorraine in eastern France , and parts of Switzerland . Differing explanations exist on why the Pennsylvania Dutch are referred to as Dutch , which typically refers to the inhabitants of the Netherlands or the Dutch language , only distantly related to Pennsylvania German. Speakers of the dialect today are primarily found in Pennsylvania, Ohio , Indiana , and other Midwestern states , as well as parts of
405-511: 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
486-431: A related but distinct group. Many Dutchlanders are descendants of Palatine refugees . The German-speaking settlers came from a variety of countries and religious backgrounds, but most became assimilated to Anglo-American language and culture beginning in the second half of the 19th century with English-language evangelism efforts and the outlawing of German-language schooling. The assimilation process continued soon after
567-813: A root verb and a prefix. Some of these in Standard German are completely semantically transparent, such as mit-gehen 'to go with', from mit- 'with' and gehen 'go'. Others, like mit-teilen lit. ' with-share ' 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 um-ziehe lit. ' pull around ' , meaning, 'to move house', has been replaced by
648-513: A scholarly way. The advent of the industrial revolution brought technologies based on coal, iron, canals, and railroads, but the Dutch, unversed in English, and lacking connections to the English-speaking establishment, were unable to engage in entrepreneurship on a large scale. Consequently, the large-scale enterprises which came to characterize the industrialized eastern half of the region, such as
729-536: 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
810-447: 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
891-589: A way of distinguishing themselves from later (post-1830) waves of German-speaking immigrants to the United States. The Pennsylvania Dutch came to refer to themselves as Deitsche , and called immigrants of German-speaking countries and territories in Europe Deitschlenner , (literally "Dutchlanders", compare German : Deutschländer ), which translates to "European Germans", whom they saw as a distinct group. These European Germans immigrated to Pennsylvania Dutch cities, where many came to prominence in matters of
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#1732854808795972-557: 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
1053-560: 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. 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
1134-448: Is conjugated simply as realized , and 'farm' may be conjugated as farmed or ge-farm-t . Some German-origin verbs may also appear without the ge- prefix. Schwetze 'talk, speak', may be conjugated as geschwetzt or simply as schwetzt . Both English influence and overall simplification may be at work in the dropping of the ge- prefix. Pennsylvania Dutch, like Standard German, has many separable verbs composed of
1215-425: Is disputed. As in Standard German, Pennsylvania Dutch uses three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Pennsylvania Dutch has three cases for personal pronouns : the accusative , nominative , and dative , 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
1296-489: Is heavily Democratic, having given Joe Biden over 70% of its vote in 2020. However, the rest of the county is overwhelmingly Republican. Under Pennsylvania law, there are four types of incorporated municipalities: cities , boroughs , townships , and, in most cases, towns . The following boroughs and townships are located in Union County: Census-designated places are geographical areas designated by
1377-595: Is identified as part of the "Midlands" by Colin Woodard in his book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America . As of the census of 2000, there were 41,624 people, 13,178 households, and 9,211 families residing in the county. The population density was 131 people per square mile (51 people/km ). There were 14,684 housing units at an average density of 46 units per square mile (18/km ). The racial makeup of
1458-558: 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 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
1539-424: Is more easily pronounced, and so German gesund > gsund > tsund and German gesagt > gsaat > tsaat . Likewise, German gescheid > gscheid > tscheid /tʃaɪt/ . German zurück > zrick > tsrick /tʃɹɪk/ . The shift is rather common with German children learning to speak. The softened ⟨w⟩ after guttural consonants has mixed with
1620-681: 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 , Indiana , Wisconsin , Iowa 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
1701-562: Is often possible to a limited degree. 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. Pennsylvania Dutch is not a corrupted form of Standard German , since Standard German originally developed as
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#17328548087951782-584: 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 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
1863-585: Is still rather easy to understand by German dialect speakers of the Rhineland-Palatinate area. 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 . To a more limited extent, that is also true of
1944-580: Is used vigorously by the horse and buggy Old Order Mennonites in the northern part of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Speakers without an Anabaptist background in general do not pass the dialect to their children today, but the Old Order Amish and horse-and-buggy Old Order Mennonites do so in the current generation, and there are no signs that the practice will end in
2025-676: Is water. It is the fourth-smallest county in Pennsylvania by area. Union has a humid continental climate ( Dfa / Dfb ) and average temperatures in Lewisburg range from 27.2 °F in January to 72.7 °F in July, while in Hartleton they range from 26.4 °F in January to 72.1 °F in July. Union County is one of the 423 counties served by the Appalachian Regional Commission , and it
2106-577: The 2010 census the micropolitan area ranked 12th most populous in the State of Pennsylvania and the 263rd most populous in the United States with a population of 44,947. Union County is also a part of the Bloomsburg–Berwick–Sunbury, PA Combined Statistical Area (CSA) , which combines the populations of Union County, as well as Columbia , Montour , Northumberland and Snyder Counties in Pennsylvania. The Combined Statistical Area ranked 8th in
2187-596: The American Civil War , the federal government replaced Pennsylvania German schools with English-only schools. Literary German disappeared from Pennsylvania Dutch life little by little, starting with schools, and then to churches and newspapers. With the decline of German instruction, Pennsylvania High German became a dead language . Since 1997, the Pennsylvania Dutch newspaper Hiwwe wie Driwwe allows dialect authors (of whom there are still about 100) to publish Pennsylvania Dutch poetry and prose. Hiwwe wie Driwwe
2268-502: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania . As of the 2020 census , the population was 42,681. Its county seat is Lewisburg . The county was created on March 22, 1813, from part of Northumberland County . Its name is an allusion to the federal Union. Mifflinburg was established by legislation as the first county seat until it was moved to New Berlin in 1815. Lewisburg became county seat in 1855 and has remained so since. Union County comprises
2349-590: The High German consonant shift , several vowels and consonants in Pennsylvania Dutch differ when compared with Standard German or Upper German dialects such as Alemannic and Bavarian. 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 —the most significant difference compared with Palatine German—is due to English influence or reflects an inner development
2430-659: The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (marketer of the coal branded "Old Company's Lehigh"), the Lehigh Valley Railroad , and the Bethlehem Iron Company (later known as Bethlehem Steel) were founded by English speaking residents from the Philadelphia and New York areas. The English-speakers (referred to by the Dutch as simply "the English") dominated the managerial and engineering positions of these companies, and
2511-658: The Noah Hoover Mennonites speak Pennsylvania Dutch. There are also some recent New Order Amish immigrants in Bolivia , Argentina , and Belize who speak Pennsylvania Dutch while the great majority of conservative Mennionites in those countries speak Plautdietsch. Heut is 's xäctly zwanzig Johr Dass ich bin owwe naus; Nau bin ich widder lewig z'rück Und steh am Schulhaus an d'r Krick Juscht nächst ans Daddy's Haus. Today it's exactly twenty years Since I went up and away; Now I am back again, alive, And stand at
Pennsylvania Dutch Country - Misplaced Pages Continue
2592-629: The Pennsylvania Dutch , including the Amish , Mennonites , Fancy Dutch , and other related groups 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
2673-621: The Piedmont region of the Appalachian Mountains . The landscape is marked by rolling, wooded hills, deep stream valleys, and fertile soils. The Susquehanna River bisects the region and provides its drainage. Contrary to popular belief, the word Dutch in Pennsylvania Dutch is not a mistranslation, but rather a variation of the Pennsylvania German endonym Deitsch , which means "Pennsylvania Dutch / German" or "German". Ultimately,
2754-779: The Southern states such as in Kentucky and Tennessee , in 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
2835-462: The Thirteen Colonies 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. Organizations Union County, Pennsylvania Union County is a county in
2916-568: The Bible into Pennsylvania Dutch. The New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs was published in 2002 by the Bible League. The entire Bible, Di Heilich Shrift , was completed and published in 2013 by TGS International. Deitsh Books has published a dictionary (2013) and a grammar book (2014) by D Miller using the same American English orthography. In 2014, Jehovah's Witnesses began to publish literature in Pennsylvania Dutch. Pennsylvania Dutch, which
2997-743: The Canadian province of Ontario . Waves of colonial Palatines from the Rhenish Palatinate, one of the Holy Roman states, settled in the Province of New York and the Province of Pennsylvania . The first Palatines arrived in the late 1600s but the majority came throughout the 1700s; they were known collectively as the Palatine Dutch . Many American Palatines settled other states, including Indiana and Ohio. American Palatines continued to use their language as
3078-454: The Dutch supplied the blue collar and supervisory workforce. As technology advanced, higher technology companies such as Mack Trucks and New Jersey Zinc moved to the region as well. As the local industries expanded, immigrants from Middle Europe (primarily Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary) were recruited for the low-skilled positions, and the more established Dutch retained the skilled blue collar and supervisory positions. The Dutch influence on
3159-430: 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 : Ich bin ins Feld glaafe ('I have run into the field') and not the simple past ( Ich lief ins Feld ['I ran into the field']), which is retained only in the verb "to be", as war or ware , corresponding to English
3240-527: The Lewisburg, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area , which is also included in the Bloomsburg - Berwick - Sunbury , PA Combined Statistical Area . The county is part of the Central Pennsylvania region of the state. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the county has a total area of 318 square miles (820 km ), of which 316 square miles (820 km ) is land and 1.8 square miles (4.7 km ) (0.6%)
3321-640: The New Testament.) Pennsylvania High German is a literary form of Palatine written in Pennsylvania , the Palatinate , and other Palatine states (e.g. the Hessian Palatinate ), used between the 1700s and early 1900s. In Pennsylvania, this literary form helped maintain German education and instruction, and was spoken in schools and churches. It is often seen in Fraktur art and script. Immediately after
Pennsylvania Dutch Country - Misplaced Pages Continue
3402-462: The Old Order groups, change has come slower, and gradually they have become more and more distinctively different as the surrounding rural and urban population of Pennsylvania has changed. Pennsylvania Dutch language Canada: Pennsylvania Dutch ( Deitsch , Pennsilfaanisch-Deitsch or Pennsilfaanisch ) or Pennsylvania German is a variety of Palatine German spoken by
3483-411: 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
3564-475: The Pennsylvania borders between the mountains along river valleys into neighboring Maryland ( Washington , Frederick , and Carroll counties), West Virginia , New Jersey ( Warren and northern Hunterdon counties), Virginia ( Shenandoah Valley ), and North Carolina. The larger region has been historically referred to as Greater Pennsylvania. The historic Pennsylvania Dutch diaspora in Ontario, Canada, has been referred to as Little Pennsylvania. The area lies in
3645-518: The State of Pennsylvania and 115th most populous in the United States with a population of 264,739. In presidential elections, Union County has voted for Democratic candidates less than almost any county in the nation. Andrew Jackson was the last Democratic Party candidate to win the county, in 1828 . The county has been solidly Republican in Presidential elections since John C. Frémont 's win against James Buchanan in 1856 . The only exception
3726-423: 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
3807-428: The age of 18 living with them, 59.90% were married couples living together, 6.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.10% were non-families. 25.30% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.80% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.50 and the average family size was 3.00. In the county, the population was spread out, with 20.10% under
3888-468: The age of 18, 13.90% from 18 to 24, 30.90% from 25 to 44, 21.70% from 45 to 64, and 13.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 123.90 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 128.50 males. The United States Office of Management and Budget has designated Union County as the Lewisburg, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area (μSA) . As of
3969-459: 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 with a ge- prefix and a -t suffix, thus for example
4050-606: 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 bet ( Ich bet, du kannscht Deitsch schwetze 'I bet you can speak Pennsylvania Dutch'), depend ( Es dependt en wennig, waer du bischt 'it depends somewhat on who you are'); tschaepp for 'chap' or 'guy'; and tschumbe for 'to jump'. Today, many speakers will use Pennsylvania Dutch words for
4131-774: The church, newspapers and urban business. After the 1871 unification of the first German Empire , the term "Dutchlander" came to refer to the nationality of people from the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Geographically the area referred to as Amish/Dutch country centers on the cities of Allentown , Hershey , Lancaster , Reading , and York . Pennsylvania Dutch Country encompasses the counties of Lancaster , York , Adams , Franklin , Dauphin , Cumberland , Lebanon , Berks , Northampton , Montgomery , Lehigh , Schuylkill , Snyder , Union , Juniata , Mifflin , Huntingdon , Northumberland , and Centre . Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants would spread from this area outwards outside
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#17328548087954212-537: The county was 90.08% White , 6.91% Black or African American , 0.16% Native American , 1.06% Asian , 0.04% Pacific Islander , 0.37% from other races , and 1.37% from two or more races. 3.90% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 41.2% were of German , 13.9% American , 6.5% Irish , 5.9% English and 5.3% Italian ancestry. 90.4% spoke English , 3.7% Spanish , 2.0% Pennsylvania Dutch and 1.2% German as their first language. There were 13,178 households, out of which 31.10% had children under
4293-610: 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 -'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 , all of whom were Amish or Mennonite, showed strong age-related variation. Speakers under
4374-406: The dative, and possession is indicated with a special construction using the dative and the possessive pronoun: 'the man's dog' becomes em Mann sei Hund (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
4455-508: The dative. Thus, em Mann sei Hund , for example, has frequently become der Mann sei Hund . The dative case in Pennsylvania German is used to express possession, to mark objects of prepositions , 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 inflections of articles and adjectives modifying nouns. In non-sectarian speech in central Pennsylvania,
4536-402: The dependence of the region on industrial jobs. The Eastern part of the region (Northampton, Lehigh, and Berks Counties) is now dominated by information-intensive white collar employment. The western counties of the region experienced industrialization as well, with Hershey Foods being the most notable example, but it was less intensive, and agriculture retained a larger share of the economy. In
4617-587: The dialect is gradual decay of the traditional vocabulary, which is then replaced by English loan words or words corrupted from English. 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 ,
4698-505: 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
4779-549: 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 ( Hochdeitsch ) at church services. The distinctive use of three different languages serves as
4860-539: The effects of being located on the western edge of the East Coast conurbation which stretches from Washington, D.C. to New York City. The Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonites , who have resisted these urbanization efforts most successfully, have retained aspects of their 18th century way of life, including the Deitsch dialect; however, these groups have changed significantly in the last two hundred years. Nevertheless, for
4941-563: The future. There are only two car driving Anabaptist groups who have preserved the dialect: The Old Beachy Amish and the Kauffman Amish Mennonites , 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
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#17328548087955022-467: The guttural ⟨r⟩ of earlier generations and also turned into an American ⟨r⟩ and so German gewesen > gwest > grest and German geschwind > gschwind > tschrind /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
5103-508: 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 offers a complete minor program in Pennsylvania German Studies. The program includes two full semesters of
5184-447: The middle of the 20th century, both Amish and non-Amish entrepreneurs began to promote the area as a tourist destination. Although there are still plenty of Amish attempting to follow their traditional way of life, tourism and population growth have significantly changed the appearance and cultural flavor of the area. The region is within 50 miles of Philadelphia , Baltimore, Maryland , and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , and has not escaped
5265-460: 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
5346-407: The past participle of 'change' is usually ge-change-t . Verbs with unstressed first syllables generally do not take the ge- 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 ge- prefix. Thus, 'realize'
5427-415: 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. 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
5508-454: The rules of American English orthography, the other the rules of Standard German orthography (developed by Preston Barba and Albert F. 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 , as found in the common traditional language English translation,
5589-468: The schoolhouse by the creek Just next to Grandpa's house. Orange is the New Black 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 wrote the novella The Forest of Time , depicting an alternate history in which the United States was never established, but each of
5670-447: The shop floor was so great that some Slavic immigrants became bilingual in their native language and in Pennsylvania Dutch while they had not yet mastered English. In the 20th century however, universal public education in English and relatively easy access to higher education erased many of the elements that made the Pennsylvania Dutch Country a distinctive region of the United States. The information age and globalization greatly reduced
5751-566: 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
5832-590: 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 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. Pennsylvania Dutch has primarily been
5913-764: 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 have mostly switched to English. In 2017, there were about 10,000 speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in Canada, far fewer than in
5994-599: The terms Deitsch, Dutch , Diets and Deutsch are all cognates of the Proto-Germanic word *þiudiskaz meaning "popular" or "of the people". The continued use of Pennsylvania Dutch to describe them was strengthened by the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 19th century as a way of distinguishing thems from the later (post-1830) waves of German immigrants to the U.S. Further, the Pennsylvania Dutch referred to themselves as Deitsche and to Germans as Deitschlenner (literally "Germany-ers", compare Deutschland-er ) whom they saw as
6075-402: The turn of the 20th century with World War I , consolidated schools, and the advent of mandatory public education until the age of 16, with added pressures from increased mobility, the influence of English-language media, communications, and urbanization. Also, many German-Americans hid their ethnicity with the spread of anti-German sentiment and propaganda. Originally, the economy of the region
6156-676: 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 . The tables below use IPA symbols to compare sounds used in Standard German (to the left) with sounds that correspond to them in their Pennsylvania Dutch cognates , reflecting their respective evolutions since they diverged from a common origin. In Lancaster County, 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 ⟨gs⟩ generally becomes ⟨ts⟩ , which
6237-524: Was William Howard Taft 's loss to Theodore Roosevelt of the Bull Moose (Progressive) Party – which had splintered from the Republican Party – in 1912 . The county has also voted for Republican Senators, State Treasurers, and State Auditors for decades. Robert P. Casey is the only Democratic gubernatorial candidate to win the county in the last fifty years. The county seat of Lewisburg
6318-492: Was and were . The subjunctive mood is extant only as Konjunktiv I ( Konjunktiv II is totally lost) in a limited number of verbs. In all other verbs it is expressed through the form of Konjunktiv I of the verbs 'to do' ( du ) and 'to have' ( hawwe / have ) combined with the infinitive or the past participle , e.g., ich daet esse ('I would eat'), ich hett gesse ('I would have eaten'). Several Pennsylvania Dutch grammars have been published over
6399-618: Was almost entirely rural and agricultural, based on the immigrants' dream of bettering their lot through the ownership of their own farms. The small tradesmen indispensable to a rural economy, such as blacksmiths, wheelwrights, millers, and storekeepers, constituted the bulk of the non-farm economy. In the 19th century, a small educated class, comprising the Lutheran and Reformed ministers, began to emerge. The Pennsylvania seminaries educated them in High German so that they could preach to their flocks in
6480-611: 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 . 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. Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc., using American English orthography (see Written language), has translated
6561-661: Was used in the middle of the 20th century as a description of a region with a distinctive Pennsylvania Dutch culture, but in recent decades the composition of the population is changing and the phrase is used more now in a tourism context than any other. The Greater Pennsylvania Dutch Country ( Pennsylvania Dutch : Die Breet-Deitscherei (The Broad Dutchery) refers to this Pennsylvania region but also includes smaller enclaves of Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking areas in New York , Delaware , Maryland , Ohio , West Virginia , North Carolina , Indiana , Illinois , Wisconsin , Virginia , and
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