Pennsylvania Dutch English is a dialect of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
that has been influenced by the
Pennsylvania Dutch language
Pennsylvania Dutch (, or ), referred to as Pennsylvania German in scholarly literature, is a variety (linguistics), variety of Palatine German language, Palatine German, also known as Palatine Dutch, spoken by the Amish, Old Order Amish, Old Or ...
. It is largely spoken in
South Central Pennsylvania
South Central Pennsylvania is a region of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania that includes the fourteen counties of Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lancaster, Lebanon, Mifflin, Perry, Snyder, and York. Portions of west ...
, both by people who are monolingual (in English) and bilingual (in Pennsylvania German and English). The dialect has been dying out, as non-Amish younger
Pennsylvania Germans
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 ...
tend to speak
General American English
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
. Very few non-Amish members of these people can speak the Pennsylvania German language, although most know some words and phrases. The World War II Generation was the last generation in which Pennsylvania Dutch was widely spoken outside the
Old Order 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 church ...
and
Old Order Mennonite
Old Order Mennonites (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania German: ) form a branch of the Mennonite tradition. Old Order Movement, Old Order are those Mennonite groups of Swiss people, Swiss German and south Germans, German heritage who pract ...
communities.
Features of Pennsylvania German influence
Pennsylvania Dutch English differs from standard
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
in various ways.
Some of its hallmark features include the following:
* Widespread
devoicing
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commo ...
of
obstruent
An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as ...
s, such as “round” being pronounced “rount” or “eggs” as “ecks”.
* The use of certain vowel variants in specific
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
contexts.
* The use of Pennsylvania German
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
and
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
stems in word construction.
* Specific intonation patterns for questions.
* Special placement of
prepositional phrase
An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circ ...
s in sentences (so that "Throw some hay over the fence for the horse" might be rendered "Throw the horse over the fence some hay").
* The use of "ain't" and "not" or "say" as
question tags.
* The use of "still" as a
habitual verbal marker.
* The use of the phrase "what for" to mean "what kind of." (German = "was für")
* Use of the word "yet" to mean "still," such as "do you work at the store yet?" to mean "do you still work at the store?"
* Use of terms such as "doncha know" and "so I do" or "so he does" at the end of declaratory sentences.
* Use of the word "awhile" at the end of sentences proposing simultaneous actions (e.g. "Go get the tea out of the pantry; I'll start boiling the water awhile.").
* Omitting "to be" from the passive construction in an infinitive following "needs" or "wants" (e.g. "the car needs cleaned" instead of "the car needs to be cleaned").
Other
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
s include:
Other
idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
s include "Make wet?" meaning "Is it going to rain?", "hurrieder" meaning "faster", and "dippy eggs/ecks" meaning "over-easy or soft-boiled eggs".
See also
*
Lunenburg English, a dialect of Canadian English similarly influenced by German
*
Northeast Pennsylvania English
*
Philadelphia dialect
Philadelphia English is a variety or dialect of American English native to Philadelphia and extending into Philadelphia's metropolitan area throughout the Delaware Valley, including southeastern Pennsylvania, counties of northern Delaware (espec ...
*
North American English regional phonology
North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English (English of the United States and Canada)—what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional ...
*
Regional vocabularies of American English
Regional vocabulary within American English varies. Below is a list of lexical differences in vocabulary that are generally associated with a region. A term featured on a list may or may not be found throughout the region concerned, and may or ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Authority control
Dialects of English
City colloquials
Pennsylvania Dutch language
Ohio culture
Languages of Pennsylvania
English language in the United States