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Archive 1

i hope

I hope eventually the Pennsylvania German article can be placed here.

P. Stoltzfus

Shouldn't most of this information be at Pennsylvania Dutch since it is about the ethnic group not the language itself. Besides the other article is currently a pathetic stub. Rmhermen 18:27 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)


The word "Dutch" here is left over from an archaic sense of the English word, which once referred to Germany as well as to the Netherlands. This archaism may have survived for various reasons; for example, the Pennsylvania German word for "German" is "Deitsch", which sounds similar to the English "Dutch". The bottom line, however, is that Pennsylvania German is a dialect of German, not Dutch.

not to forget: the german word for "german" (itself) is "deutsch" and it sound nearly to "dutch". i think, using the word "dutch" for the netherland language was a mistranslation or a mistake (centuries ago). -- fux 217.225.125.202 18:38 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
True. German and Dutch are very closely related; "Germany" is a term from Latin, possibly derived from Old Gaelic gair neighbour (used by the Gauls to describe their neighbours to the east), and therefore definitely not the native German name. thefamouseccles
The true mistake or better anachronism is that English speakers still use the term Dutch for language and people of the Netherlands. Until 1648 the Netherlands where part of "The Holy Roman Empire" and the population considered themselfs as Germans. Afterwards they started to call themselfs only "Nederlanders" which simply means "Low Landers" ( geographically in contrast to the germans in the High Lands see "High German" ~ "Hochdeutsch"). Germany is called "Duitsland" in Dutch and "Deutschland" in German.
On the other hand Amish people paradoxly refer to other Americans as "Engländer" which is a similar anachronism since independence (I noticed this at least in the film "The Last Witness" with Harrison Ford). So IMHO "Pennsylvania Dutch" is correct, and the Dutch governement should -after 350 years- diplomatically try to persuade Anglo-Saxons not to call them Dutch (= German) anymore... ;) Rolf (Darmstadt/Germany)
PLEASE do not use Witness as a guide to the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch. Witness was a charming movie, in a certain way, and it was partially filmed in Lancaster County, but it was in nearly every detail completely inauthentic. This includes the accents, mannerisms and body language of the actors, their German and some of their responses to situations. In other words, it was a well-meaning but thoroughly misguided attempt by Hollywood to approximate a culture for entertainment purposes.
The Amish do not refer to Anglo outsiders as "Engländer", but they do make linguistic and religious distinctions among "Amisch", "Deitch" (Pennsylvania Dutch) and "Englisch" (all English-speaking Americans). Raymondjfisher 22:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"There are also diverse groups of those who can speak the language: the Lutherans, Reformed, Moravians, Schwenkfelders, Church of the Brethren, Catholics and Jewish people, mostly of elderly sorts. These people once represented the majority of Pennsylvania German speakers."

Are there really Catholics and Jews amung the original Pennsylvania Dutch? I tried to find out more about this curious information, but I've been unable to come up with anything. If that is true, it sure is interesting.

A center of PA Dutch Catholic faith was the present-day town of Bally (formerly Goschenhoppen or "Goschehoppe"), which oddly enough was co-founded by Catholics and Mennonites. Even today, the town has two Mennonite Churches and two Catholic Churches (one of which is the US headquarters of the Padre Pio organization). I am unaware of any Jewish PA Dutch but would be curious to know if that claim can be verified. Raymondjfisher 22:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"Pennsylvania Dutch," rather than "Pennsylvania German"?

My mother comes from a Mennonite background and during her rearing was a member of the Church of the Brethren in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and she has always known the term "Pennsylvania Dutch." All of my (15 years) experience living in central Pennsylvania has led me to believe this term to be solid and official, and I have never heard the term "Pennsylvania German" until this article. Should the title be thus changed?--KingGeekoid 02:37, May 9, 2005 (UTC)File:Hex sign wilkum.jpg Agree! Scotty

The article on the population group is called Pennsylvania Dutch, but the one on the language is called Pennsylvania German. Makes sense to me.thx1138 13:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

- The use of "Pennsylvania German" strikes me as overly academic and does not reflect the fact that those of us from the German-speaking regions of Pennsylvania have been calling ourselves "Pennsylvania Dutch" for more than 200 years. (You will never find an old farmer from Lancaster, Berks, Lebanon or York County in Pennsylvania calling himself "Pennsylvania German"; that phrase is more likely to be used in college classrooms.) I would vote for changing the terminology to "Pennsylvania Dutch" throughout. Raymondjfisher 21:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, we should go for a solution as can be found on Pennsylvania Dutch. With the article being called Pennsylvania Dutch but it being explained that when strictly speaking Pennsylvania German/Deitsch would be more correct.
Rex 11:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I concur that Pennsylvania German is strictly an academic term. I grew up in Berks County and never heard the term until college. Pennsylvania Dutch(Language) would seem an appropriate title to me.
Skabat169 13:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. --Thisisbossi 14:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Fact of the matter is though, that the Amish are of German decent, not Dutch. The question we have to ask ourselves here is correctness vs. what are people used to. -newkai t-c 16:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Encyclopedias are academic works. Since this is an encyclopedia, the academic term should be used. Wikipedia has enough problems with credibility among academics already without making ourselves a laughingstock by using the unscientific term "Pennsylvania Dutch language". Angr 12:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the German language article isn't called "High German language" eventhough that is the academic term for the language but the most used name so ...Rex 13:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That would be because the academic term "High German" doesn't refer to the German language as described in that article but rather to the High German languages as described in that article. Academics call the German language "German", or if further precision is necessary, "Standard German". Angr 13:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Well apparently English uses a different definition then, in German and Dutch for instance High German is a synonym for the German standard language as well as the correct linguistic term. Rex 13:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's true that "Hochdeutsch" has a meaning in German that "High German" doesn't have in English, namely "Standard German". de:Hochdeutsch is a disambig page showing its two meanings in German: de:Standarddeutsch (Eng. "Standard German") and de:Hochdeutsche Sprachen (Eng. "High German languages"). Angr 13:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

It does not make sense to say that "the Amish are of German descent, not Dutch." In this context, "Dutch" MEANS "German".70.107.165.191 05:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm puzzled - why is the article called Pennyslvania German, when it admits in the first sentence that Pennsylvania Dutch is the more common term? Is there some ridiculous pseudo-pedantry going on here? -86.134.12.250 22:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It "means" German only because some Americans at some point misunderstood it and thought "Deitsch" sounded like "Dutch". The paragraph suggesting that "Dutch" used to mean what "German" means today is ridiculous. Claiming that the inhabitants of the Netherlands saw themselves as merely another German state in the Holy Roman Empire is even more riduculous. So yes, it does make sense to emphazise that Pennsylvania Dutch is a misinterpretation and that the immigrants were in fact German. Having said that, if the Pennsylvania Dutch refer to themselves and their language as such, that should be the title of the aticle. --dllu 15:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The older usage in English was that most forms of what we now call German were termed 'High Dutch', while the language of the Netherlands and Flanders was 'Low Dutch." This probably reflects the older practice in the language concerned. Indeed, to this day some of the Reformed Churches in South Africa describe themselves as 'Niederduits'. Sillymidon 23:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Nederduits is what you mean. This indeed is the obsolete expression for Dutch, Dietsch or Netherlandic, dating from centuries ago. It should not be used anymore, because it certainly must not be equated to and confused with Plattdeutsch, Niederdeutsch or Low German. Ad43 17:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the spelling correction. In my view, the people best qualified to decide on the name are those denoted by it. Evidently, the usage in Pennsylvania has preserved the older pattern. As somebody who has never been to any part of the USA, I must say that an American friend only took a single sentence to explain the matter to me. I honestly don't think that there is a real problem here. Sillymidon 21:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I can guarantee that no one who encounters Pennsylvania Dutch culture on a regular basis ever refers to it as "Pennsylvania German." WP:COMMONNAME states "When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Wikipedia is not a place to advocate a title change in order to reflect recent scholarship. The articles themselves reflect recent scholarship but the titles should represent common usage." I have lived in Lebanon county my entire life and I don't believe I have ever heard the term "Pennsylvania German".PierceG (talk) 07:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch Wikipedia?

Any native Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch speakers interested in starting a PA Deitsch Wikipedia? (Sinn's some Deitsh shvetzerah es en deitshi Wikipedia oh fanga vella?) Padajtsch-kall

Wikipedia!

Loss uns sie uffschtelle! Ich waer froh en Verwalter zu sei. obacht@deitscherei.com; www.deitscherei.org

Say your opinion, your oppositions or your support, about starting a Pennsylvania German Wikipedia at New Languages:Pennsylvania German. Stettlerj 21:31, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

There actually already is a Pennsylvania German Wikipedia. It's on a German website. I found the link somewhere here on someone's user page, but forgot to bookmark it. If I find it again, I'll link here.David Hoag 00:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

WW2

i wonder if there was any kind of pressure on german speaking americans and american media published in german to assimilate during ww2.? do you know anything about it? this eventual cause for the decline of pennsylvania german has been left out in this article completly. ~odi

It's not impossible that there was some pressure, but I suspect that other causes were much more important. The Pennsylvania Dutch were not as likely to be viewed as "German" as were more recent German immigrants in other parts of the US; they already had earned an established pedigree as authentic Pennsylvanians and Americans. The world wars served in general as a great assimilator, bringing together young men from all parts of the country and a large variety of backgrounds. The period immediately preceding and following WW II saw a huge leap forward in infrastructure in rural Pennsylvania; it is during this period that many rural roads were first paved and electricity was brought to every household. Radio and television likewise fed into the general trend toward assimilation. All of these factors led to a diminishing of the role of local identities and a strengthened sense of (Anglo) American identity. It would be interesting to compare the decline of Pennsylvania Dutch with the decline of other minority European languages elsewhere in the US (French in New Orleans; Walloon, Swedish and German in parts of the Mid-West; Texas German in Texas). It would be unsurprising, however, if the biggest decline for all these languages occurred precisely among the generation born immediately after WW II. Raymondjfisher 22:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The factors you stated are certainly in play, but I have heard many accounts that the World Wars contributed significantly to German’s decline as America’s second language (similar to Spanish’s status now), although this may have affected PA Dutch speakers less, for the reasons you stated. I’ve read that, in addition to German speakers in the Midwest, there was even pressure on Michigan Dutch (nederlands, not deitsh) speakers to speak English, lest they be mistaken for speaking German. I’ve also read an account of a PA Dutch who was viewed suspiciously until his German ski11z helped him overhear and thwart a German plot while overseas at war—if you like, I can google around + try to find that. —Wiki Wikardo 07:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Hessia

I would think, Pennsylvania German is near the so called Hessia Dialects (hiwwe un driwwe). --84.177.165.111 20:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

It is indeed not so different, just as southern Hessisch (Hessian) is not so different from Pfälzisch (Palatine). Certainly the loss of the umlaut sounds is a point of commonality between southern Hessisch and PA Dutch, as well as a large amount of vocabulary. An even higher degree of similarity, though, probably comes from the western Palatinate, i.e., the area northwest and west of Mannheim. But PA Dutch is a mishmash, and it is often suspected that many Hessian fighters for the English crown in the Revolutionary War blended into the local population after the war rather than returning. So maybe there really is some direct influence? But these are questions best answered by a linguist trained in both PA Dutch and the southwest German dialects, which I am not.Raymondjfisher 21:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC) 

    "Hiwwe und driwwe" and "ebbe" and "eppes" are pretty typical of both  Hessian and Swabian. Also, the Southern end of what counted as   
     the Pfalz a few centuries ago now belongs to Baden-Württemberg. There was a Guy called heinrich Zimmermann who sailed with     
     Captain Cook and later published a memoir, in which he constsnty refers to himself as a Pfaelzer though he was if I remember 
     correctly from Baden-Baden.Benhemmens 18:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Welschkorn, Welschhahn

The part about the origin of those words is completely misinformed, and has nothing to do with Wales. Walha, the origin of the word "Welsch" in a number of Germanic languages, means "foreign", therefore the origins of Welschkorn and welschhahn are purely Germanic, simply meaning "foreign corn" and "foreign chicken". That whole section should be rewritten accordingly. Unigolyn 12:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Umm, do you know the history of southeastern Pennsylvania? The first settlers, who preceded the Pennsylvnia Germans, in most areas of southeastern Pennsylvania were Welsh. Don't miss the forest because you're looking at the trees. You are correct however that "welsh" is a germanic word, but there was no argument against that. In any case, the word is a neologism of the Pennsylvania Germans. Stettlerj 13:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Stettlerj. "Welsche" is the Pennsylvania Dutch word for "Welsh". Since the earliest settlement of rural southeastern Pennsylvania, there has always been a minority Welsh subculture in Pennsylvania. For instance, the Welsh Mountain in southeastern Lancaster County is still inhabited primarily by people who self-identify as Welsh. It is entirely probable - indeed almost certain - that the first German immigrants learned about corn (maize) and turkey from Welsh immigrants who arrived to the area a half-generation before.Raymondjfisher 21:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Down here in Southern Austria, "welsch" is a prefix that generally means Italian. Eg the wine variety "welschriesling", common in Styria, Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary (actually not related to the white riesling variety). See also the article "http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsche". It is often used as a rather sweeping, pejorative word for the nearest people of latin/romanic origin (the remaining neighbours of Austria being "Tschuschen" - Slavs - and "Piefke" (Germans). "Kauderwelsch" is a German word for gibberish and derives from the Rhaetoroman dialect from Chur in Graubünden in Switzerland. The first syllable neatly combines the place name Chur with the connnotation of being "chewed up". In this part of the world (Styria) maize is a southern crop though Ive never heard of it being called Welschkorn, in dialect people tend to call it Kukuruz (the Slovenian name) or Woaz. The German Wikipedia page on maize, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mais, does mention Welschkorn as one of its trivial names. There are plenty of Internet hits in german for Welschkorn. As maize is also called türkischer Korn, it may simply be that the names of southern countries were used fairly indiscriminately for anything new and exotic. If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_for_the_Wild_Turkey, you can see this tendency in action for the Turkey, so Welschhahn would fit in. Mohrrübe ("moorish root") for carrot is another German attribution of an exotic origin to a vegetable.

Another familiar sounding word is Grumbeere for potatoes, one of their names in Southern Austria is "Krumbirn" and in Slovenia, they are called "krompir". "grum" might come from "graben": dig or trench. "Beer" is berry or "birn" is pear. So the logic would be rather similar to Erdapfel, ie earth apple, which is the dominant name hereabouts. Benhemmens 23:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I am wrong here. You give good evidence that Welschkann is not a word with new world origins. I guess it will have to be changed. Stettlerj 23:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I would be curious to know when maize was first widely planted in German-speaking regions of Europe. If the early German immigrants to Pennsylvania already knew the grain before leaving Germany, then it would be reasonable to suppose that they brought the name with them. On the other hand, if they discovered it after arriving in the New World, it is certainly possible that they gave the term "Welschkorn" to Europe rather than vice versa. Raymondjfisher 22:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
First Maize in Europe 1525 (wikipedia maize article, german version); emigrations to Pennsylvania between 1689-1720ish.Benhemmens 18:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
First maize in Iberia in 1525 (but no suggestion that it was widely cultivated); how long did it take for it to become commonplace in southwestern Germany? Show me evidence that around 1700 maize was commonly grown or at least known to peasants in the German-speaking regions, and I will happily change my view. Until we definitely resolve this question, I would propose that we remove the speculative explanation of the term Welschkorn from the encyclopedia site.

Lord's Prayer

Does having the Netherlandish for this not just confuse things? Wiki Wikardo 14:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Dutch is added to allow people to see, for themselves, that it's German, not Dutch, which is the closest language to Pennsylvania Dutch. It's thoroughly explain as having that purpose so I don't think it will cause confusion.
Rex 14:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Wiki Wikardo. Putting in Dutch gives credance to the thought that Pennsylvania Dutch is somehow a Dutch dialect especially for the casual reader who skims the article, which is what most readers probably do. Pennsyvlania Dutch has nothing to do with Dutch and I agree, it is confusing. Most people will not look to analyse the similarities, differences, etc. Stettlerj 18:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

How so when it is made very clear it is supposed to prove the opposite? Rex 18:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

*shrugs* Well, ’cause people are like that, I guess. Shoot, I’d be lying if I said I’ve read this article the whole way though… I guess, yeah, I was thinking what Stettlerj said, which is that someone’s going skim the article (really, who’s going to read each prayer in its entirety, either consecutively or in a line-by-line comparison, unless they wanna linguistics-nerd it up?) and infer that, well, Pennsylvania Dutch is closer to German, sure, but it’s still kinda Dutch, too (which it isn’t not, but yeah). I think the mere presence of the Dutch prayer lends credence to something that has already been thoroughly debunked (both within the article + out) and I’m of the mind that once you’ve gotten out of the way that Pennsylvania German is not Dutch in the first paragraph, people can click on Dutch if they’re still curious, and that’ll be that. I think the conspicuous absense of any “Dutch” prayer speaks volumes more than its inclusion could. Wiki Wikardo 16:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, sure the text says that Pennsylvania Dutch is closer to German, but due to that prayer they can see for themselves. I doubt people will misinterpret this after all the article is called pensylvania German ... Rex 19:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with those above that the Dutch version of the Lord's Prayer should be removed. We've already told viewers at the onset that "Dutch" is "left over from an archaic sense of the English word." Why bring it up again? It just waters down the impact of the comparison chart (and the argument itself) for the layperson, especially since Modern German and Modern Dutch share so many cognates. As Rex says in his argument for it's inclusion: "I doubt people will misinterpret this after all the article is called pensylvania German." (Emphasis added) That's exactly why it should be removed. Tobytime 05:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It’s been over a year, and it seems like everyone vs. Rex on the Dutch question, so I was bold. —Wiki Wikardo 08:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Move request

Oppose move, at least until Step 2 and Step 3 at WP:RM are followed. Gene Nygaard 19:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC) Change vote to neutral; it is still a mess because of discussion all over the place, but maybe that's just best left to whoever reviews it for WP:RM to try to sort out. Gene Nygaard 00:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose move This is an encyclopedia article and in my opinion any article called "Pennsylvania Dutch" immidately throws up red flags as to the accuracy of what is about to come afterwards. Calling it "Pennsylvania German" gives the article much more credibility and the appearance of being more accurate (and this is one of the better articles on wikipedia, despite its lack of a rating). I know the Pennsylvania Dutch themselves call themselves the "Dutch", but I think we should not call the article "Pennsylvania Dutch language" any more than we should call it the "Dutch language" which is probably more common yet than "Pennsylvania Dutch" among the speakers themselves. Stettlerj 21:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)"

I agree, we should go with the title that most people are familiar with. This doesn't mean we will not explain while in a linguistic context it is better to call it P. German.
Rex 12:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus to move —Mets501 (talk) 14:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of move

Supporters:

Main reason... term used now is too academic and most people appear to be unfamiliar with it. Rex 20:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment One vote, by Rex Germanus. Talk the others into coming here and giving their reasons, if you want them to count. Gene Nygaard 20:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ridiculous. I listed the people who already explained their thoughts in a section above this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pennsylvania_German_language#.22Pennsylvania_Dutch.2C.22_rather_than_.22Pennsylvania_German.22.3F Rex 20:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'd be willing to go along with that, for the ones commenting this this week. Looks like all but Scott Fisher/Scotty. And it's probably okay to give some consideration to his comments, but to give them less weight because of the passage of time. That's one of the problems with not following Steps 2 and 3 of WP:RM right away, you get comments stuck all over the place. Gene Nygaard 23:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
However, you also need to count this one as opposition, and probably also mention others who were opposed earlier as well. Gene Nygaard 00:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
This seems like a good reason to argue over whatever the final decision will be. Can't we just notify people and tell them to voice their opinions again?
Peter Isotalo 13:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Notifications would be the proper way to go, but thanks for adding my name to support, because that is where it belongs Skabat169 17:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. Not all popular terms are logical and Pennsylvania Dutch seems to be the most common term for the language. / Peter Isotalo 13:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Opposed

Still pushing that academia POV, Angr? This is an encyclopedia for everyone, not just academics, and this is not a specialists' article. / Peter Isotalo 13:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Encyclopedias written for everyone still need to be accurate. Encyclopedias are supposed to combat ignorance, not propagate it. Calling this "Pennsylvania Dutch language" would just be doing just that. When most people use the wrong term for something, it's the encyclopedia's job to tell them what's right. Angr 13:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't see that this is really less accurate and I don't think people are going to be kept ignorant by being given alternative. They'll still only be separated by a word or two in the lead except that we'll use the more popular term. If the concern of disambiguation was a real one, I would agree, but it seems too much like academic proscription.
Peter Isotalo 10:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not consider Ethnologue to be a completely reputable source. Rex 19:09, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

How about the Linguistic Society of America, then? http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alsadc.org+%22pennsylvania+german%22 gets two hits, http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alsadc.org+%22pennsylvania+dutch%22 gets none. Or the Linguistics Department at the University of Pennsylvania? http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aling.upenn.edu+%22pennsylvania+german%22 gets 12 hits (5 unique), while http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aling.upenn.edu+%22pennsylvania+dutch%22 gets none. Angr 20:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Pennsylvania German appears to be the correct term. The term in that language is "Deitsch" which means German. As long as "Pennsylvania Dutch" redirects and that naming issue is mentioned in the article, all should be fine. --Chris S. 00:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. Rex correctly lists me as a supporter. As someone who grew up with the language, I take umbrage at the suggestion that using the term "Pennsylvania Dutch" connotes ignorance. The overwhelming majority of those who are native speakers (or at least identify with the culture) use the term; shouldn't we have the right to choose the name of our own language and culture? I do understand the arguments about linguistic correctness, and even feel a certain sympathy toward those arguments, but at the end of the day prefer to use the only term I ever heard used to describe our language when I was growing up. Raymondjfisher 22:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You are definitely correct that informally we say "Pennsylvania Dutch" and it does not connotate ignorance when used in informal contexts. This discussion has happened years ago and the settlement was that Pennsylvania Dutch would be the title for the article on the PA Dutch as an ethnic group and the language of the PA Dutch under "Pennsylvania German". That is, in good PA Dutch fashion, we compromised. All of a sudden the Amish are in the news and people want to change this compromise that was reached years ago. Stettlerj 22:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Deciding that the people get one title and the language another seems a bit gratuitous. Consensus can change so complaining that different people have a differing opinion of the article now isn't very constructive.
Peter Isotalo 10:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Let it be clear that (AFAIK) nobody here wants to drop PA German as a whole, we don't want to remove PA German from the article.I suggest that we mention the term is more academic (or use it in the linguistic section). You cannot ignore the fact that the majority of the people know the language as PA Dutch, not German. Rex 13:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

What is "the linguistic section"? The entire article is linguistic; it's an article about a language. If the people consider their ethnicity and culture "Pennsylvania Dutch", then in makes sense to have that article at Pennsylvania Dutch. But the language is called "Pennsylvania German" by linguists, because calling it "Pennsylvania Dutch" is misleading. Angr 13:38, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's a relevant comment made on Talk:Pennsylvania Dutch some time ago now. Angr 13:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

For example the bit on related dialects. Rex 14:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of how this comes out, the implication that "Pennsylvania Dutch" is a mistaken usage is wrong. Look at the historical usage of the word "Dutch" in the Oxford English Dictionary; until around c. 1700, the principal usage of the word was to describe Germanic peoples generally, and this broader usage of the term appears to have lasted well into the 19th century. This usage of the word has simply lived longer in Pennsylvania than elsewhere in the English-speaking world.

On one point I will agree with Stettlerj: the academic community in Pennsylvania, even those of PA Dutch origin, have generally adopted the term "Pennsylvania German" (but for both the people and the language, I think). Even though I could live with the Stettlerj compromise (PA Dutch for the people, PA German for the language), and have respected that compromise in my contributions to the page, my vote is still to go with the way most native speakers refer to themselves and their language. Raymondjfisher 22:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Pennsylvania German appears to be the correct term. A redirect from Pennsylvania xxx is the correct way. Also, Rex, criticising contributors for having an academic POV in the context of an encyclopaedia is unfair, and a red flag for me. Widefox 13:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually it was Peter Isotalo, not Rex, who "accused" me of having an academic POV. Angr 13:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Updating the Map

Should we update the map? Currently the map highlights Pennsylvania. Perhaps we could get a map with only the counties highlighted that have a lot of speakers. Stettlerj 14:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

If you have the data, I'll make the map. Rex 14:16, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
You can get data based on the 2000 census from http://www.mla.org/map_data. For example, if you go to the County box and select first Pennsylvania and then Lancaster County, you find that 14,380 people speak "Pennsylvania Dutch" at home. And if you go to http://www.us-english.org/foundation/research/lia/county_and_state_statistics.pdf and do a search for the word "Pennsylvania" you'll find other states with a disproportionately high percentage of speakers: Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Angr 14:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It'll probably be ready this saturday.Rex 17:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:Map of USA with county outlines (black & white).png may be helpful to you. Angr 20:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
http://www.usenglish.org/foundation/research/lia/languages/pennsylvania_dutch.pdf has county-level data all in one place. Angr 21:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Rex, I realized I couldn't wait till Saturday and made a map of my own! (That doesn't mean yours won't be prettier though; mine is kind of stark.) Angr 22:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, that doesn't matter, could you show it?Rex 20:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It's already on the page. Angr 21:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay ... I've made 2 maps:

I was quite surprised by the actual number of speakers of PA.D/PA.G, it's so low ... so that's why I've made 2 categories. Counties above and below 1000 speakers (I believe 1 country has like 14000 speakers but that's an exception most are around 500/1000/1500. Which one do you guys think is the best, or what's wrong about them? Rex 10:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, what I don't like about version 2 is the vagueness of the boundaries. The source PDF we used is strictly county-by-county. Take Yates Co., New York, for example. The source says that 860 people in Yates county speak PG at home; that might well mean there's small Amish town in the county where virtually everyone speaks PG at home. But map 2 makes it look like the speakers are spread out among Yates Co. and the surrounding counties -- but we can't deduce that from the info the source gives. What I don't like about version 1 is first, that there's no bottom limit for the orange-colored counties and second, that unless you set the bottom limit at 690 (and thus remove a lot of the counties currently colored orange), we have no way of knowing if it's an exhaustive list. The source PDF has two lists: the 20 counties with the highest proportion of PG speakers (down to 1.526%), and the 20 counties with the highest number of speakers (down to 690). It's entirely possible that there are counties with far more speakers than, say, Scotland Co., Missouri (which is orange on the map) has, but that aren't on the list because the proportion within the county is too low. Let's say hypothetically that Los Angeles County, California has 689 PG speakers -- it won't show up on the source's List by Number of Speakers because it would be #21 on that list and the list only shows 20 counties. But it also won't show up on the List by Percentage, because 689 people is only about 0.007% of the county's population. The source PDF says there are 294 counties in the U.S. where anyone at all speaks PG, but only tells us the names of 31 of those counties. Angr 12:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

So you're saying we should make 2 maps (or a mixed one) of the information given in the pdf? Like one with the highest percentages and one with the most speakers? Rex 12:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, either that (which is what my map does), or find other sources to use. For example, you could go to http://www.mla.org/map_data and check every county in every state where PG is spoken, but that will be more time-consuming. Angr 14:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes ... but going through every American state (until 2 days ago, I couldn't even tell where Pennsylvania was positioned) is quite a bit of work ... not to mention all their counties. But what I could so is like take like Pennsylvania (40%) Ohio (20%) Indiana (10%Missouri (3%) Wisconsin (2%) and maybe a few more. Still the scale troubles me ... most counties I looked up manually have a percentage of speakers around 0,2 /1,5% so maybe a map with the number of speakers is most accurate. But what scaling would you suggest in that case? my idea would be 0 - 200, 200- 400, 400-600 (till 1400+).Rex 14:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, according to [1] there are only 16 states where more than 300 people speak PG in the whole state, so if you use one color (like white) for every county with fewer than 300 speakers, then for the other 34 states (+ DC) you wouldn't even have to check the counties. I wouldn't recommend using more than six colors on the map, or people won't be able recognize the distinctions anymore. So maybe something like white for <300 speakers, yellow for 300-600 speakers, orange for 600-900 speakers, light red or pink for 900-1200 speakers, dark red for 1200-1500 speakers, and brown for >1500 speakers.
On the other hand, I do like the idea of showing where PG speakers are proportionately strong, even if they're numerically small. Consider Davis County, Iowa: there are only 390 speakers there, but they make up over 4.9% of the population! (If they were a German political party, that would be almost enough to get them a seat in the Bundestag!) Angr 16:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
It's very probable that the census numbers are actually too low. If you check individual counties, e.g. LaGrange County, Indiana, you see that the counties with large numbers of PG speakers also have large numbers of people reporting themselves as speaking German or Dutch. I bet a lot of PG speakers put down "German" or "Dutch" on the census form if they don't realize that "Pennsylvania Dutch" is an option. Angr 16:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought about that too, once county I checked had 1200 PA Dutch speakers but 3000 Dutch speakers ... but I wasn't sure enough. Rex 16:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Ethnologue reports that there are some 15,000 speakers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario. I wonder if there's Canadian census data that could be incorporated into the map too. Angr 22:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I have a mild preference for the left-hand map just because it is easier to read on-line. But you all have come up with some interesting information. Any interest in incorporating it into the last section of the article ("Speaker Population")? That section is a bit rambling in any event and overlaps with "Survival". The two could benefit from a rewrite and should probably be combined into a single, more concise section. Raymondjfisher 10:52, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I was surprised that Kent County, Delaware just misses the top 20 - again 490 PA Dutch, 300 Dutch and 1,055 German suggests some confusion in the census returns. You are right to treat all counties equally, and you have done a good job of drawing a dificult map. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 18:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

We weren't the only ones to notice the high number of "Dutch" speakers in counties where there are many Pennsylvania German speakers: see http://www.usenglish.org/foundation/research/lia/dutch_language_note.asp. (I rather suspect the people answering the survey in Louisiana didn't make as strict a distinction between French and Cajun French as the Census results would have us believe, either.) —Angr 17:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Reversion War: Dutch or German

Please stop the constant reverts of whether the Pennsylvania Dutch hail from Nederlands or Germany. They are German -- this is well established and documented. If you insist so much that they are actually Dutch, provide a verifiable source. Read the first paragraph as to why they are called "Dutch". --Thisisbossi 19:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

international phonetic dealy

Right so am I the only person who would find himself less informed by an article written in that style than a normal phonetic rendering? I think not. Honestly that system makes no sense to me. You shouldn't have to be a linguistics scholar to understand an article on a language. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.58.108.66 (talk) 02:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

No, what we have now is adequate. When dealing with pronunciations, it is only natural that we will be dealing with pronunciations that are inherently variable from dialect to dialect. Using a pronunciation that you find acceptable may bewilder people of another dialect. The international phonetic rendering stays. --Thisisbossi 04:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

quality standards

The comment has been made that this article does not in all respects meet Wikipedia's quality standards. I would welcome comment on what should change. To date, two criticisms have been made, which I would like to address:

(i) We have been criticized for not citing sources. Unfortunately, there are few or no sources for much of the information in this article. Due to a lack of secondary sources, we are in a situation where we need to rely on native speakers and, failing those, on people who had at least some exposure to the language while growing up. I would in any event argue that "primary source" contributions from people with first-hand knowledge of the topic are superior to an extensively cited article full of secondary source material.

(ii) We have been criticized for not using international phonetic symbols. I am happy to see someone else work these symbols into the discussion, but they are not a high priority for me for two reasons. First, most lay readers will have great difficulty in understanding them. Second, many computers (mine included) don't even reproduce these symbols correctly. I would argue that the methodology we used is easily comprehensible to both native English and German speakers and is thus more user-friendly than use of the international phonetic symbols. If they were to be incorporated, I would argue that it should be IN ADDITION TO and not instead of the current explanation.

The problem is that non-IPA expressions of pronunciation are not easily comprehensible. For example, people would differ on what a long A was and, while "broad" is sometimes used to describe sounds, it is meaningless.

As a contributor to this article, I will venture one criticism: numerous readers have built in explanations of etymologies that are unproven and (in my view) dubious. I would propose that we strike the etymologies (e.g., explanations of where the words Welschkorn and Welschhahn come from) and relegate those discussions to this discussion page. Raymondjfisher 23:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Palatine

"If visitors from the "Pfalz" (= Palatine), the area from where many of the Amish people stem from, encounter Amish people, conversation often is possible without any problems." I'm from Germany, but not from Palatine, and i totally understand the Pennsylvania German. --87.180.21.39 16:15, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It really sounds funny to me:) --87.180.21.39 16:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
What’s the deal? I know unsourced stuff is usually inadmissible in Wikipedia, but I’m not that much of a dick; if someone says some shit I know nothing about, I usually AGF and figure they’re right on stuff like this. But despite the article stating that “visitors from the Pfalz” can usually converse with PD speakers “without any problems,” Ethnologue, however, says that Kloss says that it’s “[m]ostly incomprehensible now to a person from the Palatinate (1978)”. Have the languages merged that much since 1978? Someone’s gotta be wrong; pls let me know who —Where you from? 00:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

speaking

This section would also benefit from using IPA. The Other typical sounds "oh" and "au" ("ow") sounds that are quite broad and virtually un-diphthonged, somewhat like some accents of Canadian English but more pronounced. is nonsense. "Quite broad" and "more pronounced" have no meaning on their own, let alone in this non-sentence.

Indeed! 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 12:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi! It seams that there is a interwiki conflict. Please investigate! The inter language links should have been updated since long time. Best regards
‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 03:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The W sound in German

The article incorrectly stated that the sound of the English W did not exist in German. It's true that German people will often pronounce a W with a V sound, as that's what they're accostomed to, but it's never a difficult sound for them to make. "Du" is about the same as English "dew," and when you add an "et" to the end of it it becomes "duet," with the second sylable the same as English "wet." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.255.59.49 (talk) 23:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result was no consensus. Vassyana (talk) 08:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Pennsylvania German language → Pennsylvania Dutch (language) — Proposed to be more commonly used in English language material —Knepflerle (talk) 13:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

If it's going to be called Pennsylvania Dutch, it should at least be at Pennsylvania Dutch language (without the parentheses) per our naming conventions for languages. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 06:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I see that Scanian has settled at Scanian (linguistics). We could do worse here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, that seems to be usually the strategy employed in like the case of Cantonese (linguistics) where there’s debate over whether something is a dialect or a language or a language family… I don’t think there’s any such uncertainty here. —Wiki Wikardo 15:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Oppose. – ishwar  (speak) 00:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is an article about a German language not a Dutch language. Angr's evidence is pretty convincing that in academic literature it's a German language. – Axman (☏) 14:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Erm... no-one is arguing that this is a dialect of Dutch, in academic discourse or anywhere for that matter! It's a matter of fact that this is a German language. It is also a matter of fact that the rather unfortunate and slightly confusing term of Pennsylvania Dutch is very commonly used as its name. Languages don't always use the most logical or systematic name for an object, we just have to deal with that the best we can. The question here is purely which of the alternatives is most commonly used, not which is least ambiguous. I get the feeling that it's a question of register - German prevalent in academic texts, Dutch more common in the mainstream. Either way, some people will be surprised in some sense by the title. Knepflerle (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support since I have only ever heard of "Pennsylvania Dutch". See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Iamaleopard (talk) 23:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Let me stress again Wikipedia's common name policy. It states "When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Wikipedia is not a place to advocate a title change in order to reflect recent scholarship. The articles themselves reflect recent scholarship but the titles should represent common usage." We all know it is a German language, but it is only called a German language in an academic context. The Pennsylvania Dutch call it Pennsylvania Dutch, as do the people who deal with it regularly.PierceG (talk) 04:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. Common name is Pensylvania Dutch, for the culture, the language, and the cooking. Academic pedants have been trying for years to change the name, as of course it's a German language not a Dutch one. But for that matter, they'd like to change that use of the word Dutch as well, as it's the language of the Netherlands, and Dutch comes from the German (and Dutch) word for German. Wikipedia should not be part of these attempts; We should instead document the language as it is, and that's to call this language Dutch. Andrewa (talk) 23:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, for the same reason everybody else do… Blah, blah, blah… If there weren’t already a Pennsylvania Dutch article for the people it might be different, but rather than implement an unwieldly solution like Pennsylvania Dutch language, I think the current title makes perfect sense. It’s widely used in linguistics, it’s what it’s called in Pennsylvaanisch itself, and it helps alleviate popular misconceptions.
Oh, and oops. Apparently Pennsylvania German redirects to Pennsylvania Dutch which strikes me as kinda insane, but I guess Wikipedia’s policy is to append language to the end of every language article name. —Wiki Wikardo 15:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Has anyone got any evidence for the relative prevalence of "Pennsylvania Dutch" versus "Pennsylvania German" to refer to the language? Knepflerle (talk) 13:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Just my own firsthand experience having grown up in Lancaster County, but of course that's not admissible. There's the "Google Test", which gives over 200,000 results for German and more than 2 million results for Dutch. Personally, I could go either way... Dutch is the colloquial term for its meaning of "German". However, the more common term tends to be what is considered more appropriate -- so Dutch might be a better choice. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 16:47, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Having not grown up in Lancaster County, I can attest to having also never heard Pennsylvania German ’til I actually started reading up on what it is. But among English-speakers who know what they’re talking about, Pennsylvania German is quite widespread indeed, despite the historical self-appellation to the contrary. —Wiki Wikardo 15:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the searches from the LSA, UPenn, Google Books, and Google Scholar I gave above, plain old vanilla Google also gives 2920 hits for "Pennsylvania Dutch language" -Wikipedia vs. 5430 hits for "Pennsylvania German language" -Wikipedia. Browsing through the "Pennsylvania German" hits, it is clear that that term is by no means exclusively academic. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 17:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

or more commonly

*lol*   I think it’s a bit overreacting to act all wounded and cry “anti-academic bias,” like it’s a Creationist backlash against the pointy-heads, but even if you agree that Pennsylvania German is the more common (if not almost exclusive) term in linguistic circles, I don’t think it’s fair to just focus on one sphere and say, “Oh, well it’s not more common here.” Even if it were, say, exclusively called Pennsylvania German in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania Dutch in the rest of the English-speaking world, I’d still argue “Pennsylvania Dutch” is more “common.” —Wiki Wikardo 16:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Saying "Pennsylvania German, or more commonly, Pennsylvania Dutch" makes the strong claim that the language is usually called Pennsylvania Dutch. Well, no it isn't, not anymore, and the links I provided above make that very clear. When both academic and non-academic usages are taken into consideration, the two terms are probably about equally common "Pennsylvania German" is apparently still more common in reference to the language, if the Google hits I just added under "Discussion" are reliable. Saying "Pennsylvania German, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch" is neutral: it makes no claims about which term is more common or less common; it just presents both names, giving the name the article itself uses first. If the requested move goes through, I expect the opening sentence to be changed to "Pennsylvania Dutch, also known as Pennsylvania German" but not to "Pennsylvania Dutch, or less commonly, Pennsylvania German". —Angr If you've written a quality article... 17:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I swear I was getting different results before, but anyway… Yeah, I get the same thing you do; I mean it favours `"pennsylvania german"+language' if I google that, but once you add in `OR dialect OR [and here's a nod to Septentrionalis here] subdialect' (?!) Dutch comes out on top. I don’t really know what that says except I think that’d be a good indication of layperson usage—most folks tend to classify non-standard varieties as “dialects,” mutually intelligible or not [see above]. Anyway, Google aside, if you from the U.S., I kind of feel like it’s disingenuous for you to say it's “not anymore” more common; I know this holds no water on the 'Peed, but Pennsylvania Dutch is way more known in the U.S. (including PA!), despite German seeming to be preferred by people who are into the language in one way or another (not necessarily native speakers). Does your experience differ? —Wiki Wikardo 00:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm a linguist, so I've pretty much only ever heard the language called Pennsylvania German. The people I've heard called Pennsylvania Dutch. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 05:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, not to be contrarian, but, outside of linguistics, “Pennsylvania Dutch” is certainly more common.
FWIW, then, also, here’s some links mentioning PD from Language Log and languagehat, respectively.—Wiki Wikardo 09:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Outside of linguistics, the language is hardly mentioned at all; "Pennsylvania Dutch" refers to the people, their culture, their cuisine, etc. Incidentally, in the first of those links you provided, the term "Pennsylvania Dutch" is used in reference to the people and to the PD country, but not in reference to the language. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 15:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I think it can be argued that “the Pa. Dutch English tag is just a straight-out borrowing from Pa. Dutch” right there is referring to Pennsylvania German (language). Also, you might be underestimating the degree to which normal folks are interested in language… Especially when people with whom they come into regular contact talk funny, and a non-English language surviving in the U.S. intrigues a lot of people… I don’t know how you’d survey this (especially that Wikipedia would accept), but I’d guess most Americans have heard of the Pennsylvania Dutch language. —Wiki Wikardo 07:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I think this link you posted back in the day perfectly illustrates the widespread familiarity with Pennsylvania Dutch. —Wiki Wikardo 07:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

German Creoles

Is this really a creole!? —Wiki Wikardo 07:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No, but the template doesn't only have creoles on it, despite the name. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 17:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction

The article contradicts itself. Sometimes it states Pennsylvania German to be closest to Franconian, but then it says Pennsylvania German is mainly derived from Pfälzisch. To me it sounds more like Franconian. --142.104.118.91 (talk) 20:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I moin 's klengt a bissele Schwäbisch... =) Frank F H (talk) 12:08, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, Palatinian is linguistically subgrouped unter a general group Franconian. However, this usage should be explained the normal understanding of Franconian is belonging to Franconia. --77.4.42.9 (talk) 10:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I would say Pennsylvania German comes from the German dialect(s) within the triangle Mannheim/Ludwigshafen-Speyer-Heidelberg. --95.89.122.234 (talk) 20:57, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

You are absolutely right! I know that being myself a proud Mannheimian. By the way - Iddish originates also from there --Pebble Beach (talk) 22:38, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Palatinian dialect (Pfälzisch) is part of the larger Franconian dialect (Fränkisch) region. "Pfälzisch" is also called "Rheinfränkisch" (Rhine Franconian), even though it is only one of three subgroups of Rhine Franconian. --Metron (talk) 11:42, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

"Deitsch"

Until very recently, it has not been any more a common practice to refer to Pennsylvania German as "Deitsch" in English, than it has been to refer to Standard German as "Deutsch" in English. Additionally, there are a number of German dialects in which the word for "German" is "Deitsch". This even includes a number of other German-American dialects. Using "Deitsch" as an English name for the language just adds an unnecessary layer of confusion. In English, this language should be referred to as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch. This is why most references to "Deitsch" were either changed to "Pennsylvania German", or simply deleted. JMCooper (talk) 05:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I think some people feel the need to refer to languages by the language's own self-name out of a misguided sense of political correctness. I'm always having to change "Gaeilge" back to "Irish" and "Cymraeg" back to "Welsh" in the articles about those languages. —Angr 15:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Complete information

Maybe you guys could work together with the people of the "Pennsylvania Dutch"-page ?81.207.97.6 (talk) 11:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

With reference to what? Pennsylvania Dutch is about the people, while this article is about the language. +Angr 12:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


I believe that this is also the same language (or dialect, if you prefer) that is spoken by the Mennonite communities in Mexico and other places in Latin America. There are several Mennonite settlements the the Mexican state of Chihuahua, for example, that speak a German dialect that seems to my ear to come from Southern Germany or Switzerland, and I believe that it is the same dialect that is referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.165.68.242 (talk) 17:04, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Mennonite communities in Mexico and other places in Latin America with very few exceptions, e.g. Upper Barton Creek, speak Plautdietsch, not Pennsylvania German. Their language does not at all sound like a dialect coming from Southern Germany or Switzerland, except maybe for people who are totally ignorant concerning German dialects! --Tuncker (talk) 23:23, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Translation of poem

"Nau bin ich widder lewig z'rück" should be translated as "Now I have returned, still alive", not "once more alive".

The word "widder" does not mean "once more" here, but is part of the phrase "widder z'rück", which means "back again" (in the sense of "having returned").

(Believe me, I'm German and a translator ;) 85.22.101.28 (talk) 11:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

'xäctly. (I'm going to change that.) --2001:A60:1534:9401:F51B:C55B:1F3A:EAB2 (talk) 20:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
I would translate it: "Now I'm back again, alive". (Word by word: "Now am I again alive back"). There is no word meaning "still" in the sentence, even though this may be concluded. Tuncker (talk) 23:34, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Table below "Speaker population"

This table in my opinion does fit in the article "Pennsylvania German language", because the article is not about "speakers of German or a German variety outside Europe". By the way, the table is not correct in many ways. Yiddish, even though linguistically not more distant to Standard German than many German dialects, it is an ausbau language and therefore not a German dialect. Other data are totally outdated, e.g. the number of Pennsylvania German speakers, or just false, like the number of Plautdietsch-speakers in Mexico (40,000 instead of 100,000). The number of Hunsrückisch-speakers is totally overestimated, the number is nothing but "guestimated from Wikipedia ethnic figures". Ethnicity and language can differ extremely! I would remove the table. Tuncker (talk) 20:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Past tense

Like many modern European languages, except English, the past can be expressed using two tenses, in modern German the so-called Vergangenheit and Vollendete Gegenwart. The principal factors determining the use of these forms (at least in the standard German that I have been using on a daily for about thirty year) are speech (ich bin gegangen) and writing (Ich ging). It may be that, as in Yiddish, the second of these forms has expired completely in both speech and writing.Pamour (talk) 23:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Mennonite Plautdietsch

Yes, the contributor (Dan Holsinger) who deleted the paragraph about Plautdietsch may be correct in doing so.

This article by Cambridge University Press 2018 indicates that some Mennonites speak it, but probably not those in PA: 

  Mennonite Plautdietsch (ISO 639–3: pdt) is a West Germanic (Indo-European) language belonging to the Low Prussian (Niederpreußisch) subgroup of Eastern Low German (Ostniederdeutsch), a continuum of closely related varieties spoken in northern Poland until the Second World War (Ziesemer 1924, Mitzka 1930, Thiessen 1963). Although its genetic affiliation with these other, now-moribund Polish varieties is uncontested, Mennonite Plautdietsch represents an exceptional member of this grouping. It was adopted as the language of in-group communication by Mennonites escaping religious persecution in northwestern and central Europe during the mid-sixteenth century, and later accompanied these pacifist Anabaptist Christians over several successive generations of emigration and exile through Poland, Ukraine, and parts of the Russian Empire. As a result of this extensive migration history, Mennonite Plautdietsch is spoken today in diasporic speech communities on four continents and in over a dozen countries by an estimated 300,000 people, primarily descendants of these so-called Russian Mennonites (Epp 1993, Lewis 2009).

Peter K Burian (talk) 13:16, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

St. Mary's County Amish

There is a large population of Amish in St Mary's County, Maryland who split off from the Pennsylvania group in a schism in the 1930s. They are also distinct from the much smaller Amish groups in Western Maryland. Many of the Southern Maryland Amish grow tobacco and most speak the Pennsylvania German dialect. Many of the local roads have signs telling drivers to share the road with horse and buggies. Would be nice to see more information about this population in this article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.103.139.122 (talk) 21:44, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Move to "Pennsylvania Dutch"?

It looks like there was some discussion about this years back, but I think it warrants a fresh set of eyes by editors more knowledgeable than I.

Isn't "Pennsylvania Dutch" the more WP:COMMONNAME? Google Ngram thinks so.

TortillaDePapas (talk) 04:51, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Vowel shifts similar to Yiddish?

Vowel shifts in Pennsylvania Dutch is strikingly similar to Yiddish. Were these languages based on the same old dialect? Siealex (talk) 22:58, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Dropping of the ge- prefix

This occurs in several German dialects (and also in some Dutch dialects; standard Dutch grammar uses the ge- prefix in exactly the same manner as standard German). It would be quite difficult to isolate the English influence from a general tendency within the Dutch/German dialect continuum to omit this ge- at the drop of a hat. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:A40C:58CF:5E50:E7F4 (talk) 08:59, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

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