Pennsylvania Dutch Dialect - History
Following are some important dates as well as quotes in chronological order on the history of the dialect as well as  how it's been written down (orthography).  Listen to the voices of the past as they debate the dialect.  It's interesting how much activity has happened in the last 20 years.  It's been a bumpy road and there is still much work to be done...

1683 - The first Germans arrived in Philadelphia.  Most were from Krefeld (North Rhine-Westphalia), an area north of the Palatinate region.

1683-1710 Several ships continue to arrive, many Swiss Mennonites.

1727-1756 German and Swiss immigration to Pennsylvania (many/most? Palatinate and Swiss)

1754-1763 French and Indian War (war suspends immigration for several years)

1761-1775 German and Swiss immigration continues between the wars (approx. 65,000 from 1727-1775)

1775-1783 American Revolutionary War

1783, Johann David Schopf (translation by Schopf 1911)

"The language which our German people make use of is a miserable, broken, fustian salmgundy of English and German, with respect both to the words and their syntaxis.  Grown people come over from Germany forget their mother-tongue in part, while seeking in vain to learn the new speech, and those born in the country hardly ever learn their own language in an orderly way.  The children of Germans, particularly in the towns, grow accustomed to English in the streets;  their parents speak to them in one language and they answer in the other.  The near kinship of the English and the German helps to make the confusion worse.  If the necessary German word does not occur ot the memory, the next best English one is at once substituted, and many English words are so currently used as to be taken for German.  In all legal and public business English is used solely.  Thus English becomes indispensable to the Germans, and by contact and imitation grows so habitual that even among themselves they speak at times bad German, at times a worse English, for they have the advantage of people of other nationalities, in being masters of no language.  The only opportunity the Germans have of hearing a set discourse in their own language, (reading being out of the question) is at church.  But even there, the minister preaching in German they talk among themselves their bastard jargon.  There are  few isolated spots, for example in the mountains, where the people have less intercourse with English understand nothing but German, but speak none the better."

1784-__  immigration resumes.  Latter immigrants tended to migrate to new land, past the established areas of southeastern Pennsylvania.

1834, Free public schooling established (in English) in Pennsylvania.  Public schools replace parochial schools.

1838, Convention on allowing German to be taught in schools.

"in the city of Lancaster, twenty years ago, you heard nothing but German spoken; now, however, you hardly hear a word of it.  So, in the town of York, twenty years ago, you would hear nothing but the bauren sprache of the country;   but now it has all passed away and you hear nothing but English spoken.  The young Germans don't wish to continue to speak it."

"the day will soon come, in my opinion, and it is also the opinion of many intelligent Germans, when the German language will be unknown in this state."

1858, Lebanon Courier editorial

"Pennsylvania Dutch is no language and is fit for no use.  Even those who use it can scarcely make themselves intelligible to each other... Let it be cast out from family use... with none to mourn its departure."

1861, Henry Harbaugh publishes the famous (among PG) poem "Das alt Schulhaus an der Krick"

1868, Rev. Joseph H Dubbs

"the day for writing Pennsylvania German would seem to be almost past."

c1875, use of Pennsylvania German everyday use estimated at 750,000 people (with 600,000 in Pennsylvania).

1872,  Prof. S.S. Haldeman publishes Pennsylvania Dutch: A Dialect of South German with an Infusion of English. (his orthography was not adopted, but does give an early attempt at reconciling the PG sound values with German characters).  Regional differences are noted but not described.  An attempt at connecting to dialect to specific regions of Germany is begun.

"Pennsylvania Dutch... is known as a dialect which has been corrupted or enriched by English words and idioms under a pure or modified pronunciation, and spoken by native, some of them knowing no other language, but most of them speaking or understanding English.  Many speak both languages vernacularly, with the pure sounds of each...  Children, even when very young, may speak English entirely with their parents, and German with their grandparents...  The males of a family being more abroad than the females, learn English more readily, and while the father, mother, daughters, and servants may speak German, father and son may speak English together naturally...  Foreign Germans who go into the interior usually fall into the local dialect in about a year, and one remarked that he did so that he might not be misunderstood."

1873, E.H. Rauch runs a short-lived dialect magazine, The Pennsylvania Dutchman.

1875, Abraham R Horne releases Pennsylvania German Manual to help the Pennsylvania Germans learn English.

"An experience of a quarter of a century, as a teacher, among the people of Eastern Pennsylvania, in addition to being born and educated a Pennsylvania German, and being compelled to contend with all the disadvantages under which our people labor, in their entire ignorance of the English language, has convinced us, long ago, that the system of education generally pursued among this people admits of very great improvement, as far as it pertains ot language exercises.

In pronunciation and readiness of expression they (the Pennsylvania Germans) labor under great disadvantages, inasmuch as they are required to learn a new language the moment they enter the school room...

The great problem presented for solution, is how shall six to eight thousand inhabitants of Eastern Pennsylvania, to say nothing of those of the other parts of our own State and of other States, to whom English is as much a dead language as Latin and Greek, acquire sufficient knowledge of English to enable them to use that language intelligently? ... To render such assistance to those who speak Pennsylvania German only, as will enable them to more readily to acquire the English, has induced us to prepare this Manual...

In the hope that this Manual may serve as a guide to the study of English, and that it may facilitate the acquisition of the language, a thorough knowledge of which is indispensable to every Pennsylvanian, it is submitted to the public, for use in schools and families."

1879, E.H. Rauch in Pennsylvania Dutch Handbook

"I then commenced the work, an had gathered several thousand Pennsylvania Dutch words and had arranged them alphabetically with translations.  But then I discovered my entire incompetence for such a work, by reason of a lack of sufficient experience to make my spelling of words consistent and uniform.  I became discouraged, and for the time abandoned the work.  Since then I have had ample experience, and believe I have very much improved and simplified the spelling, which is strictly according to English rules.  The German rule would not be practical, because from eighteen to twenty per cent of all the words commonly used in Pennsylvania Dutch are either English or a compound of English and German, and also because all the youth of our state is taught to read English, and comparatively few receive any sort of German education."

"... I have very much improved and simplified the spelling, which is strictly according to English rules ...  Anyone who can read English, can also read Pennsylvania Dutch as I have recorded it...  To read it, no study of orthography is at all necessary, because it is simply English."

1889, Prof. M.D. Learned, Pennsylvania German Dialect, Part I

"To the most casual observer, the Germanized pronunciation of English in many PG localities is noticeable.  So, too, English makes its impression upon the pronunciation of German.  A variety of phonological stages or products is distinguishable.  The two extremes are comparatively pure - Pennsylvania German, on the one hand, and English on the other, each with its own basis of articulation.  A very large number speak both languages with remarkable purity.  Between these extremes there are those who speak both German and English with the German basis of articulation, and those (I should think relatively few) who speak both English and German with the English basis."

1891, Pennsylvania German Society (PGS) is established.  Originally, first class membership was restricted to descendents of German or Swiss emigrants who had arrived in America before 1808.  Thomas C. Zimmerman states at the first meeting:

"... but little can be said in favor of the perpetuation of the Pennsylvania German dialect.... There can be no undue solicitude about its gradual, but ultimate disappearance."

1895, Second edition of Horne's Pennsylvania German Manual released.

1898, William Beidelman

"Pennsylvania German makes no pretensions to any literary merit, and it has none."

1899-1914, Pennsylvania German Magazine

1903,  J.S Stahr in Daniel Miller's Pennsylvania German, A Collection of Pennsylvania German Productions in Poetry and Prose, 2nd Edition

"The dialect still spoken by some of the descendants of the German settlers of Pennsylvania has received a good deal of attention.  On the one hand it has been ridiculed and made light of as a degenerate form of speech, unworthy of serious attention.  On the other hand it has been, perhaps, unduly magnified as capable of rendering service in literature, art, and science.  The fact is that it is simply the perpetuation in varying degrees of purity of the dialects spoken by the common people in the portions of Germany and Switzerland from which the early settlers came to this country.  The German language is noted for its flexibility and the readiness with which it adopts words borrowed from other languages, which may be clothed in a German dress and made to do service as if to the manner born.  English words, in this way, have been readily and freely introduced into the dialect, in many cases to its great disadvantage and disfigurement.  The dialect has also been modified by the coalescence of speech elements where settlers from different regions in Germany settled here in the same community.

To estimate the dialect at its true value it is only necessary to bear in mind the relation which such a form of speech bears to the literary language of which it is a part.  We have an analogous case in the Scottish dialect as a form of English speech.  We are prepared to appreciate the simplicity, beauty and pathos of the dialect as used by Burns and other writers of genius.  The quaint, curious forms of speech are the expression of traits of character typical of the people who use the dialect.  Precisely in the same way the common people of different parts of Germany, in their familiar intercourse, use dialects which are legitimately a form of German speech, retaining words and forms of construction not now used in the high German, or making use of abbreviated forms of words and inflections such as would not be permitted in the grammatical high German.  Literature, Vilmar says, is the expression of the inmost life of a nation.  Language is the form in which literature is clothed, and it is governed by the genius of the nation, and molded by its surroundings and modes of life.  Art, science and all the varied interests which pertain to the national life at large are expressed in the literary language, but those peculiar and ot some extent deeper traits which find expression in the domestic life and the daily walk and conversation of the people are naturally clothed in the form of a dialect.  The Pennsylvania dialect, in this way, effectively expresses the simplicity, honesty, innocence, pathos, and beauty of the daily life of these people, and the experiences which they have made as a part of their history.  There is certainly room, therefore, for the study of such literature as they have produced on this plane.

It is a pity that the dialect has not received more scientific attention;  and it is especially unfortunate that its orthography has not been determined from the standpoint of the grammatical German, so as to secure uniformity in the modes of writing, where hitherto the greatest confusion has prevailed.  The Pennsylvania German Society has put itself on record as opposed to the writing of Pennsylvania German by means of English letters and sounds.  As a form of German speech the letters ought to represent German sounds; but even where this principle is accepted we find that there is great diversity of practice.  The dialect itself varies in different parts of the State, because settlers of these parts came from different portions of Germany.  in any collection of Pennsylvania German poems, etc., it is easy to pick out in a general way the writers that come from particular sections.  But even within these limits there is great diversity of practice;  because, as there is not standard, the writers represent words and sounds as their own ears have apprehended them; and in such cases the ear is apt to be misled.  All that can be done at the present time is to try to approach a common standard as nearly as possible until some one will undertake the task of formulating more fully the principles which should govern the writing of the dialect."

1905, Third edition of Horne's Pennsylvania German Manual released.

1906, Harvey Miller in Pennsylvania German Poems

"In submitting this collection of verses to the general reader the author makes no pretension of having followed the accepted rules governing the expression of the true Pennsylvania German vernacular.  On the other hand, more attention has been paid to expression by English sounds which is calculated to make the work readable to those of our people who have grown away from the original dialect and acquired a diverse pronunciation, as well as to those still adhering to the forms of speech employed by the earlier Pennsylvania Germans."

1910, Forth edition of Horne's Pennsylvania German Manual released.

1911, Introduction to 2nd Volume of Pennsylvania German

"The dialect is German, not English, and all attempts to present it in English form will do violence and injustice to it, and fail to secure honor for it."

1912, an anonymous statement in the Schwenksville Item.

"The old order must pass away, and with it the language"

1917-1919, America involved in World War I.

1917, some public and private schools ban teaching of German.

1922, James O Knauss in Social Conditions Among the Pennsylvania Germans in the Eighteenth Century

"The time seems not far distant when the last vestige of the remarkable Pennsylvania German dialect will have vanished"

1924, Lambert publishes Pennsylvania German Dictionary: Pennsylvania Dutch - English.

1928, T.H. Harter releases Boonastiel, Pennsylvania Dutch, a series of humorous dialect writings.

1933, Pennsylvania German Groundhog Lodges started to deal with the threats on their "German heritage...[and] culture, traditions, and the dialect"

1935, Pennsylvania German Folklore Society established.

1935-1951  Prof. Barba's 'S Pennsylfawnisch Deitsch Eck runs in the Allentown Morning Call

1937, Albert Buffington submits his thesis, A Grammatical and Linguistic Study of Pennsylvania German at Harvard.

1939-1945, America involved in World War II.

1941, 50th Anniversary of the PGS.  It is interesting that the anniversary address makes no reference to the dialect.

1942, Prof J William Frey, A Simple Grammar of Pennsylvania Dutch

"The English system is, at least, a quick but inaccurate method of spelling our dialect and is not better nor more commendable than the naive misspellings found among grammar school pupils and others of little education."

1943, Earl F. Robacker releases Pennsylvania German Literature

"As for the people themselves, it is not to be wondered at that they remained utterly inarticulate through so great a period of time.  For one thing they were to a great extent of peasont stock, and as such had little if any inherent tendency toward literary activity.  Furthermore, engaged as they were in lowly agricultural pursuits which demanded all their time and energy, there was little impetus as yet toward the refinements of life, literary or otherewise."

1948, Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center established at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster.

1949, Pennsylvania German Folklife Festival started in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.

1953, Prof J William Frey

"The only practical way to spell Pennsylvania Dutch is to employ English sound values"

1954, Dr's Buffington and Barba release A Pennsylvania German Grammar (which formalizes the generally accepted spelling in use now).

"This German dialect, popularly referred to as "Pennsylvania Dutch," is spoken by more than 300,000 people in various sections of Pennsylvania,...,
also in Rowan and Cabarrus counties in North Carolina, in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, in parts of Delaware (Dover), on the upper reaches of the Potomac in West Virginia, in Western Maryland, in several of the states in the Middle West, and in Perth and Waterloo counties, Ontario, Canada."

Appendix A, Pennsylvania German as a Foundation for the Study of German.  "The purpose of the following is twofold: 1. to deplore the contemptuous attitude of many high school and college teachers of German toward dialects in general and Pennsylvania German in particular;  2. to suggest how a knowledge of Pennsylvania German can be made to serve as an excellent foundation for the study of Standard German.

The attutude, unfortunately, of a large percentage of high school and college teachers of German is still like that of the eighteenth century grammarian who "believed that th eliterary and upper-class standard language was older and more true to a standard of reason than the local speech-forms, which were due to the ignorance and carelessness of common people."  Too often do teachers of German compare the forms of the dialect with Standard German and then label everything is different as "corrupt" or "Low German."  They call it "Low German" because they believe that the terms "Low German" and "High German" refer to the quality of the German.  I have been amazed to discover a number of high school and even a few college teachers of German who did not know that the Low German dialects are called "Low German" because they are spoken in the lower or nothern part of Germany and that the High German dialects are simply called "High German" because they are spoken in the mountainous regions of the South.  They are completely unaware of the fact that "dialects have always been the feeders of literary language and that the progress of historical linguistics has shown that "the standard language is by no means the oldest type, but has arisen under particular historical conditions, from local dialect.

During the past few years I have heard high school and college teachers of German describe Pennsylvania German as follows: "a form of debased German," "corrupt German," "a mixture of bad German and English," "a mixture of Dutch and English," "Low German," or "Low German with English words mixed in."

Pennsylvania German does not fit any of these descriptions, but is a respectable German dialect (with a small percentage of English loan words) which happens to resemble most closely the dialects spoken today in the eastern half of the Rhenish Palatinate.

It is natural, therefore, in view of the relation of PG (Pennsylvania German) to other German dialects, that students of PG backgrounds who study StG (Standard German) in high school and college should have an enormous advantage over the other students in their class, particularly if they are instructed intelligently and if their knowledge of PG is properly utilized."

1962, PGS releases The Reichard Collection of Early Pennsylvania German Dialogues and Plays.

"In the rough draft of their introductory notes, the Reichards stated that they intended to publish the plays in exactly the same form and spelling in which the authors had written them.  The Reichards' wishes in this matter have been respected, and the plays appear here in their original spelling.  However, where the spelling might give the reader, and particularly the Germanist who is not a native speaker of the dialect, a false picture of the dialect, the words have been re-transcribed according to the system of spelling used in the Buffington-Barba Pennsylvania German Grammar (Allentown, Pa: Schlecter's, 1954) and have either been put in square brackets after the original spelling or, in the case of common or frequently occurring words, have been listed and re-transcribed in the introductory comments of the author's work."

"Linguists, who are not native speakers of the Pennsylvania German dialect, might have preferred to have seen the words of these plays retranscribed according to the system of the International Phonetic Association rather than in the semi-popular Buffington-Barba system of orthography.  However, since undoubtedly most of the people who will be reading these plays will not be scientifically trained linguists or philologists, it has seemed inexpedient to use the phonetic symbols of the IPA.  For the same reason, one has also tried to avoid "frightening" linguistic terminology in describing the sound values of the various letters and combinations of letters used in the Buffington-Barba system of orthography."

An example of trying to use both methods at once from this book: " Ovver [Awwer] won [wann] mer eera [ihre] Awdorn tay [Tee] shtork [schtarrick] mocha [mache] date [deet]!"

1965, Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Society chartered.

1967, Pennsylvania German Folklore Society merged with the Pennsylvania German Society (PGS).

1970, Prof. Albert F Buffington, in Similarities and Dissimilarities between Pennsylvania Germand and the Rhenish Palatinate Dialects writes:

"My investigations have revealed that the percentage of English loan words used today by speakers of Pennsylvania German varies from two to eight per cent, which is not nearly as high as many people estimate.  The average layman is not aware of the linguistic relationship between English and German, and therefore he regards many of the words which are not derivatives but simply cognates as English loan words."

1981, Rev. Richard Druckenbrod releases Mir Lanne Deitsch book and cassettes.

1982, Prof Earl C Haag releases A Pennsylvania German Reader and Grammar.

1983, Prof Don Yoder in The Pennsylvania Germans: Three Centuries of Identity Crisis writes:

"The upswing in dialect institutionalization that begain in the 1930s has continued.  The Pennsylvania German Society demonstrates even more interest in the preservation of the dialect than in may decades past.  The president, the Reverend Richard Druckenbrod, is a native dialect speaker, and a great many of the twenty-four--member board of directors speak, or at least understand, what they like to call die Mudderschprooch, the mother tongue."

1984, Prof Earl C Haag begins his dialect column, The Old Professor.

1985, Prof J William Frey releases A Simple Grammar of Pennsylvania Dutch.  Reprinted based on Lambert's 1924 German orthography.

1987, PGS releases Gilbert's Glotz un Schliwwere, Vol 1 of the PG Dialect Series.

1987, Florence Baver releases Es Bobbelmoul Schreibt (compilation of material from 1953 - 1964).

"In my writings I did not use any rules of grammar but spelled the words as they sounded to my ear.  Many people have express the ease of being able to read it.  I did not mix our dialect with high German vocabulary but wrote as I learned to speak at my mother's knee.  I am most grateful that my parents stuck to our grassroots dialect in their family all their life."

1988, Prof Earl C Haag releases A Pennsylvania German Anthology.  Reprints many poems using Buffington-Barba method.

1990, Prof Earl C Haag releases En Pennsylvaanisch Deitsch Yaahr.

1991, Prof C Richard Beam releases Revised Pennsylania German Dictionary, English to Pennsylvania Dutch.

1993, Elizabeth Wengerd releases Introduction to Pennsylvania German.

1994, The Bible League releases Es Nei Teshtament (The New Testament in Pennsylvania Dutch).

1996, PGS releases Dr Eugene S Stine's Pennsylvania German - English, English - Pennsylvania German Dictionary (first in both directions).  Uses Buffington-Barba method.  This was Vol 2 of the PG Dialect Series.

1997, Prof C Richard Beam releases Pennsylvania German Words in Context.

"... As valuable as Kelz's suggestion is [to use a German Dialect System for PG], we have not attempted to develop such an orthography, which would be of benefit primarily to other scholars.  Our work with the three dialect dictionaries mentioned by Prof. Kelz convinces us that scholars should have no difficulty with the BBB [Buffington-Barba-Beam] orthography.  It is our goal to produce a PGD which will be comprehensive, yet attractively priced to the native speakers who desire a complete PGD and to those language learners who are sophisticated enough to deal with a dictionary based on scholarly principles."

"The editors of the Special Pennsylvania Dutch-English Edition of Es Nei Teshtament, which was published by The Bible League, South Holland, IL in 1994, most unwisely developed their own spelling system which in their words has the features of both English and High German.  Since "the translation procedures and principles" employed in the Bible League translation "are basically those employed by the Wycliffe Bible Translators" and presents a "translation in fluent everyday Pennsylvania Deitsch as is spoken in the home [by the Amish in Ohio]," it does not take into account the profound difference between spoken PG and written, i.e. literary PG.  We need not debate the literary value of the Bible, whether it be in Luther's original (and later frequently revised) or the Authorized (English) version.  The Bible in its many translations is a lighthouse and a monument in Western Civilization.  The very best writers of PD prose and poetry were always sensitive to the difference between what they spoke and what they wrote.  The Introduction to Es Nei Teshtament informs us that it was the translation committees' primary purpose "to adhere as closely as possible to the Textus Receptus Greek text which is closely associated with Luther's (German) and the Authorized (English) versions."  The translation committee set for itself an impossible goal.  It ignored the translations of Ralph Charles Wood, published in 1968, The Four Gospels translated into the Pennsylvania German Dialect in Volume 1 of the Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society.  It ignored the sesquicentennial history of the PG letters.  Unfortunately, the orthography developed for Es Nei Teshtament is "beyond consideration," for it definitely creates more problems than it solves."

c1998, Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Culture Society merges with Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University.

1999, Thomas Beachy releases Pennsylvania Deitsh Dictionary, for use with the Pennsylvania Deitsh New Testament.

2002, Hans un Yarick, A Story of Seven Tricks, Pennsylvania Dutch and English is released.

2002, Stephen Miller and Alice Spayd rerelease Introduction to Pennsylvania German.

2003, John Birmelin's Mammi Gans, Mother Gooses's Nursery Rhymes, Pennsylvania Dutch and English is rereleased.

2004, Alice Spayd releases Loss Uns Deitsch Schwetze audio CD with lessons in the dialect.