The Pennsylvania German Dialect |
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Common terms and phrases
ablauting adverbs apfelwein auxiliary with gǝsucht Berks County borrowed buch consonant Crefeld dative declension dētǝ dǝr dər diphthong Dutch ebbǝs ellǝs English Mixture English words fər Frankish genitive Germanic g Germantown gǝnumə Goth gūt Hald Haldeman Horne i-umlaut jōr juscht Kluge Lancaster Lancaster County medial Mennonites mǝr mər Moravians nasal nëmə Neut neuter Northampton County Note 1.-The nouns number of German older Original Germanic P. G. employs P. G. represents Palatinate participle Pennsylvania Dutch Pennsylvania German Pfälzer Plur plural prepositions pronoun pronunciation province Rauch regular form regularly Rhine Palatinate Scotch-Irish settled settlement settlers Sing sinn speech spirant Suabian subjunctive syllable syntax township umlaut verb voiceless vowel vulg weer weerrə gənumə Westr
Popular passages
Page 102 - And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate the one against the other...
Page 14 - The conclusions of the introductory chapter show clearly that the speech elements transplanted to Pennsylvania were preeminently those from the Rhenish Palatinate. The chapters on phonology and morphology will substantiate the fact that Pennsylvania German, in borrowing from English to enrich its vocabulary, has by no means forfeited its birthright and become a pitiable hybrid of bad German and worse English, but, on the contrary, has perpetuated in their pristine vigor the characteristics of its...
Page 3 - Berks County, was founded and continues to be one of the strongest German centres of the State. Dr. Egle's words are fitting here: " Reading, at the erection of Berks County (1752), contained three hundred and seventy-eight inhabitants. The original settlers were principally Germans from Wiirtemberg and the Palatinate, with a few Friends under the patronage of Penn. Most of the inhabitants being Germans, they gave character to the language and customs. For many years the German tongue was almost...
Page 11 - ... Eden (Pequea-Thal), Lancaster County, we find Alemannic elements from Zurich, Bern, Schaffhausen, and possibly a considerable mixture of "Rheinpfalzisch" which latter, with probably many other dialectic varieties, came also with the Dunkards (Tunker) to the regions along the Conestoga and Muhlbach, Lancaster County, and also to Skippack in Oley, Berks County. The few Dutch that settled near Pottsville, Schuylkill County, brought Low German elements, as did those also in Pike township, Berks County.'...
Page 104 - ... kaffeemiihlen (cf. Haldeman, pp. 30 ff. for this and similar selections).1 (2) The insufficiency of the colloquial German vocabulary for the emergencies of the new environment. The newly arrived German met many objects for the first time and learned to recognize them by their English names, which were much better known to him than the German equivalent. Among such the following may be mentioned : fens (NHG zaun, mauer...
Page 23 - NE milk) ; for the second syllable cf. §15; PG dik (NHG dick, NE thick); PG gift, fisch, fingar, finne (NHG gift, fisch, finger, finden, N. E. gift, fish, finger, find). (K) Germanic i lengthened to NHG ie. PG kisal (N. HG kiesel, NE flint, pebble, lex. NE sleet) ; cf. RP ries (N.), MHG kisel, OHG chisil; PG sib (NHG sieb, NE sieve, but A.-S. sife) ; PG siva (NHG sieben, NE seven), RP siwwe (N.) ; PG rigal (NHG riegel, NE rail, lex. also bolt) ; PG sigal (NHG siegel, NE seal), RP Siegel (N.) ; PG...
Page 62 - I. mar sin 2. du bischt 2. ir sin, or seid (H. 41), (dar sint) 3. «er is, isch (ischt) 3. si sin. Note i. — The form is may be considered the more general form, as it can be heard in almost every locality. It is the regular form, for example, in the writings of Rachel Bahn, of York County; of Zimmerman, of Reading, Berks County; of the Allentown " Kalenner " (poems by Keller) ; of Home, of Allentown ; of Rauch, of Mauch Chunk. The form isch has been referred to the Mennonites and Dunkers, who...