This week's topic was language and just for walking in the door I got a free copy of German Word – American Voices, a CD full of examples of German being spoken around the United States. The presenter was Professor Joe Salmons, whom I've noted previously for his work with the Dictionary of Regional English. Here he is in a characteristically Teutonic pose.
Prof. Salmons divided his presentation into four parts:
1) Kinds of German brought over and used here
2) The shift to English
3) The learning of English
4) Influence on our English
He began by showing us this map of areas in Europe where German speakers were found c. 1900:
It shows the various German dialects and, since Germans immigrated from all of these areas to Wisconsin, the German speakers of our state have reflected this diversity of language. (For a larger version of the map, head here. It also features rollovers so you can find out where the various German dialects here in the States originated.) In simplistic terms, the green area features dialects of "Low German" or "Plattdeutsch" while the yellow and brown areas feature dialects known as "High German" or "Hochdeutsch". Prof. Salmons described Low German as not being "proper" German. By contrast, High German would be the dialect used in churches, government, and other public institutions. It's the standard incarnation the language.
Advancing his PowerPoint presentation, he gave us another map.
This one shows the dialects of German spoken in Wisconsin. For example, Pomeranian is prevalent in Marathon County whereas areas west of Madison feature mainly Kölsch. (Again, you can find a larger version of this map at the MKI website which is interactive and has links to sound clips of people speaking in the various dialects.) Prof. Salmons played some clips of Wisconsin German speakers for us. I was able to understand bits and pieces of what they were saying excepting one woman who just spoke incredibly fast. Included was one clip of Pennsylvania Dutch because Wisconsin's Amish and Mennonite populations still speak it and teach it to their children.
Prof. Salmons closed out the first part of his lecture by noting that German speakers in Wisconsin knew both High German and another dialect. He said that, when asked what dialect of German they speak, they would usually give something other than High German. However, in conversation, they would often drift into the standard dialect.
As he turned towards the topic of English and how German speakers adopted it, Prof. Salmons gave a brief overview of German immigration to Wisconsin. Some of this was covered in the previous lecture so I won't go into too much detail. But I will note some interesting statistics he gave.
Around 1900, there were approximately half a million German speakers in Wisconsin, which was about 30% of the state's population. This number dropped to about 60,000 in 1990 or 1.3%. This dramatic shift took place in the course of a century which is remarkably swift in terms of language. So how and why did the shift occur?
We were offered three common reasons. First was the idea that people simply adapt to their new surroundings – "Time takes care of the question of language," as Nils Haugen once said. The second was that there is simply no rhyme or reason to the process. Lastly was the oft-cited "thunderclap from a cloudless sky" – World War I. Anti-German sentiment ran high so German-Americans adopted English to be less like the enemy abroad. However, Prof. Salmons noted that the shift to English was well underway prior to the war.
So he offered a fourth reason which had to do with broad changes in the structure of communities. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a decline in the autonomy of local institutions such as churches and the public schools. An example given was how, prior to this time, communities determined how the public schools operated. With the rise of state boards of education, mandates were handed down that directed all schools teach in English.
Prof. Salmons showed that19th century Wisconsin was awash in German-language newspapers and periodicals. By the early 20th century, however, the newspaper industry had changed all around the country and those in Wisconsin succumbed to the new environment. They just couldn't do small runs just as newspapers around the country were finding out the same thing. Many of them consolidated before going out of print.
Next on the docket was a bit of myth-busting. Prof. Salmons gave a quote from James Crawford's book At War With Diversity which read, "Today's immigrants refuse to learn English, unlike the good old immigrants of yesterday…" This was followed by a letter to the editor of the Wisconsin State Journal which objected to Spanish-speaking students reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in their native tongue. In it the author said essentially the same thing as Crawford, namely, that in the good old days, immigrants adopted English quickly, unlike Latinos today and that English should be this country's official language.
In his rebuttal, Prof. Salmons cited the work of Calvin Veltman which demonstrates that Spanish-speaking immigrants today are quick to adopt English. He continued by showing data from the 1910 census. It was revealed that many Wisconsin-born people spoke only German. Indeed, there were third generation Americans still speaking the language of their grandparents exclusively. A whopping 24% of the population of Hustisford (about 50 miles NW of Madison) spoke only Deutsch in 1910.
Another myth was addressed, namely that those who can't speak English in America are relegated to the margins of society. Again, the 1910 census says differently. Of those in Wisconsin who spoke only German, there were blacksmiths, tailors, merchants, teachers, clergy, et al.
Considering that it's likely that English was over-reported in the census, you can see that the immigrants back in the good-ol' days weren't in a big hurry to learn English and those that didn't were part of the mainstream.
The last topic that Prof. Salmons addressed was how German influenced our English here in Wisconsin. Firstly he gave examples of words such as brat (for bratwurst) and then noted the prevalence here of the game Sheepshead or Shafskopf.
In addition to words, he examined grammatical structures and gave examples from Peter & Lou Berryman ("Oh yah hey") and others such as "Give me a beer once" and "As long as you're up yet". Prof. Salmons said that German uses "modal particles" to soften the language. So words like mal (meaning once) are added. E.g. - the German translation of "Come here" is Komm mal her. This literally means "come here once" – the mal is added to soften things.
Along these same lines, we have the general English sentence "He's coming along." In Wisconsin, it's not uncommon to hear "He's coming with." A German speaker would say Er kommt mit - mit meaning "with". While this is often held to be evidence of the influence of German on Wisconsin English, it should be noted that other languages practice this as well – Yiddish, Norwegian, etc.
This ended Prof. Salmons formal presentation and he opened the floor to questions. Here are a few tidbits gleaned from them:
1) Regarding word order, it is generally new immigrants who make mistakes such as "Throw mama down the stairs a kiss" and "The streetcar turns the corner around".
2) German is a very direct culture with "ganz genau!" (exactly!) often being added at the end of sentences these days.
3) German newspapers are and have been very uniform, much more so than speech. They are usually a reduction of regional variations and you have to go back a long time to find German newspapers in the U.S. which give away the dialect of the community in which it was printed.
4) With regards to Milwaukee, the learning of English was faster there than in the rest of Wisconsin yet there were robust German-speaking communities there into the 1950s.
5) A group of people studying the dialects of the UP (that's Michigan's Upper Peninsula) have discovered some vowel pronunciation that is exactly like Finnish. This discovery apparently sent one researcher into fits of ecstasy.
The final lecture next week concerns music and will be given by Prof. Jim Leary.
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