Absolutely fascinating! Speaking Swiss German certainly helps understanding PA Dutch. Btw, Swiss German is actually a general term for all the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland. So people would speak Bärndütsch or Züridütsch for instance.
Hi Doug. My Grand mom was Shwyzerdutsch and grew up in Baltimore Maryland. She was second Generation Swiss German and learned Swiss German and English in grade school. She married my English Grand father in 1920 and started a Large Tomato farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in Cambridge.
My dad’s family came from Graubünden region in Switzerland, but migrated to Irtzweiler, Germany and married a German woman and had kids, then immigrated to Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1739. It seems they were Pennsylvania Dutch, but there’s also a theory they were an ethnic group called the Romansch, speakers of a Romance language from the Roman Empire Their surname was originally Riedi
It never ceases to interest me all the varieties of German spoken. I had only two semesters of college German, and picked up Yiddish from Jewish friends in New York (and that has many different pronunciations!). I was stationed years ago In Berks County and got a smattering of PA Dutch there. Now some Amish families from Wayne County, Ohio have settled nearby in western Maine and I enjoy getting better acquainted with them. It is hard getting Standard German out of my head trying to learn more of their version of PA Dutch. The most striking thing of all is their "Dutchie" English accent is almost exactly that I heard from locals in the Oley Valley who speak only English. My own German ancestors left the Palatinate in 1710 to settle the Hudson Valley. I feel that I am reconnecting to my long lost German heritage.
I can trace my family Eash back to the exact Swiss migration you describe. From Bern, to Rheinland, to Pennsylvania, then to Indiana. The oldest records I can find are from the 1500s. Shame nobody in my immediate family speaks the language anymore. I so want to visit the Eashes in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
@Sam - My dad's grandmother's family & others, the Etter, Vertries, Tobermann, etc. families, like yours, came over to the American colonies in the 1600's, and 1700's, before the American Revolution. They came from Switzerland, the Palatinate, Württemberg-Baden, etc. in Northern Germany, generally. They settled first in Lancaster county, PA, then some moved to Bern, North Carolina. Today, we speak English - but it's great to have Doug's channel to teach us our ancestors' language! (Vielen Dank, Doug!) I'm from Illinois, by the way. (The Quartons are from Yorkshire, England, arriving in the U.S. in 1820 - the last of my family tree to cross the Atlantic.)
When I see your videos, I hear so many PA Dutch words I understand bacause they are very similar to swabian but I also realise although i understand the words i don't really use the swabian form of them when talking swabian, so my swabian dialect is much more high germanised than my grandma's. I t makes me really sad, because the dialect is dying out more and more. And I am totally fascinated that the PA Dutch language has survived for so many centuries in America, it's mind blowing.
I am from Allentown PA still live there my parents and grandparents all spoke Pennsylvanian German but spoke English to us kids. I wish I would have learned the language back then. They are all gone now and the language is now of course dying out especially in Lehigh and Berks Counties.
That's a shame. Mother was a Geisinger, born in Center Valley. HER mothers father came from Stuttgart. My entire Ahnentafel is Germanic, what with the Geisinger/Stauffer/Lutz/Huber on Mother's side and Dad having immigrated from the Karlsruhe area of Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1929. Still the only German I learned at home was things like Kinderlieder until I got to a high school class in German.
As a Swiss person, I would never consider Swiss German to be a dialect of German. It’s its own language. Then again, we have a very difficult time with Germans sometimes. Great video though! Btw, Büsi is more kitten then cat, cat would be chatz
I have a very ragged family Bible published in 1805 in Reading that is in Standard German. I never understood why that was because nobody I know of in my family could read German except my cousin and me, having studied it in school. I didn't know the Lutheran liturgy was once conducted in high German.
Hi Doug, I can assure you that Pennsylvania Dutch is not of the Low German branch, not even close. I'm from East Frisia, up north. 🙂 In the more southern parts of Germany the language is often still influenced by the dialects. Friends of mine tell me that Dutch sounds a lot like Pfälzisch. You could be confused for a Pfälzer by other persons, who are not from there. I'm sure that you've been told that many times ☺️. As a German with a little knowledge of English it's easy to understand you most of the time. My question would be, how many speakers are practising the language today? Is it possible to have lessons at school? Is there a heartland?
MIchael, I am fully aware that PD is not of the Low German branch. It comes primarily from Pfälzisch as you mentioned. I have been to the Pfalz many times and can converse there in my dialect without any issues. There are an estimated 400,000 speakers in the USA, the most of whom are Amish/Mennonite. It is estimated closer to 100,000 non-Amish, non-Mennonite speakers. It is not taught in schools, sadly. The majority of speakers are located in south-eastern Pennsylvania with another large concentration in the mid-west (Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin). Check out other videos here on my channel to learn more!
i grew up in the palatine, now live in switzerland, so allow me some comments: 1.) the german dialect that is closest to *Hochdeutsch* is spoken in the Hannover (a city) area in northern Germany. Some people therefore say, the "high" in "High German" refers to the higher latitude of the area where it is spoken. As opposed the "higher grounds" reason you gave. 2.) The swiss "Umlaut" in "Grüezi" is different from the german Umlaut . In german language an "Umlaut" is never followed by another vovel, but stands as a vovel of its own. In swiss german language an "Umlaut" is often follwed by another vovel, and both must be spoken. The swiss people can easily detect a german speaker of "Schwyzerdütsch" if he omits speaking the following vovel, as it sounds somewhat crude to them. The name "Üeli" (high german "Ulli" od "Ullrich" ) is therefore pronounced "Ü-eli", not "Üli". Same goes for "Grüezi" then: *Grü-ezi* . For clarification: there is no pause between the the "Umlaut" and a following vovel. Having both palatine and swiss experience, PA dutch to me has a very familiar melody, and is perfectly understandable except for the special words.
Hannover used to speak plattdeutsch. They don't speak a highgerman dialect but have fully adopted standard german. Meaning the accent of Hannover is considered the "cleanest". Which is a stupid argument in a pluricentric language like german or english to begin with. It's like saying New York accent is the cleanest way to speak english.
in our town, in my generation, almost nobody spoke high german before we started in school. i can trace my family trees from grandmotherside back to 1630. They came from a town named "Kempenich" in Rheinland-Pfalz ;) The childs of these ancestors travelled ~100km to south,founded a new family,and this family childs another ~50km southwest, and then, 1720...3 sons from this particular family, came into my hometown ;)... i can say one side of my family is settled for over 300 years ;)
I just wanted to add something to your explanations. "Hochdeutsch" is referring to the dialects which are/were spoken below the so called "Benrather Line" (Everything south to Berlin). So "make" would be called in low german "maken" and in high german "machen". The modern Standard-German is technically also a high german dialect. This is the reason why standard german is also often called Hochdeutsch in the german speaking countries, though today it means the high language in the sense of a Standard German. Swiss german is also a High-German Dialect. Technically Swiss german doesn‘t really exist and is just a term for the high alemanic and highest alemanic dialects spoken in switzerland.
Well, Pfälzisch is close to Hunrücker Platt, too. The terms "high" and "low" don't have one single meaning, but have meanings based on context and historical usage. "Hochdeutsch" as the name for the dialects spoken in the southern uplands and in the Alps is also referred to as "Oberdeutsch", in which "ober" would translate to "highland", just as in referring to the Scots from their mountainous areas as "Highlanders" (and those in the lowlands bordering England proper are "Lowlanders")
Gude, seit ein paar Tagen interessiert mich PA Dutch und aber auch die deutschsprachige Community in Brasilien, die vor allem Hunsrücker Platt sprechen. Ich finde es toll, dass sich die Sprachen bisher erhalten haben und ich hoffe, dass ihr es auch weiter schafft - hier in Deutschland sterben die Dialekte leider mehr und mehr aus...
The "High" in "High German" is not related to geographical height. Standard German is quite close to the German spoken in the region of the city of Hanover. This is quite north in the flat, low elevation part of Germany. It is more likely that the "high" is related to "higher education". AFAIK: In Switzerland standard German is refereed to as "Schriftdeutsch", "written German". This is because Swiss German is mostly a spoken language, rarely written (if at all). The written language of Switzerland is still Standard German. Kind of a diglossia. An other difference in today's Palatinate dialect and PA-dutch is the french influence. At the time of the French Revolution and Napoleon, Palatinate was occupied by the french. Even today we Palatinates walk on the Trottoir, not on a Gehweg or Bürgersteig. We sit on a Chaiselongue, we have a Portemonnaie, eat a Boulette, ... All of these words don't exist in PA-dutch, as they came into the palatinate dialect after the ancestors of PA-dutch left.
My Grandfather's family immigrated from Prussia. They spoke Low German. Grandpa always explained what Doug has said in this video. Low German was spoken in the North, in the lowlands, and High in the Mountains to the South.
No, High German is related to the geographical height, and standard German was mainly created oriented at High-German Dialects but Luther also took some stuff from others. And you're mixing up something with Hanover. Standard German is actually not close at all to the native dialect from Hanover as that dialect was a Low German dialect BUT the way the people from Hanover spoke the newly created Standard German was the way it became popular in all of Germany, that made Standard German even more mixed up as it was based on mainly High-German and Middle-German dialects BUT the accent how it was spoken came from the Low German speakers from Hanover. And "Schriftdeutsch" is a way to refer to Standard German but the usage of this word is quite rare, "High-German" is the main way to refer to Standard German.
Dear Doug, dear other viewers I would like to try to explain how it relates to High German and Low German. In the Middle Ages, the language was assigned to the area in which the speaker presumably lived. This resulted in the classification that people from the north of Germany, where the country is usually not so mountainous, were referred to as "flat" i.e. flatlanders and the people who came from the south of Germany as highlanders. This explained the division of High German in the south and Low German in the north in the past. Nowadays, standard German is more of a standard that makes it possible, for example, if a Hamburg resident wants to talk to a Munich resident, to converse in a generally understandable language. Today's standard German is more to be understood as a generalized language that every German learns in school. It is located above the dialects and helps to eliminate language difficulties. I don't know if that's exactly how it is, but in my opinion you could see it that way. I hope it helps a little bit. Jokish Fun Fact: the Swiss People do also write in High German like the Germans and the Austrians, and the Swiss Dialect is just used for speech and talking.
Don't forget that the "standard German" you describe was essentially created by Martin Luther, using the dialect used by the Saxon electoral chancellery. In using the "local" dialect, the dialect he read around him as he was translating Scripture, and then, in distributing the translated Bible throughout the German lands, he really established a "common" or "standard" language, a "lingua teutonica" that relieved differences between the dialects. And now I remember a line from Thoma's "Lausbubengeschichten", to describe the mother of a Prussian family that had come to the town on vacation, "Sie spitzte sich den Mund, damit es hochdeutsch wurde."
I worked for a swiss company for many years, which is based in Zurich. Swiss German in CH? My external view is, there is not such a thing. It depends on regions or valleys. After a while I was able to understand Zuri-dütsch (spoken in Zurich). When I was in the Bern area, I was lost. Especially by people speaking "swiss-german" from the Berner Oberland! This was weired: I did not even understand a single word or syllable! For me it was just a SOUND.
"Erdapfel" is borrowed from the French, "pomme de terre" "ground apple". But it's akin to the native German for strawberry, "Erdbeer". And "Kartoffel" eventually goes back via Spanish to the Indian word, "batata", just as our "potato" does.
And Grummbier is the dialect form of Grundbirne---ground pear. BTW, the German dialect form is Grummbeer, which may lead one to parse it as Grundbeere (ground berry), which would be wrong. BTW2, Erd is cognate to earth, just like Grund is to ground.
Thank you Doug for the information about the background of Pennsylvania Dutch language. It was very interesting. I am Pennsylvania Dutch I don’t speak it but my grandparents did. My mother understands it but won’t speak it and I think it’s really sad that we’re losing our heritage. I tried asking my grandmother to teach me. But she would tell me horse and buggy and when you don’t use it often you forget..
Good explanation Doug! For all the language nerds, like me ;-) there is this resource which shows how the traditional German dialects existed throughout the region of central Europe: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontinentalwestgermanisches_Dialektkontinuum, showing how they are grouped into upper, middle and lower German dialects, separated by lines where the pronounciation of key words changed. The page is in German and has no English translation, but if you click on one of the 3 "oberdeutschen, mitteldeutschen, niederdeutschen" in the second line, it brings you to German pages which do have English translations, describing the dialects in each of the 3 regions
Douglas, several months ago I had a conversation with a friend who is Amish and we were talking about PA Dutch. He told me that the Amish learn to read German is school and their Bible is in German. He also told me that they all speak PA Dutch but they cannot read PA Dutch writing which leads me to ask. Do you know what version of German they learn to read and what version is their Bible printed in?
Absolutely fascinating! Speaking Swiss German certainly helps understanding PA Dutch. Btw, Swiss German is actually a general term for all the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland. So people would speak Bärndütsch or Züridütsch for instance.
Hi Doug. My Grand mom was Shwyzerdutsch and grew up in Baltimore Maryland. She was second Generation Swiss German and learned Swiss German and English in grade school. She married my English Grand father in 1920 and started a Large Tomato farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in Cambridge.
My dad’s family came from Graubünden region in Switzerland, but migrated to Irtzweiler, Germany and married a German woman and had kids, then immigrated to Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1739. It seems they were Pennsylvania Dutch, but there’s also a theory they were an ethnic group called the Romansch, speakers of a Romance language from the Roman Empire
Their surname was originally Riedi
It never ceases to interest me all the varieties of German spoken. I had only two semesters of college German, and picked up Yiddish from Jewish friends in New York (and that has many different pronunciations!). I was stationed years ago In Berks County and got a smattering of PA Dutch there. Now some Amish families from Wayne County, Ohio have settled nearby in western Maine and I enjoy getting better acquainted with them. It is hard getting Standard German out of my head trying to learn more of their version of PA Dutch. The most striking thing of all is their "Dutchie" English accent is almost exactly that I heard from locals in the Oley Valley who speak only English. My own German ancestors left the Palatinate in 1710 to settle the Hudson Valley. I feel that I am reconnecting to my long lost German heritage.
@@jadedone4237 No one left in my family speaks PA Dutch, but most are still Dutchified.
I can trace my family Eash back to the exact Swiss migration you describe. From Bern, to Rheinland, to Pennsylvania, then to Indiana. The oldest records I can find are from the 1500s. Shame nobody in my immediate family speaks the language anymore. I so want to visit the Eashes in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
@Sam - My dad's grandmother's family & others, the Etter, Vertries, Tobermann, etc. families, like yours, came over to the American colonies in the 1600's, and 1700's, before the American Revolution. They came from Switzerland, the Palatinate, Württemberg-Baden, etc. in Northern Germany, generally. They settled first in Lancaster county, PA, then some moved to Bern, North Carolina. Today, we speak English - but it's great to have Doug's channel to teach us our ancestors' language! (Vielen Dank, Doug!) I'm from Illinois, by the way. (The Quartons are from Yorkshire, England, arriving in the U.S. in 1820 - the last of my family tree to cross the Atlantic.)
Great video! My ancestors were Swiss German, Mennonite. Came over due to religious persecution. I’ve wondered how they fit in. Now I know!
Inäbnit, Joder or Hochstettler?:-)
They were not Swiss German, but German Swiss
When I see your videos, I hear so many PA Dutch words I understand bacause they are very similar to swabian but I also realise although i understand the words i don't really use the swabian form of them when talking swabian, so my swabian dialect is much more high germanised than my grandma's. I
t makes me really sad, because the dialect is dying out more and more. And I am totally fascinated that the PA Dutch language has survived for so many centuries in America, it's mind blowing.
Hosch reachd 👍
I am from Allentown PA still live there my parents and grandparents all spoke Pennsylvanian German but spoke English to us kids. I wish I would have learned the language back then. They are all gone now and the language is now of course dying out especially in Lehigh and Berks Counties.
That's a shame. Mother was a Geisinger, born in Center Valley. HER mothers father came from Stuttgart. My entire Ahnentafel is Germanic, what with the Geisinger/Stauffer/Lutz/Huber on Mother's side and Dad having immigrated from the Karlsruhe area of Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1929. Still the only German I learned at home was things like Kinderlieder until I got to a high school class in German.
Allemanic is also spoken in Vorarlberg Austria
As a Swiss person, I would never consider Swiss German to be a dialect of German. It’s its own language. Then again, we have a very difficult time with Germans sometimes. Great video though!
Btw, Büsi is more kitten then cat, cat would be chatz
I have a very ragged family Bible published in 1805 in Reading that is in Standard German. I never understood why that was because nobody I know of in my family could read German except my cousin and me, having studied it in school. I didn't know the Lutheran liturgy was once conducted in high German.
Büssi, not to be confused with Bussi, a kiss
My mom's dad's family came from Germany (Trier area [1600's], before that was from Zurich).
Hi Doug, I can assure you that Pennsylvania Dutch is not of the Low German branch, not even close. I'm from East Frisia, up north. 🙂 In the more southern parts of Germany the language is often still influenced by the dialects. Friends of mine tell me that Dutch sounds a lot like Pfälzisch. You could be confused for a Pfälzer by other persons, who are not from there. I'm sure that you've been told that many times ☺️. As a German with a little knowledge of English it's easy to understand you most of the time. My question would be, how many speakers are practising the language today? Is it possible to have lessons at school? Is there a heartland?
MIchael, I am fully aware that PD is not of the Low German branch. It comes primarily from Pfälzisch as you mentioned. I have been to the Pfalz many times and can converse there in my dialect without any issues. There are an estimated 400,000 speakers in the USA, the most of whom are Amish/Mennonite. It is estimated closer to 100,000 non-Amish, non-Mennonite speakers. It is not taught in schools, sadly. The majority of speakers are located in south-eastern Pennsylvania with another large concentration in the mid-west (Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin). Check out other videos here on my channel to learn more!
In austria they say erdapfel and in Dutch we say Aardappel or erdepel in Brabantin
Awesome video. This helped a lot. Gruess us dä Schwiiz
i grew up in the palatine, now live in switzerland, so allow me some comments: 1.) the german dialect that is closest to *Hochdeutsch* is spoken in the Hannover (a city) area in northern Germany. Some people therefore say, the "high" in "High German" refers to the higher latitude of the area where it is spoken. As opposed the "higher grounds" reason you gave. 2.) The swiss "Umlaut" in "Grüezi" is different from the german Umlaut . In german language an "Umlaut" is never followed by another vovel, but stands as a vovel of its own. In swiss german language an "Umlaut" is often follwed by another vovel, and both must be spoken. The swiss people can easily detect a german speaker of "Schwyzerdütsch" if he omits speaking the following vovel, as it sounds somewhat crude to them. The name "Üeli" (high german "Ulli" od "Ullrich" ) is therefore pronounced "Ü-eli", not "Üli". Same goes for "Grüezi" then: *Grü-ezi* . For clarification: there is no pause between the the "Umlaut" and a following vovel. Having both palatine and swiss experience, PA dutch to me has a very familiar melody, and is perfectly understandable except for the special words.
Hannover used to speak plattdeutsch. They don't speak a highgerman dialect but have fully adopted standard german. Meaning the accent of Hannover is considered the "cleanest".
Which is a stupid argument in a pluricentric language like german or english to begin with.
It's like saying New York accent is the cleanest way to speak english.
in our town, in my generation, almost nobody spoke high german before we started in school. i can trace my family trees from grandmotherside back to 1630. They came from a town named "Kempenich" in Rheinland-Pfalz ;) The childs of these ancestors travelled ~100km to south,founded a new family,and this family childs another ~50km southwest, and then, 1720...3 sons from this particular family, came into my hometown ;)... i can say one side of my family is settled for over 300 years ;)
I just wanted to add something to your explanations. "Hochdeutsch" is referring to the dialects which are/were spoken below the so called "Benrather Line" (Everything south to Berlin). So "make" would be called in low german "maken" and in high german "machen". The modern Standard-German is technically also a high german dialect. This is the reason why standard german is also often called Hochdeutsch in the german speaking countries, though today it means the high language in the sense of a Standard German.
Swiss german is also a High-German Dialect. Technically Swiss german doesn‘t really exist and is just a term for the high alemanic and highest alemanic dialects spoken in switzerland.
Well, Pfälzisch is close to Hunrücker Platt, too. The terms "high" and "low" don't have one single meaning, but have meanings based on context and historical usage.
"Hochdeutsch" as the name for the dialects spoken in the southern uplands and in the Alps is also referred to as "Oberdeutsch", in which "ober" would translate to "highland", just as in referring to the Scots from their mountainous areas as "Highlanders" (and those in the lowlands bordering England proper are "Lowlanders")
Gude, seit ein paar Tagen interessiert mich PA Dutch und aber auch die deutschsprachige Community in Brasilien, die vor allem Hunsrücker Platt sprechen. Ich finde es toll, dass sich die Sprachen bisher erhalten haben und ich hoffe, dass ihr es auch weiter schafft - hier in Deutschland sterben die Dialekte leider mehr und mehr aus...
The "High" in "High German" is not related to geographical height. Standard German is quite close to the German spoken in the region of the city of Hanover. This is quite north in the flat, low elevation part of Germany. It is more likely that the "high" is related to "higher education".
AFAIK: In Switzerland standard German is refereed to as "Schriftdeutsch", "written German". This is because Swiss German is mostly a spoken language, rarely written (if at all). The written language of Switzerland is still Standard German. Kind of a diglossia.
An other difference in today's Palatinate dialect and PA-dutch is the french influence. At the time of the French Revolution and Napoleon, Palatinate was occupied by the french. Even today we Palatinates walk on the Trottoir, not on a Gehweg or Bürgersteig. We sit on a Chaiselongue, we have a Portemonnaie, eat a Boulette, ... All of these words don't exist in PA-dutch, as they came into the palatinate dialect after the ancestors of PA-dutch left.
My Grandfather's family immigrated from Prussia. They spoke Low German. Grandpa always explained what Doug has said in this video. Low German was spoken in the North, in the lowlands, and High in the Mountains to the South.
No, High German is related to the geographical height, and standard German was mainly created oriented at High-German Dialects but Luther also took some stuff from others.
And you're mixing up something with Hanover. Standard German is actually not close at all to the native dialect from Hanover as that dialect was a Low German dialect BUT the way the people from Hanover spoke the newly created Standard German was the way it became popular in all of Germany, that made Standard German even more mixed up as it was based on mainly High-German and Middle-German dialects BUT the accent how it was spoken came from the Low German speakers from Hanover.
And "Schriftdeutsch" is a way to refer to Standard German but the usage of this word is quite rare, "High-German" is the main way to refer to Standard German.
we too in Switzerland (Deutschschweiz): Trottoir, Portemonnaie, Salut, Velo usw.
A like, especially for my Susquehanna University, my alma mater, sweat shirt. Still in love with Selinsgrove after all these years.
Dear Doug, dear other viewers
I would like to try to explain how it relates to High German and Low German. In the Middle Ages, the language was assigned to the area in which the speaker presumably lived. This resulted in the classification that people from the north of Germany, where the country is usually not so mountainous, were referred to as "flat" i.e. flatlanders and the people who came from the south of Germany as highlanders. This explained the division of High German in the south and Low German in the north in the past.
Nowadays, standard German is more of a standard that makes it possible, for example, if a Hamburg resident wants to talk to a Munich resident, to converse in a generally understandable language. Today's standard German is more to be understood as a generalized language that every German learns in school. It is located above the dialects and helps to eliminate language difficulties. I don't know if that's exactly how it is, but in my opinion you could see it that way.
I hope it helps a little bit. Jokish
Fun Fact: the Swiss People do also write in High German like the Germans and the Austrians, and the Swiss Dialect is just used for speech and talking.
Don't forget that the "standard German" you describe was essentially created by Martin Luther, using the dialect used by the Saxon electoral chancellery. In using the "local" dialect, the dialect he read around him as he was translating Scripture, and then, in distributing the translated Bible throughout the German lands, he really established a "common" or "standard" language, a "lingua teutonica" that relieved differences between the dialects.
And now I remember a line from Thoma's "Lausbubengeschichten", to describe the mother of a Prussian family that had come to the town on vacation, "Sie spitzte sich den Mund, damit es hochdeutsch wurde."
As far as Swiss is concerned: formal letters are in standard German, but informal communication and social media is in Swiss dialect.
Interesting video, Doug, as always!!
Hi Doug was very interesting clip keep up the good work always learning something new Mach s gut
Es isch ächt faziniärärd wiä s Deytsch vo eysnä Vorfahre so uberduiräd hed, in Übersee.
Griäss us Nidwalden, Schweiz 😉 ✌️
I worked for a swiss company for many years, which is based in Zurich.
Swiss German in CH? My external view is, there is not such a thing. It depends on regions or valleys.
After a while I was able to understand Zuri-dütsch (spoken in Zurich).
When I was in the Bern area, I was lost. Especially by people speaking "swiss-german" from the Berner Oberland!
This was weired: I did not even understand a single word or syllable! For me it was just a SOUND.
"Erdapfel" is borrowed from the French, "pomme de terre" "ground apple". But it's akin to the native German for strawberry, "Erdbeer". And "Kartoffel" eventually goes back via Spanish to the Indian word, "batata", just as our "potato" does.
In Dutch we say "aardappel"
And Grummbier is the dialect form of Grundbirne---ground pear. BTW, the German dialect form is Grummbeer, which may lead one to parse it as Grundbeere (ground berry), which would be wrong. BTW2, Erd is cognate to earth, just like Grund is to ground.
Thank you Doug for the information about the background of Pennsylvania Dutch language. It was very interesting. I am Pennsylvania Dutch I don’t speak it but my grandparents did. My mother understands it but won’t speak it and I think it’s really sad that we’re losing our heritage. I tried asking my grandmother to teach me. But she would tell me horse and buggy and when you don’t use it often you forget..
Dankä villmol👍😊
Good explanation Doug! For all the language nerds, like me ;-) there is this resource which shows how the traditional German dialects existed throughout the region of central Europe: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontinentalwestgermanisches_Dialektkontinuum, showing how they are grouped into upper, middle and lower German dialects, separated by lines where the pronounciation of key words changed. The page is in German and has no English translation, but if you click on one of the 3 "oberdeutschen, mitteldeutschen, niederdeutschen" in the second line, it brings you to German pages which do have English translations, describing the dialects in each of the 3 regions
THIS WEEKS IS THE 2ND MONTH FOR ME TO LEARN ALL THINGS ABOUT AMISH FROM RUclips.........GOD ( LORD JESUS CHRIST ) BLESS YOU AMEN.
Gut erklärt
Grüße aus dem badischen
Nun pfälzisch ist eine Mischung aus allemanisch und fränkische.
Dazu viele lehnwörter aus der megalitische Sprache.
Grüße
I speak Bavarian Dutch German and some Gothic and Old English like Old Norse
The most elegant German I have heard is from the North.
Do you use discord ? it would be an aer for me to talk to you via Discord
Douglas, several months ago I had a conversation with a friend who is Amish and we were talking about PA Dutch. He told me that the Amish learn to read German is school and their Bible is in German. He also told me that they all speak PA Dutch but they cannot read PA Dutch writing which leads me to ask. Do you know what version of German they learn to read and what version is their Bible printed in?
Schwyz refers to the region of Schwyz, not the country. The country would be called Schwiiz.
There is 2 swiss german
Räf