"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

by Phebe Earle Gibbons

He reigns to-day, he reigns to-morrow,

He reigns too in America.”

Various estimates have been given me of the numbers speaking the dialect in different parts of our State. Thus a lawyer in York County, beyond the Susquehanna, says that there are still witnesses coming to court, natives of the county, who do not speak English, and whose testimony is translated by an interpreter. Crossing the Susquehanna easterly, we come to my own county, Lancaster. My own neighborhood, near the Pennsylvania Central Railway, is much Anglicized. The southern part of the county is greatly “English,” but as I was riding lately in the north, on the railway which connects Reading in Berks, to Columbia in Lancaster, a conductor estimated that along the forty-six miles of the railway about nine out of ten of the travellers can speak German. In Reading I am told in a lawyer’s office that three-fourths of the women who come in to do business speak “Pennsylvania Dutch.” My tavern-keeper says that many come to his house, born in the county, who cannot speak English. Another lawyer estimates that of the country people born in Berks County, three-fourths would rather speak Pennsylvania German than English; and another thinks that in the rural districts of the county from one-half to two-thirds prefer to speak the dialect, although perhaps half of these can talk English. Another person says that when there is a circus or county fair at Reading, which draws the farmers’ families, you hardly hear English, for the store-keepers accommodate themselves to the visitors. One of my friends, born in Germany, says that she saw at a forge in Berks County colored people, men, women, and children, that could not speak English; they spoke Pennsylvania German. If, now, we pass northerly to Lehigh County, we come to “Pennsylvania Dutch” land par excellence, for in no other county of our State are the people so nearly of unmixed German origin. I am told of Allentown, the county seat, with a population of about nineteen thousand, that Pennsylvania German, “Dutch,” is the prevailing language. A lawyer estimates that more than one-fourth of its inhabitants do not speak English if they can help it, and a considerable number in town, born in this region, do not speak English at all. Of the county, a physician says that three-fourths of the people speak Pennsylvania German more easily than English, and another that nearly all the country people would rather speak the dialect.

East of Lehigh lies another very German county, Northampton. The county town Easton is, however, connected with New Jersey by a bridge over the Delaware, and Easton is to a very considerable degree Anglicized. Easton is the seat of a great Presbyterian institution, Lafayette College; yet a professor tells me that the Presbyterian Church cannot overcome the Lutheran and Reformed element. The Lutheran Church, he says, is very strong. Of the same county I was told some years ago that the people generally spoke German, except along the New Jersey line, and that outside of Easton and Bethlehem three-fourths of the people are Reformed and Lutheran. At the same period, about nine years ago, a physician told me that the public-school teachers in the rural parts must necessarily speak German for the children to obtain ideas, or must interpret English to them. These counties, with Lebanon, six in number, are the great German ones, beginning with York on the southwest, and ending with Northampton on the northeast; but the Pennsylvania German population is by no means confined to these counties. It spreads along the cultivated soil like grass. Adjoining Berks and Lehigh is Montgomery, the northern part of which is very “Dutch.” Here I visited a preacher of one of our plain sects, whose great-grandfather came from Germany. But he, himself, speaks very little or no English, and he employed the ticket-agent to answer an English letter. One son and his children live under the same roof, making six generations in Pennsylvania; but the whole household uses the German dialect.

It must not be supposed of a large part of the Pennsylvania Germans that they are unacquainted with pure German. A simple and pure German they find in the Bible and in their German newspapers, of which there are several, altogether enjoying a large circulation. Also, at least in the Reformed and Lutheran Churches, there are many ministers who preach in pure German. Yet, when the minister goes to dine with a parishioner, they generally speak the dialect. The minister who speaks this to his flock is more popular. They could understand the higher German; but they say of him when he speaks the dialect, “Er iss en gemehner Mann” (He is a common, plain man, or one who doesn’t put on airs.)

A gentleman in Lebanon, born in Berks, told me that he should be pleased to speak German as it is in the Bible. “But,” he added, “as soon as a person begins to use pure German here among his acquaintances the Pennsylvania Dutch will say, ‘Des iss ane Fratz-Hans,’ or a high-flown fellow; or, as it may be rendered, ‘He’s full of conceit.’”

One of the most amusing things in the dialect is the adopting and transforming of English words, as “Ich habe en Prediger entgetscht,”—I have engaged a preacher; “Do hat der Eirisch gemehnt er wott triede,”—the Irishman thought he would treat; “Sie henn en guter Tietscher katt, der hot die Kinner vieler Leut getietscht,”—they had a good teacher, who taught the children of many people; “Ich will dir’s exsplehne,”—I will explain it to you; “Er hat mich inweitet,”—he invited me; “Do hen sie anfange ufzukotte und zu lache,”—then they began to cut up and laugh. A workman who was tired of waiting for material said, “Sie hen us nau lang genug ’rum gebaffelt”—they have baffled or disappointed us long enough.

On the amount of English that is sometimes introduced into the dialect, a lawyer in Lebanon says that of the Pennsylvania Dutch which he uses in his political speeches, or in his practice, fully one-third is English. This specimen was given to me by a lawyer in Allentown, as the opening of a political speech: “Ich bin desirous um euch zu explaine die prerogative powers fum President.” And this a lawyer to his client: “Ich bin certain das die Opinion was ich den morge geexpress hab, correct war.”

Before leaving the subject of the idiom, I give some of the peculiar expressions heard in speaking English. A neighbor told me of her daughter’s being invited to a picnic, and added, “I don’t know what I’ll wear on her.”