Pennsylvania Dutch: A Dialect of South German With an Infusion of English

by Samuel Stehman Haldeman

benny	penny	dwice	tvice	pefore	before	prown	brown
blace	place	fifdy	fifty	pegin	begin	py	by
blaster	plaster	giss	kiss	pehind	behint	prow	brow
breest	priest	led	let	plue	blue	sed	to set
creen	green	mighdy	mighty	pone	bone	streed	shtreet
deers	tears	pack n.	back	prave	brafe	veet	feet
dell	tell	pall	băll	pranty	brandy	vifdeen	fifteen
den	ten	peard	beart	preak	break	vine	fine
dwelve	tvelf	pecause	becauss	prings	bringss	wide	vite

In cases where the two languages do not agree in phase, either phase may be taken, as in 'troo' or 'droo' for English through with a surd initial, beside German durch with a sonant; but as German cognate finals are more likely to be surd than sonant (as in lockwouth for logwood at the end of Ch. I. p. 6), goot, hart and holt, as breitmannish forms, are better than good, hard, and hold. Mr. Leland practically admits this, as in 'barrick' (G. berg, a hill), which, however, many will take for a barrack.[94] The following have a different phase in German and English:—

day tay	door toor	-hood -hoot	red ret
ding ting	dream tream	hund- huntert	said set
dirsty tirsty	drop trop	middle mittle	saddle sattle
done tone	fader fater	pad path	drink trink

day tay	door toor	-hood -hoot	red ret
ding ting	dream tream	hund- huntert	said set
dirsty tirsty	drop trop	middle mittle	saddle sattle
done tone	fader fater	pad path	drink trink

but k, and the pure final German s would turn d to t in 'bridges,' 'brackdise,' 'outsides,' 'holds,' 'shpirids;' it would turn g to k in 'rags,' and it makes 'craps' (crabs) correct. The power of English z can scarcely be said to belong to average German, or to the breitmannish dialect; it should therefore be ss in 'doozen,' 'preeze' (breeze), and 'phaze.' When it is present it occurs initial, and we have 'too zee' once, against numerous s initials like see, sea, say, so, soul, six.

The ballads have many irregularities in spelling like—as, ash; is, ish; one, von; two, dwo; dwelf, dwelve, twelve, zwölf (for tvelf); chor, gorus; distants, tisaster; dretful; tredful; eck (the correct form), egg; het, head, headt; groundt, cround, croundt; land, lantlord, Marylandt; shpirid, shpirit, shbirit; drumpet, trumpet; foorst, foost, first, virst; fein, vine; went, vent; old, olt, oldt; teufel, tyfel, tuyfel.

English J is placed in soobjectixe, objectified, jail, jammed, juice, jump (shoomp, choomp); it is represented by sh in shoost, shiant, shinglin; by ch (correctly) in choin, choy, choke, enchine; by g, dg in change, hedge; and by y in Yane and soobjectifly—which is not objectionable. English Ch remains in catch, child, chaps (and shaps), fetch, sooch, mooch; and it becomes sh in soosh (such), shase, sheek.

English Sh is proper in shmoke, shmile, shplit, shpill, shpoons, shtart, shtick, shtrike, shtop, shvear; it is omitted in smack, stamp, slept; and it is of doubtful propriety in ash (as), ashk, vash (was), elshe, shkorn, shkare, shky.

English D final is often written dt that the word may be recognised and the sound of t secured, as in laidt, roadt, shouldt, vouldt, findt, foundt, roundt (and round), vordt (and vord), obercoadt. English ed and its equivalents should be et or t in broken English, as in loadet, reconet, pe-markt, riset, signet, rollet, seemet, slightet, declaret, paddlet, mate (made), kilt; -ed being wrong, as in said, coomed, bassed, scared, trinked, smashed, rooshed, bleased.