This episode's question comes in from T. Peevey of Versailles, Kentucky. Did you ever wonder just what a Dutchman was saying in English? We do talk funny from time to time.
Jeremy Gassert But I'm sure after you said it a couple two three times, they figured it out. Did youever tell the platoon to "redd up these barracks just oncet?"
And I have seen what happens when you take red beet eggs and birch beer to a flatlander pot luck. I'm from Lycoming County and grew up with green peppers called mangoes.
For me (I'm from Südbaden, for those who don't know where that is: It is a region in the Rhine valley near France and Switzerland also including the black forest) it seems PA Dutch is more similar to my dialect than a dialect from the north of Germany would be. Also the examples of their PA Dutch influenced English are hilarious if you have grown up in a region where some people have a strong dialect and learn English as a foreign language.
When I was in high school (late 70's!) I was in the choir. A popular musical of the time was "The Wiz"--a black version of "The Wizard of Oz." We started fooling around and singing "Ease On Down the Road" in Dutchified English...and ended up singing it that way at the very end our concert...it brought down the house! But in those days, we ALL (whether PA Dutch or not) heard it on a regular basis! Even our 8th grade Social Studies teacher spoke that way. My own kids have not heard it nearly as much, unfortunately.
the fun factor for me here is, that if I heard somebody talk like that in Germany, I'd roll my eyes as they would obviously not had enough english lessons in school (or not listened properly). And interestingly enough you hear that kind of English often when (older) people in Paltinate talk. A former colleague of mine from Kusel in the Kaiserslautern area is married to a former American soldier and she has a vast vocabulary, but to hear her speak always caused my hair to stand up - but she's fluent at it! She told me, that when he was still in the military and they moved places a lot, Germany and abroad, a lot of the other Army spouses thought she was PA-Dutch and she never really understood what they meant ;-)
Haha i love the way people look at us when we say now or yea in the accent lol. I cant speak the language fluently but im proud of my hertiage. I wish i could learn it full once. Id enjoy to see more videos! Ya naw, pennsylvania dutch once!!
One of my favorite Dutchified phrases is, "that there there one there" as in "Hand me that there there one there this here here one here don't make right."
When I was 10 years old, I was dragged to Pittsburgh to start the 6th grade. Let me tell you, I had to lose my vernacular really quick, even though they talk a lot funnier in Pittsburgh.
hehehe - mach de Lumpe nass...Des mach ich erscht später, wann ich die Gass gefegt hab (I don't have no driveway and no snow to make off). Jungs, jetzt muss ich awwer los - mei Brot is all :-) un ihr wissen jo: ohne Brot is de Mensch bald tot.
Haha, bei vielen dieser Sätze ist der Satzbau direkt aus dem Deutschen übernommen. Wir machen ähnliches und übernehmen Englische Wörter in die Deutsche Sprache (oder verändern dabei ihre Bedeutung, zum Beispiel sagen wir "Handy" zum Cell Phone). Das wird dann hier "Denglisch" genannt, obwohl's eigentlich eher "Engleutsch" oder so heißen müsste.
In Italian they say the milk is finished. Or if you go to the store and they're out of milk. It's finished. Not unlike the Pennsylvania Dutch English "all".
here's a good one, my grand mother said it's a Dutch thing but I am not sure, and when I say this phase people don't understand it, but we refer to combing knots out of your hair as, ' getting the rats out'. Is this actually a Dutch phrase or is my family just weird?
Women used to save the hair from their hair brushes and put them in little glass containers called hair savers. When they had collected a huge bunch of hair they would form it into a roll -- I don't know if they put it in some sort of netting to keep it together or what but.... At the turn of the century women wore their hair in pompadours like the famous Gibson girl illustrations -- swept up all around and brought together at the top of the head on a bun. They would place that rat or roll of hair in the hairdo as they swept the hair up in sections to make the pompadour wider and bigger. I don't think you had to comb that rat out but that could be where the phrase comes from. Women did very weird things to look fashionable what with corsets and bustles and hoop skirts, some of which were dangerous to their health -- corsets misplacing ribs and inner organs and not enabling the woman to even take a deep breath; floor length skirts would pick up dirt and manure on streets and that would be brought into the house and the floors would get filthy from that. And today women are just as mad with nose jobs and facelifts, expensive lotions and creams, the overemphasis on beauty really robs girls and women of all they could be because they concentrate on beauty at the expense of mental, emotional and spiritual health and wellbeing. Not to mention not learning skills that can enrich ones life, from sports to gardening to growing and canning food to sewing clothing, and music and the arts.
Acht I’m Berks PA Dutch. Dummies don’t know how to blow a cymbals or make off or outten the lights? Aye yi yi! It’s confusing also because the sentence structure doesn’t conform. We Germans like to switch out. PS - If you drunk too much milk, you’ll kutz it!
My mother said that to me all the time when I was a kid. I learned much later that rutchen is a German verb meaning to wiggle, squirm, or slide around.
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For me as a german with an alemann dialect (lower franconian in my case) that talk is extremly hilarious and heat warming to listen to.
Ha ha you stuttered Doug!! I know what you were really thinking. 😉 You could have use the term make the grass wet, 😂
"Make the door down" and "outen the light" really blew minds of folks when I joined the military. Made sense to me.
Jeremy Gassert But I'm sure after you said it a couple two three times, they figured it out. Did youever tell the platoon to "redd up these barracks just oncet?"
No but, i am sure that would have blown their minds!
And I have seen what happens when you take red beet eggs and birch beer to a flatlander pot luck. I'm from Lycoming County and grew up with green peppers called mangoes.
Or outten a fire!
Throw me down the stairs your dirty laundry.
My Swiss German Grandmother learned Swiss German in the Baltimore Maryland Public schools around 1900. Hallo....Grüezi mitenand!!
Outen the lights is also PA Dutch
My mother wasn't Pa Dutch. When my grandmother went to "READ UP" the living room, my mother secretly watched to see what she was going to do.
my grand mother used to say 90% of those phrases
I’m no where near Pennsylvania, but I’ve heard plenty of those phrases. My family is Hispanic, but we’ve used them plenty of times.
Like 'Thro me don tha stairs my schuews'
For me (I'm from Südbaden, for those who don't know where that is: It is a region in the Rhine valley near France and Switzerland also including the black forest) it seems PA Dutch is more similar to my dialect than a dialect from the north of Germany would be. Also the examples of their PA Dutch influenced English are hilarious if you have grown up in a region where some people have a strong dialect and learn English as a foreign language.
This is wonderful!
When I was in high school (late 70's!) I was in the choir. A popular musical of the time was "The Wiz"--a black version of "The Wizard of Oz." We started fooling around and singing "Ease On Down the Road" in Dutchified English...and ended up singing it that way at the very end our concert...it brought down the house! But in those days, we ALL (whether PA Dutch or not) heard it on a regular basis! Even our 8th grade Social Studies teacher spoke that way. My own kids have not heard it nearly as much, unfortunately.
the fun factor for me here is, that if I heard somebody talk like that in Germany, I'd roll my eyes as they would obviously not had enough english lessons in school (or not listened properly). And interestingly enough you hear that kind of English often when (older) people in Paltinate talk. A former colleague of mine from Kusel in the Kaiserslautern area is married to a former American soldier and she has a vast vocabulary, but to hear her speak always caused my hair to stand up - but she's fluent at it!
She told me, that when he was still in the military and they moved places a lot, Germany and abroad, a lot of the other Army spouses thought she was PA-Dutch and she never really understood what they meant ;-)
Leave english folk waiting in anticipation with phrases like "the milk is all" and " the pie is yet"
Mom used to say to me when I was a kid "Chew your mouth empty before you talk!"
To say something is all isn't uncommon among us anglicized PA folk. It could just be my family, but It's commonplace here.
Haha i love the way people look at us when we say now or yea in the accent lol. I cant speak the language fluently but im proud of my hertiage. I wish i could learn it full once. Id enjoy to see more videos! Ya naw, pennsylvania dutch once!!
Up country and down country are some I think of.
now once - literally "jetzt mal" or "jetzt einmal", it can be used in almost every German sentence as well.
If l stated a fact or well known belief, my Pa Deitch grandfather would grunt 'a nau'! Meaning he agreed.
How to can sourkaurt after making it
One of my favorite Dutchified phrases is, "that there there one there" as in "Hand me that there there one there this here here one here don't make right."
Hooked on Lebanon Bologna Seltzman
the milk is all - die Milch is alle
[alle] can mean [all] or [used up] in german
When I was 10 years old, I was dragged to Pittsburgh to start the 6th grade. Let me tell you, I had to lose my vernacular really quick, even though they talk a lot funnier in Pittsburgh.
Dippy ecks or over easy eggs.
Make wet = go pee
hehehe - mach de Lumpe nass...Des mach ich erscht später, wann ich die Gass gefegt hab (I don't have no driveway and no snow to make off).
Jungs, jetzt muss ich awwer los - mei Brot is all :-) un ihr wissen jo: ohne Brot is de Mensch bald tot.
Haha, bei vielen dieser Sätze ist der Satzbau direkt aus dem Deutschen übernommen. Wir machen ähnliches und übernehmen Englische Wörter in die Deutsche Sprache (oder verändern dabei ihre Bedeutung, zum Beispiel sagen wir "Handy" zum Cell Phone). Das wird dann hier "Denglisch" genannt, obwohl's eigentlich eher "Engleutsch" oder so heißen müsste.
PA Dutch stammt nunmal von (Südwest) Deutsch ab, also immernoch ein Fall von fortgeschrittenes Denglisch ^^
How about daresnt, shallent, or mustnt 😂
What about: Machts nichts? My grandfather used to say that one.
Macht nichts? Don't matter
Making dahn vet!
In Italian they say the milk is finished. Or if you go to the store and they're out of milk. It's finished. Not unlike the Pennsylvania Dutch English "all".
here's a good one, my grand mother said it's a Dutch thing but I am not sure, and when I say this phase people don't understand it, but we refer to combing knots out of your hair as, ' getting the rats out'. Is this actually a Dutch phrase or is my family just weird?
Or referring to things as buggers.
Women used to save the hair from their hair brushes and put them in little glass containers called hair savers. When they had collected a huge bunch of hair they would form it into a roll -- I don't know if they put it in some sort of netting to keep it together or what but.... At the turn of the century women wore their hair in pompadours like the famous Gibson girl illustrations -- swept up all around and brought together at the top of the head on a bun. They would place that rat or roll of hair in the hairdo as they swept the hair up in sections to make the pompadour wider and bigger. I don't think you had to comb that rat out but that could be where the phrase comes from. Women did very weird things to look fashionable what with corsets and bustles and hoop skirts, some of which were dangerous to their health -- corsets misplacing ribs and inner organs and not enabling the woman to even take a deep breath; floor length skirts would pick up dirt and manure on streets and that would be brought into the house and the floors would get filthy from that. And today women are just as mad with nose jobs and facelifts, expensive lotions and creams, the overemphasis on beauty really robs girls and women of all they could be because they concentrate on beauty at the expense of mental, emotional and spiritual health and wellbeing. Not to mention not learning skills that can enrich ones life, from sports to gardening to growing and canning food to sewing clothing, and music and the arts.
Moving the direct object in the sentence....it’s the same word order in Germanic languages...
WHAT!!?? No "redd it up"!!??
Where I grew up in northern Berks county, no one said this phrase. I had never heard it before moving to central PA!
Acht I’m Berks PA Dutch. Dummies don’t know how to blow a cymbals or make off or outten the lights? Aye yi yi! It’s confusing also because the sentence structure doesn’t conform. We Germans like to switch out.
PS - If you drunk too much milk, you’ll kutz it!
Youns ?
OMG. Even in Missouri...
I always heard that stop rootching (rutsching) around means stop being so fidgety or stop your squirming.
My mother said that to me all the time when I was a kid. I learned much later that rutchen is a German verb meaning to wiggle, squirm, or slide around.
Doug you seem to behave similarly to Germans in ways. Could this be culturally true for Pennsylvania Dutch people?
We are culturally and ethnically German peoples, so yeah.
Read up a room....clean it up
Raven Shadowwinds We always say this one! My mother would say, “This house is upside down. Better read it up!”
BS, it is outen the lights
gayd ott youze gise