Can Germans understand Pennsylvania Dutch? 😅 with Doug Madenford | Feli from Germany
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ส.ค. 2023
- Can I understand Pennsylvania Dutch? Doug Madenford aka @PADutch101 is a native speaker of the language and decided to put me to the test! 😅 Stay tuned for part 2 to find out about Doug’s experience growing up in a PA Dutch community, how the language integrates new terms for modern inventions like computers or TVs, and find out how much people from modern-day Germany have in common with Pennsylvania Dutch people!
Part 2: What’s it like growing up PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH? ▸ • What’s it like growing...
German Reacts to Pennsylvania Dutch ▸ • German Reacts to Penns...
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Doug's Front Porch, Ep. 74 - Feli from Germany ▸ • 74 - Feli from Germany
Documentary: Hiwwe wie Driwwe - The roots of the Pennsylvania Dutch ▸
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ABOUT ME: Hallo, Servus, and welcome to my channel! My name is Felicia (Feli), I'm 29, and I'm a German living in the USA! I was born and raised in Munich, Germany but have been living in Cincinnati, Ohio off and on since 2016. I first came here for an exchange semester during my undergrad at LMU Munich, then I returned for an internship, and then I got my master's degree in Cincinnati. I was lucky enough to win the Green Card lottery and have been a permanent resident since 2019! In my videos, I talk about cultural differences between America and Germany, things I like and dislike about living here, and other topics I come across in my everyday life in the States. Let me know what YOU would like to hear about in the comments below. DANKE :)
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How much did you guys understand? 🤔😄
A little
Very little where I am in PA, but then my German was only ever proficient, and isn't at the moment.
More than I anticipated. Although I was surprised that I understood "Last month in February" before Feli.
Next to zero. 😅 I don't know much Deutsch at all! 👋 very fun video!
2%
Pennsylvania Dutch was my paternal grandfather’s first language ✊
Oh damn dude, what’s up?
Chocolate rain!
Music-co-co-co-co-co-co-colio
I'm from the Palatinate in Germany and understood about 95% of what he said. The dialect here is still almost the same except that he pronounces some words in an English way and that there are some English words he uses instead of the German ones.
This was really interesting.
You mean like motorcycle, right?
I was wondering about that as well, until I realized that when the original settlers left Germany, the motorcycle was not yet invented. So when it later was, there was no German word for this new device to their knowledge.
@@mathiasgraeser7816good thinking!!
I'm ex-Amish so I am a native speaker of Pennsylvania Dutch. I'm learning German and I have had multiple German speakers tell me not to bother with Swiss German because it's almost impossible. So I decided to look it up on TH-cam and I could almost understand it 😃 Pennsylvania Dutch is heavily influenced by Swiss German but also many other German dialects.
There are even regional differences in southeastern Pennsylvania dialects. As I'm sure you know!
WOW ex Amish. Welcome to the English world
Guder Mariye, wie bisch du?
I am german and i recently watch alot videos about the amish and their language.. it really amazes me how much i can understand but at the same time how less i can understand.
Germans get lost with Alemmanic dialects like Swiss German because the vocabulary and pronunciation are different from Standard German. Feli did a reaction video with Swiss German.
I speak Swiss German. I wonder how well we would understand each other.
It has been pointed out by a British writer that when Brits complain about 'Americanisms' being used in England, the examples are frequently hold-overs from past British usage that were later lost in the UK. After all, American English goes back to the 17th century, and was isolated from the old country for three hundred years before 20th century complaints.
Indeed! "Scotch" is their favorite of these.
Might be interesting for Doug: An old German name for February is "Hornung" which is directly related to the word "Horn". So they have probably brought that from Germany.
Hornung was also the last name of a very famous American football player. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hornung
'Hornung' is also a normal family-name around Pirmasens and its south.
"Der alte deutsche Name für den Februar ist Hornung, weil der reife Rothirsch in diesem Monat die Stangen seines Geweihes abwirft und beginnt, ein neues Geweih zu schieben. Eine andere Theorie geht davon aus, dass Hornung „der im Winkel/Geheimen gezeugte Bastard“ bedeutet, da er in der Anzahl der Tage zu kurz kommt. Im Elsass wird dieser Monat auch heute noch so bezeichnet. Auch im Pennsylvaniadeutsch ist der alte Monatsname als Hanning erhalten geblieben." From Wikipedia (de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Februar#Alte_Namen)
Hi Feli, the word Hornung is a very old word for February, but it's not commonly used any more. I am from the north of Germany and some old people still say Hornung, especially farmers. Greetings to the States
What I appreciate about Doug Madenford is that he not only is primary point man for the PA Deitsch community, but also teaches standard German at his local Highschool. I think he is also involved with the University of Pennsylvania, and cooperates with German film / video producers actually in the Pfalz with transcultural projects across the pond. He is quite capable on both sides of the German language spectrum, PA Deitsch (Dutch) and StD, Standartdeutsch.
Groundhogs (Murmeltiere) also exists in Germany. In the Bavarian Alps.
I understood about 90% as I’m living in Hesse close to Rhineland Palatine. The “Hinkelhaus” was easy to understand as my mother and my grandparents spoke of chicken as Hinkel. Great series, Feli.
Me too 😂
I understood the same. I`m from Heidelberg (Kurpfalz).
Even in Nordhessen we have Hinkels ;-) and I understand nearly everything only February and Gleiche was impossible. Absolutely fascinating!
Gude🤘
Hinkelhaus = hen house not "chicken" house.
Also interesting to note, that “gleich” is also used as “to like” in modern American Yiddish.
I picked up some Yiddish as a child from my grandparents. As an adult, I had the opportunity to join a Yiddish club. It was in some ways like a class but very informal. I used the verb "gleich" and was told not to, as that was not good Yiddish. I was told to say "ich hob lieb". I told the others that I only wanted to say "like" not "love". They told me that I was copying English but my grandparents would say "gleich". It piqued my interest to hear gleich used in Pennsylvania Dutch.
@@stephenfisher3721 it's not considered “good Yiddish” by some purists (who are mostly not native), but it's used commonly among natives in the US.
It is interesting that the German languages are not the same, in the standard German both gleich and gleiche mean the same. In Pennsylvanian German it means to like and in Yiddish it means to love. Let's realize that there are 3 different languages reframing the same word. And they are languages that must be studied separately otherwise they cause confusion as there are many false friends/cognates among them.
as far as I know, yiddish originally evolved in the 10th century in the Rhineland and Pfalz area around the cities of Speyer and Worms. The Pfalz area is also the exact same area that Pennsylvania Dutch comes from. So maybe, just maybe, this is a commonality shared by the original medieval Pfalz dialect?
As a Yiddish speaker I understood about 30% the first time he said it, when he said it again understood about 75%.
Your comment made me curious, I (a German) had to watch a Yiddish-German video. I knew that Yiddish (we would write it Jiddisch) has a lot of German influences but I didn't know that I could understand it that well. (easy examples of course spoken slowly😅) It almost feels like a German dialect.
I had expected that I can understand it on a similar level as Dutch which Germans can get somewhat. (while on the other hand Dutch people understand standard German pretty well)
Thanks, will listen more into it.
Jiddisch ist ein bastardisierter deutscher Dialekt
Hi Feli. As a German who grew up mostly in rural Hessen, and had regular contact with Rhein-Hessisch I had little to no problem understanding everything with the exception of Hanning. In Hessian we would say "s Murmeldia hätt soi Schadde gsäha" so it was ridiculously close for me. I definitely got the gist of the short story after listening closely, and getting used to this "dialect". Growing up in a tiny, secluded Hessian mountain village that is in a dead-end road, I had to listen closely to the really old farmers living in that village as a kid when they broke out into "their" specific village dialect that was already discernably different from the dialect of the next village not even three kilometers away.
Same here. I would never have guessed Hanning! I grew up in Nordhessen, but spent a lot of time near Rüdesheim visiting relatives. Words like Hinkel and Schadde were very familiar to me!
like he said, PD is basically a time capsule that kept the original words from the time period that were brought here
So cool!
Hehe, which tells you something about how disconnected some little villages are in Germany that only in the last 60 years or so, with TV becoming the predominant form of entertainment, that dialects retained so much of their individual flair for such a long time. I was born in 1970, so I learned my Hessian back then, which isn't really THAT long compared to Pennsylvania Dutch being separated from German. @@danielzhang1916
Interessant zu sehen, beziehungsweise zu hören, wie sich Sprache isoliert vom Ursprung entwickelt. Ich denke ich hab auch so 60% bis 70% verstanden. Tolles Video 👍😃
For me as a Saarländer, it is quite easy to understand. Sounds just a bit strange
For me, as a native German speaker, like Feli, it also sounds strange. Such German is no longer spoken here. It also has a lot of influences from West Germany. But these influences are no longer the youngest. But I still have some practice, since in addition to High German there is also Saxon, Frisian, Baadish, or "saarländisch", as in your case. But with Ur Bavarian I'm out. Then I only understand 40% at most. Schöne Grüße aus Berlin.
Ja, das ist sehr interessant, - Ich frage mich nur, warum die Sprache als "Dutch" und nicht als "German" bezeichnet wird.
Ich vermute, dass es ein verballhorntes "Deutsch" ist. Vielleicht steckt noch "Deitsch/Daitsch" mit drin?
Having grown up near Lancaster, PA, with German speaking (non-Amish) Grand and Great Grand Parents, this was great fun to watch! Thank you for another amazing video!
Did you understand something?
Haha, was about to ask that. What about you(comment right above me), do you speak any German?
@@B.A.B.G. Very little; just a word here and there. German was used when discussing surprise birthday parties and Christmas gifts, so the only German I learned were a few swear words from my Great Grandfather when my Great Grandmother wasn't around. ;-)
@@stevemyers8330 I see.
My situation is exactly the same, except that I grew up on the other side of the Susquehanna River in York County. I understood most of what Doug said in Dutch. My paternal grandparents were very fluent PA Dutch speakers from the Pigeon Hills (near Hanover/Spring Grove). There's a little town around there called Gnatstown. My grandparents called it Schroogeschteddel. When my grandma spoke English, she did so with a very heavy Dutch accent. I fondly remember her peering out the window on a rainy day, and saying, "It's makin' down rain somesing awful out, ain't?".
As an American born in Bremen who grew up with both languages, I too understood about 70% the first time around, and a bit more when Doug slowed down.
I get Doug's blog posts and it was nice to see him talking with Feli.
I found the explanation of "gleich" meaning "like" pretty interesting!
Living next door to PA, it's good to know that I could probably communicate with PA Dutch speakers with some effort if I had to.
Thanks for this video!
For those wondering, the name Dutch in the Pennsylvania Dutch comes from non German speakers who misunderstood the word Deutsch which is how German Speakers say their language as in Deutschland.
Awesome Video Feli, my wife is German, we live across the river in NKY in Erlanger. She's been in the US since 1993.
Actually, the word "Dutch" predates Deutschland as a country. Before Deutschland was united in 1871 as a single country, England and largely the English speaking world referred to everyone who spoke the Germanic languages as "Dutch", so the Pennsylvania Germans who immigrated here were collectively referred to as the Pennsylvania Dutch, as they were a group of German speaking immigrants from multiple different "Dutch" countries. Anyone from the modern day Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and more than likely Austria would have been referred to as Dutch until the Nationalist movements of the late 19th and early 20th century started creating our modern understanding of what a "German" is!
Lol. Makes sense
Well before the Dutch (Nederlands in Dutch) language was called Low-Dutch (low for the Netherlands laying low) and German was called High-Dutch (Laag-Duits vs Hoog-Duits). Later the name for Low-Dutch changed to Nederlands (literally translated to Netherlands in English) and the name for Hoog-Duits changed to Deutsch (German in English). So as a matter of fact, Dutch is still the correct name for either Dutch or German. But it's the 'old' name for both languages.
Actually, Dutch was an English word for speakers of both Low and High German for centuries before speakers of Pa. German arrived here, and before Duits was distinguished from Deutsch/Deitsch, all the way back to the Middle Ages, which was also before the Dutch were a separately distinguished people from other Low German speakers and obtained a Netherlandish nationality.
@@MarkMeijer10 Not exactly. There are two German languages: Low German and High German.
Low German is a western germanic language that evolved from the Old Saxon, the language of the Saxons who inhabited the region of what is modern day Lower Saxony and southern Schleswig Holstein, while High German evolved from the languages of Alemanni and Langobards.
The term low and high are describing the regions where these languages originated from: Low German was spoken in the northern parts of the region - which happen to be Lowlands - while the Alemanni and Langobards originate from the Alpine region (= Highlands because the region is mountainous).
Low German is closely related to Dutch and also the Jutic dialects and Frisian btw.
Being 8th-generation Pennsylvania Dutch, I love this!! Recently I took a dialect course with the Berks History Center, and I now can have short conversations with my 92 year old parents who can still speak it. We are from Lehigh County. Of the original colonial Pennsylvania Dutch settlers, more than 90% were Lutheran and Reformed, and they came over mostly for economic reasons. The rest were Anabaptists such as the Mennonites, Schwenkfelders, Amish, and German Baptists. Those came to escape persecution. Most people know of the “plain Dutch” but at one time there were a whole lot more of the “fancy Dutch!”
I’m Dutch but I also speak German and understand some Swiss German language.
I understood most of it when he was speaking more slowly. I had the same problems as you did with understanding the story.
I helped a lot that I grew up in the province of Limburg with its many dialects.
Ja, ik kan een paar woorden begrijpen, maar niet genoeg om de zin te snappen
WOW! I did not know that Groundhog Day came from Germany! That just blew my mind. Penn Dutch is probably the closest thing to old German today, since it came here in the 1700's and as Doug says, didn't have much outside influence. My father's family came from Hessen in about 1744, landed in Pa, possibly Philidelphia. Wouldn't be surprised if they had picked up some of it. Interesting to hear words from an old living language.
Its super interessting. Though as a german I had a hard time understanding it :) Feli did a video about 'texas german' as well. It was much easier for me to understand. If I understand it correctly its probably becauce the 'texas german' was the result of a later wave of immigration (about 1850s?). So its more close to todays german language, I guess.
But maybe its also because of the specific region, where pen dutch is coming from. I have family in Hessen as well and their dialcet sounds a bit alike :)
@@helgegoman5548 Yep the Texas Germans largely came in the 1840’s and 50’s.
@@helgegoman5548 Texas Germans came from many different areas in Germany and so they would have communicated with eachother in Standard German/Hochdeutsch, the lingua franca of Germans.
Pennsylvania Dutch speakers/Amish however came from one dialectal/region mainly the Rhineland area so they spoke similar dialects to eachother and they didn't have to use Hochdeutsch to communicate with eachother. They used their native palatine/Pfalz German instead(with the exception of the Swiss Amish, who spoke in Swiss German to each other)
Similar thing happened in other parts of North and South America. In Canada and Mexico, Russian Mennonites "German speakers" don't speak Hochdeutsch, but Plautdietsch. In Brazil, Hunsrückisch, Pomeranian and many German dialects/languages are spoken, but standard German isn't that common.
I’m pretty sure the closest to Old German is Yiddish, which separated around 1000 AD.
As a „Pfälzer“ i understand almost 100%. i think People from Alsac ( France) will also understand this Dialekt.
I live in the Pennsylvania Dutch area. When I go to the Farmers Market every so often I will ask a young pennsylvania-dutch person what is their ancestry, and many of them don't even know that they are actually German from Germany. They just think they're Pennsylvania Dutch and they don't know their ethnicity is German.
This was interesting, I can trace my mom’s side of my family, back to Hessen Germany, they immigrated to Pennsylvania about 10 years before the American Revolution. Up until the 1940’s, before the government made it illegal to speak any dialect of German, due to WW2, this was the language most commonly spoken by my family. My Grandparents tried to teach me some, but I was like: “No, I don’t live anywhere near the Amish, and no modern day German will be able to understand an old, dead dialect.” Now I wish I had learned a little bit.
yeah your judgement was completely right. This "German" they speak is completely useless.
@@MrTrollo2 But I did hear several years ago that they were trying to bring it back and teach it in the schools in PA. Don’t know if they ever did or not. Not like it would have effected me anyway, I was raised in Tennessee.
@@MrTrollo2no language is useless
@@MrTrollo2 I cannot agree. Actually it's really valuable because some old german words seem to have survived there and their usage allows to understand how they are used and in which context they're used typically.
And with hornung as an example some words are pointing immediately to the relevance of observing nature to create terms in old Germanic languages.
@@seochangbinsarmsHiis name is troll (o) already.
Hi Feli. YES, I understand him. It's really the slang of our region in germany. South of Kaiserslautern, between Zweibruecken and Karlsruhe.
:-* Greets from Pirmasens (20 km south of Kaiserslautern)
His slang is spoken specially in Dahner Felsenland (between Pirmasens and Bad Bergzabern). It really sounds like the slang of the villages Bundenthal (were I grew up), Bruchweiler, Rumbach, Nothweiler, Niederschlettenbach, Busenberg, Erfweiler, Schindhard. These villages are in the southwest, next to the french border. So the people of northern france, around Sturzelbronn, Obersteinbach, Lembach, Rott and Wissembourg would also understand any word from him.
Good old Pirmasens, my very first assignment out of bootcamp (basic training) in 1988 when I was assigned to a Military Police Company assigned to guard the storage facilities for the Pershing Missile Systems. Pirmasens had the best beer, we on the Kaserne called it the Perminator due to it's high ABV (alcohol content) LOL. All those places you listed brings back great memories of my youth. K-Town and Schwäbisch Gmünd In particular were great.
Wow, you also understood the part with the grundsau and you knew that "Ich gleiche" means "I like"? These were the two parts I still struggled with even after hearing him the second time and I don't live far away from you. Only when he said "gezehne" means "he saw" I understood "Schadde" and remembered this "tradition" /story with an animal that sees his shadow and so predicts the weather.
I'm from that region as well and understood Doug quite well.
I think I read somewhere that Hieronymus Bock travelled to Palestine area once saying that the language sound like an accent from Trier. Must see if I can find it again, as long time ago, but interesting how the language travelled, it was Aramaic he spoke about so literally Jesus' language.
Haha, like my mum nice th-cam.com/video/4EIJthOzVNY/w-d-xo.html not the male voice though.
Great vid , I am from the Eastern Shore of Maryland , lots of Amish /Mennonites, many stores and Farmers Markets , and wonderful people , I have even used my High School German to order , they Laugh and love it . Also have made Scrapple from scratch, on the Farm in Queen Anne Md , not very pleasant, but very good . They are great people. very nice . very accommodating, and durn they can cook.Have learned some pickle recipes from them ...This was fun...Sour cream onion , cucumber salad , smothered red cabbage , and such things ...take care
My grandfather was Pennsylvania Dutch, and he met my German grandmother on a blind date soon after WWII when he was part of the occupation force. He spoke Pennsylvania Dutch, but she spoke no English. They made it work!
I love what he said with the time capsule, because that't the thing many americans don't get when they say "I am german" when they mean they have german ancestors. The things they might know about germany and its culture oftentime is hundreds of years old and hasn't much to do with the culture now. And the culture now is what we think about when they say they are german.
I understood a little. Where I was raised in Germantown, Wisconsin, we have our dialect when Germans immigrated to the area. Even our towns and villages have German names. So being raised in Germantown, our dialect is mixed but some of our words are also mixed with Switzerland, Irish, Scottish, Prussians as well
Doug is a nice guy. Wouldn't mind watching more of him. Great video!😊❤
He has a youtube channel!
Thank You Feli, Pennsylvania Dutch is totally fascinating!
As a German I enjoy the additional advantage of having lived in Karlsruhe for 10 years and the Palz (die Südpfalz) is just across the river Rhine.
Hanning has confused me at first but after revealing that it's February I immediately remembered the old word "Hornung" which was actually the germanic term for that month. There's even a traditional german folk song in which that word is used. I can't remember which at the moment but I remember that it was sung in school a few times.
"gleichen" was stunning and really confusing. However suddenly I realized that he wanted to say he likes spring and there it was:
"to like something" (eng.) = "etwas gleichen" (PA Dutch) = "etwas mögen" (deu)
Feli and Doug, thank you so much for that experience! It's really fascinating.
This was a fun video! I lived in Germany for a few years and took a few German college classes. I could make out about half of it.
I'm born and raised in Rhineland-Palatinate very close to the border of the Saarland in the Hunsrück region. Idk if there's a translation for Hunsrück, but who cares at all.
I lived there for 25 years, then moved to the Saarland, later Hesse and after that northern Bavaria (Franconia to be exact.) I finally made my way to Hamburg.
I can understand most german dialects besides the very southern oberbairisch, which is spoken even south of Munich and in Austria and South Tirol. A lot of the german winter sports guys from Garmisch-Partenkirchen talk like that and I sometimes even fail to understand them if they try to speak Hochdeusch.
I had no problem at all to understand PA Dutch, I didn't know which animal groundhog was and had to guess February and "gleiche" - and guessed it right.
I'd say if there were 2 persons, one only understanding PA Dutch and the other the dialect of my region, they could communicate almost flawless. For me German feels like my first foreign language btw.
As a german that did grew up in a region where a lot of pennsylvanian dutch people originated from(region of rheinhessen formerly a part of the Pfalz) i understood basically everything. Our dialect here is still pretty similar. But of course as language is always evolving, there are a few words and Phrases that are different now.
I am from there too, but Rheinhessen was not formerly a part of the Pfalz. It now is a part of Rheinland-Pfalz, but before WW2 it was part of Hessen. It was cut off by the allies because the Rhine made a better border in their view.
As an American of German descent, who lives in area with heavy German immigrant history, as well as having many Amish and Mennonites, I have to say you are extraordinarily outgoing and bubbly for a German. We have our fun and are polite, but we can be dour and standoffish too. My ancestors came from the Palatinate.
Hessian here, I understood pretty much all of it, with a little guessing involved. I played the story to my mother, who hails from Rhine Hesse (pretty close to the Palatinate), and her immediate reaction was, "Well, that's just how people talk." :) She even got the Hanning/Hornung: "Yes, that's what we used to call February." Fascinating!
Guten Tag, ich habe deine Videos genossen. Ich hatte das Vergnügen, Mitte der neunziger Jahre während meines Dienstes in der US-Armee drei Jahre in Kaiserslautern und etwa ein Jahr in Frankfurt zu leben. Ich verwende Google Translate, um dies zu schreiben, da mein Deutsch auf ein paar einfache Wörter und Sätze beschränkt ist, die gerade ausreichen, um zurechtzukommen. 😀
I love this video. Your smile shows how much you enjoyed this exchange. Thank you for this one. More please.
It reminds me to some degree of the Mennonite Low German, which my grandparents spoke. It comes from the standard Low German (Plattdeutsch, or Plattdütsch) of northern Germany, but it mutated as Mennonites migrated out of Holland, Friesland and Germany over to Prussia, Russia and Ukraine, developing into what became known as Plautdietsch. Many Mennonites migrated out of Russia and Ukraine after the Russian Revolution and settled in various parts of Canada and the US - there either are or have been Mennonite communities in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, the prairie provinces of Canada (particularly Manitoba) and parts of southern Ontario. I don't know all of the Mennonite communities in the US, but I have distant relatives in Kansas, where there has been a strong Mennonite community.
Awesome video Feli. Brought back many memories of me as a 8-12 year old listening to my great grandmother and great aunts speaking and teaching me PA Dutch. I used to play bingo at family reunions all in PA Dutch. Thanks for the motivation to want to learn about it again.
I have always wanted to learn German! I too live in Ohio in Marion, County and there are a decent amount of Amish around here. We used to heat with wood and me and my father would get firewood from Amish almost every week for years! They are truly nice people and stick to the old ways we even traded a big pack of winter gloves for some firewood and everything! It would be awesome to learn how to speak to them in their native tongue.
In the 1680s a number of my Quaker ancestors settled West New Jersey. Many were from Yorkshire and others from Middlesex. They were frequently speaking English incomprehensible to each other.
To this very day, I can't comprehend some of the British dialects. Even with subtitles, I know what they're saying but I can't understand.
In the Welsh language, badger is 'Moch Ddaer', which translates as 'earth pig'....😀
In Croatian, a shark is "morski pas", which translates to "sea dog"
This was so cool. I love hearing historical things and how words evolve
Excellent video Feli! My grandparents were Penn Dutch (German).
I love the videos you make. You have made me want to learn German more than ever and made me think that Germany is not just about World War II
So many languages and people are of Germanic descent. It's really interesting to see how the etymology of words and cultures have shifted and changed to create the world we live in today.
@@stephenryan1912 Ja
I'm German and while we are very aware of WWII and learn about it quite intensely in school, the usual day to day life has no context to it anymore and the outlook of people from back then and now changed dramatically.
My mom was born in 1954, so neither her nor I have even been alive during WWII.
It's about time to stop piling the shame of it upon people that belong to different generations entirely.
I'm happy to hear Feli's videos are helping to make people realize that.
Thank you for your message, it made me smile and I wish you much fun and success in your endeavor of learning German :)
@@sleepynightowl1550Es war eine Erinnerung daran, wie sehr sie in mir den Wunsch geweckt hat, Deutsch zu lernen. Ich spreche fast fliesend
Oh wow, das ist aber eine Überraschung! Herzlichen Glückwunsch, es ist nicht einfach sich so gut ins Deutsche einzuarbeiten! @@WATERMELON-ED1TS
Loved this video! Keep them coming please
Das Wort „Hornung“ kommt aus den germanischen Sprachen und wurde während des ganzen Mittelalters und vereinzelt bis in die Neuzeit hinein benutzt. Lange Zeit wurden für den Februar neben der heutigen Bezeichnung auch das Wort Thaumonat genutzt.
This was fun. I'm looking forward to part 2. Thanks, feli!
Thanks for being a breath of fresh air in a stagnant society. Your channel is wonderful and always puts a smile on my face. Cheers! Skol!
That was incredibly interesting. Thanks for make ng this video.
Love this video, great info! Thanks Feli 🤙
This was really interesting and enjoyable, looking forward to Part 2 !! :)
This really was fascinating.
What a great video! A lot of history included. Excellent!
Very interesting video 👍🏻👍🏻
We used to go to the Pennsylvania Dutch festivals when I was a kid. They're actually pretty cool 😎
This was a very interesting and informative video ❤
This was interesting. Greetings to Doug.
Great Video Feli
What a lovely language talk and amazing positive energy! I learned a lot, danke!!
Love this video Feli. I live in Southeast Pennsylvania and this hits home.
Great video!
Very interesting video! Pennsylvania "Dutch" is my native language here in Ontario Canada.
I could understand every word except your word for February. We have a slightly different accent tho.
German is such a fun language but Standard German is the most elite of them all!❤
In Canada, they call it Plautdietsch or Low German though right? Not “Pennsylvania Dutch”.
The Russian Mennonites speak Plattdietch or Low German and the Swiss Mennonites speak Pennsylvania Dutch. We cannot understand each other tho for the most part.
Loved the video
I am from PA Dutch area and part German. We also had a lot of Polish in our area. So growing up, a lot of our traditions were from “the old country”. We sang our Christmas carols in German, German foods, and other German traditions. I cannot speak PA Dutch unfortunately, but I am relearning my German. I love watching your channel and I am also a subscriber to Doug’s channel. I love that he is working so hard to preserve the language. Thank you both for such excellent, informative content!
I love both channels Doug and my Feli ❤
Very interesting. Love stuff like. Especially growing up in Pennsylvania, not far from Amish country. I look forward to part 2.
Cool. I understood, and didn't understand, almost exactly as Feli did.
Another great video. Cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott
Hi Feli, very interesting video. Everything that Doug said went way over my head. I believe I did learn a couple of new words today.
Thank you very much Feli, have a great week ahead. 😊
Amazing video feli😊
Maybe a few words here and there. You’re a good sport, Feli! Another fun video! Hope you and Ben are well!
Very cool video. My families ancestry is from Elsass/Alsace and this dialect is VERY similar to PA Dutch. Keep these videos coming!
What an interesting video!
America used to have many German language newspapers (pre WW1). It’d be interesting if you were able to find some, probably on microfilm, and see how they compare to modern German.
Yes those are pretty easy to find in archives, I've seen many of them before :)
Yes that would be intersting to say the least.There were 3 waves of German immigration to the U.S. the first two were minimal compared to the 19th century wave. The 19th century was the wave of North and central German Lutherans immigrating to the U.S. The Revolution of 1848 was one of the big components of this. The other was the influence of French Freemsaons which inflicted its views onto the German Christians years after the Napolenic wars, and Catholic persecution of Lutherans. The majority of Germans in the U.S. by 1910 were of the Lutheran Church. Their services were done in German up to WW1. We see this influence today from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin. However there were some of the older generations of various German states, and some Bavarian Catholics also were present.
@@FelifromGermany und unterscheiden die sich stark vom heutigen pensylvania dutch oder standard deutsch ?
@@Habakuk_ Ich kenne hauptsächlich Artikel aus dem 19. Jahrhundert und die sind halt oft noch in altdeutscher Schrift gedruckt und sprachlich so wie Dokumente aus Deutschland aus der Zeit 😊
@@FelifromGermany ok also noch verständlich :) hatte schon angenommen das es ein noch älterer Sprachstil war zb. Lutherdeutsch (wenn man bedenkt wieviele aus Europa aus verschiedenen Zeitepochen nach Amerika ausgewandert sind ) das war in der Erstausgabe damals kaum verständlich.
So interesting! I've been watching Doug a long time - I'm English from the UK but learnt German and spent a bit of time in the Pfalz and I actually understood the PA Dutch better than Feli in places so think knowing that accent is key!
That’s cool. I have ancestors that come from Pennsylvania Dutch and always wondered what the culture was like including the language.
Thanks!
What a fun video to watch. And, Feli, I tripped over the same words you did. Though I have to say that knowing a Hessian dialect (I'm from Giessen) did help a lot and I presume that anyone who's been exposed to only High German would struggle a lot more.
I'm looking forward to seeing the second part👍💛💛
It's spoken in the Ozarks Missouri too.❤ Amish has a trading post in ocessola Missouri. The Hiway has signs to watch for horse and buggy.❤❤
I see them along the hiway and often eat at the post❤
Excellent video very "informative" thanks for sharing thumbs up 👍
My grandparents spoke "PA Dutch", but it was strongly discouraged during WWII, and as a result, my parents could understand it but spoke very little. Two generations later, I only understand a few basic terms. As Doug said, it has held on in the rural, isolated communities.
My mother had a german mother who came to America as a 7 year old alone on a ship to live with relatives.... when ww2 happened she forbid the German language in her home. My mom made us all take German in junior high and high school... I did 2 additional years in college and am fully confident speaking to any native German speaker under the age of 3😂😂🤤
My grumpy German Opa refused to speak German and forbade his kids from learning it in school. Being a cantankerous grandson, I took it in high school and double-majored in it in college (the other being Japanese). Germans and the German language weren’t exactly popular when he came over.
I could pick out maybe two or three words tops,but this is truly interesting to learn about a German language that hasn't changed much over 300 years,great job Feli,keep up the good work!❤❤❤
First, you guys should try visiting Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania for Ground Hog Day (February 2). The whole town is in a festival. Rooms are typically booked up that day, I think, but if you reserve a place in advance, I think you’ll have fun.
Secondly, I remember hearing Amish people speaking Pennsylvania Dutch when I came back from Germany, and it sounded like they blended a lot of English words. Did you feel that way too? Also, since language does evolve over time, I’m sure their German has as well-maybe not at the same rate. And, of course, we know that many of us would struggle to understand English speaking people from 300 years ago. There are words that have new meanings, and then there are phrases which no longer exist
I am so fascinated by the “Plain People,” and their culture. They are very industrious, and in many ways, observing their culture is like looking back in time.
Part of the reasons the pa dutch become so isolated in the 17-1800s was farming. English/Scots Irish farming was very different from PA dutch farming. The English/Scots Irish farming was done in river valleys, but PA dutch farming was done in limestone valleys with the use of animal fertilizers. It is weird that many of the rural names of the villages in these farming area's are named after German cities and names (Hamburg, etc). This does break down, for "Lancaster" county is an English placename.
Also, in the other video, Doug talked about the 1st and 2nd world wars preventing the use of PA deutch. I believe that did happen, however, I think the stage was set to give up PA Dutch before that. I remember my grandfather (fancy dutch) telling stories how he learned to speak english. This was in grammar school about 1906 and afterward. Grandpaa told a story about "ein bouva" (one boy) using the word "fogel." The teacher would correct him and make him say "bird." Grandpa thought it was funny that his stubborn friend would say "OK its bird but it is really a fogel." When English was forced or "beaten into" public schools in PA, it was a matter of time before the fancy dutch dropped all Dutch language. This started before WW1. The Amish and Mennonites were not in the public school system but had private schools. For this reason they maintained their language longer than the "Fancy dutch." My wife and I visited graveyards were ancestors were buried. It is interesting that the graves in the 1800s were in German, but graves in the 1900s are in English. Our culture is very different today. While public school teaching is still in English, much of our culture is switching to English/Spanish languages.
That was very interesting and learnable, about the Native Pennyslavia Dutch (Old custom German). I would very love if you keep more making educational video's like this, my mother language is Dutch. My secondary language are English/American English and German🙂👍🏽
This is similar to the relationship between Dutch and Afrakace, which a Dutch friend describes as 16th-century Dutch.
I’m so excited to know more about this! Als Deustch lerner, ich habe viele Geschichte und Tradition auf diese Video gelernt von Deustchland und USA. Vielen Dank!
I am from the German border, and there are more similarities between Swabian and Swiss and Pensilvanian Dutch than there is to the High German as tought in school. So it may be easier for a PD speaker to find their way into German over this route, although many other Germans may sometimes have problems understanding. 😅
But Feli, nett dich mal wieder auf YT zu finden.
Ich hab mal nachgeschaut und festgestellt, dass sich Bairische und Österreichische eher wie auch das Allemannische und Schwäbische ähneln und zusammengefasst werden und am Bodensee dann halt alle aufeinander treffen. 😊 Flankiert wird das Ganze nach Norden und Osten vom Fränkischen, das man ja auch niemals mit Bairisch verwechseln sollte, auch wenn die Landesgrenze was anderes sagt. 😅 Die Baden sind für die Schwaben, wie die Franken für die Bayern.
Also ich kenn die Redewendung sowohl mit dem Murmeltier(tag), als auch mit dem Dachs, sowas hab ich auch mit Lichtmess in Erinnerung. "Sonnt sich der Dachs in der Lichtmess-Woch', kriecht er danach wieder (4 Wochen) in sei Loch."
There were many more, but I grew up in the country side of southern BW and I heard of them at the age of 3 or 4, (so there was no ground hog movie at least). Not all of them came in rhymes but were just stories my grandpa told me while hiking.
I also found that the Allemanian and Swiss structur "Mir missa go/geh schaffa!", or "Gammer do geh/go/gau luaga!", which also exists in some Swabian way has an interesting similarity to "We need to go/get to work!" or "Let's go have a look over there!" Not in the very same particular meaning, I guess, but it sounds very familiar.
Total interessant! Ich komme aus der Kurpfalz und habe fast alles verstanden.
We do have the badger in Wisconsin, obviously, although not lots of them. If you're feeling adventurous, you can try the groundhog thing with a badger, but a word to the wise, it's pretty much up to the badger whether he wants to go along with the festivities or not.
My dad lived in the Pfalz area for a bit during a gap year in college, and he remembers them using Gleiche the same was as in PA Dutch. He learned German fluently there and has retained it for decades
This was wonderful! I'm particularly fascinated about the history of America's Ground Hog Day coming from Europeans using badgers to predict the weather.
Interesting. His delivery made me think of chaucer’s middle english. Fascinating.
Growing up in PA the hex signs were everywhere, but you just don't see them very often anymore. I guess the witches all left.
American English is something of a time capsule too (because colonizers of a new territory tend to conserve their language better than the people in the old homeland), because we pronounce many words (such as bath and dance) and sounds (like a middle or final R), the way most British did at the time we left that the British later changed, as well as preserving older forms (such as gotten), that the British lost. For examples, bahth for bath, dahnce for dance, mehduh for murder, and had got for had gotten.
Thanks!
That's one of my ancestral languages. Some of my great-grandparents (and one aunt by marriage) were native speakers. Fun to hear it.
This is soooo interesting. Thank you for this video. 😊 As a German I'd say I understood like 80% of what he was saying and that is so cool! It's like a mix of Dutch and German with an American touch to it.
I'm in Minnesota, and from Feb 2 we always get far more than six weeks of winter, regardless of shadows.
10:36 At this point, I was kinda hoping for an announcement of Doug‘s visit to a UTS podcast episode. 😉 😉 🙈