THE HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN: FROM EUROPE TO THE MIDWEST

Pennsylvania German is a language that has outgrown its name. Now in its fourth century on North American soil, this German variety has seen its speakers multiply—now numbering more than 250,000—and move to such an extent that the majority currently live, not in Pennsylvania, but in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and other Midwest states. This shift in the demographic center of gravity of Pennsylvania German has been accompanied by linguistic divergence. A new Midwestern dialect of Pennsylvania German has emerged and with it a new sense of regional identity for its approximately 160,000 speakers, who, with a few exceptions, are members of Amish communities. I use the traditional term, at least among linguists, “Pennsylvania German” (PG), here and throughout the book, although other terms are also in common use, notably “Pennsylvania Dutch,” “Deitsch”—the native term and arguably a preferable term given the current broad geographical distribution of the language—and among some Amish, “Amisch.” The dialect divergence that has produced Midwest Pennsylvania German (MPG) in opposition to Pennsylvania Pennsylvania German (PPG) consists primarily of a small set of phonological changes along with a few lexical differences. These PG regional dialects are, in this respect, similar to the coterritorial regional dialects of Anglo-American English (i.e., Mid-Atlantic, Midlands, Inner North/Great Lakes): there is a high degree of—indeed almost complete—mutual intelligibility across the dialects, yet a few phonological and lexical features are socially salient and diagnostic of regional identity. Thus, PG dialects, like the Amish themselves, are thoroughly American. This book is a study of dialect divergence in the North American context, though the dialects in consideration are, obviously, not English. It aims to provide empirical detail on the distribution of key phonological, lexical, and morphological variants in several communities and to explore the internal linguistic changes, patterns of migration, and language contact that have led to the current geographic and social distribution of these features. Finally, it considers the potential for future dialect divergence or