All of our events are open to the public.
We welcome members and non-members alike.
We welcome members and non-members alike.
Modern Pennsylvania Dutch: Just a broken mishmash of German and English?
Thu. Apr. 18, 2024 - 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Please Join us April 18 at 6:00pm for lecture "Modern Pennsylvania Dutch: Just a broken mishmash of German and English?" led by Rose Fisher.
In this lecture, Rose Fisher will discuss Pennsylvania Dutch as it is spoken by the Old Order Amish and Mennonites of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. As a former member of the Amish of this area, Rose will give her unique perspective on Pennsylvania Dutch both as a native speaker of the language and as a linguist. She will present her research on the changing grammatical gender system in modern Pennsylvania Dutch and will discuss the extent to which contact with English may be the cause of these developments. In spite of the ways it diverges from Standard German and is influenced by English, Pennsylvania Dutch remains a vibrant German variety after ~300 years of separation from continental German and has a large and fast-growing speaker group. It does not always align with either German or English but like any language, its grammar is systematic and rule-based. The goal of this lecture is to dispel the myth that Pennsylvania Dutch (or any other language undergoing cross-linguistically typical change) is "broken" or in some way less complete than (standardized) German or English.
Rose Fisher graduated from Millersville University with a bachelor's degree in German and Psychology in 2018 and is now a graduate student in German Linguistics and Language Science at Penn State University on the University Park campus. She is currently on the Kreider Fellowship at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College to collect data for her dissertation project tentatively titled "Grammatical Gender in Pennsylvania Dutch: A System in Collapse?" which she aims to complete in the spring of 2025.
This event will take place on April 18 at 6:00 pm in the Library of the German Society, and is jointly sponsored by the Language and Library Committees. Please R.S.V.P. to the office by April 16. Light refreshments will be served in the Ratskeller after the talk.
In this lecture, Rose Fisher will discuss Pennsylvania Dutch as it is spoken by the Old Order Amish and Mennonites of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. As a former member of the Amish of this area, Rose will give her unique perspective on Pennsylvania Dutch both as a native speaker of the language and as a linguist. She will present her research on the changing grammatical gender system in modern Pennsylvania Dutch and will discuss the extent to which contact with English may be the cause of these developments. In spite of the ways it diverges from Standard German and is influenced by English, Pennsylvania Dutch remains a vibrant German variety after ~300 years of separation from continental German and has a large and fast-growing speaker group. It does not always align with either German or English but like any language, its grammar is systematic and rule-based. The goal of this lecture is to dispel the myth that Pennsylvania Dutch (or any other language undergoing cross-linguistically typical change) is "broken" or in some way less complete than (standardized) German or English.
Rose Fisher graduated from Millersville University with a bachelor's degree in German and Psychology in 2018 and is now a graduate student in German Linguistics and Language Science at Penn State University on the University Park campus. She is currently on the Kreider Fellowship at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College to collect data for her dissertation project tentatively titled "Grammatical Gender in Pennsylvania Dutch: A System in Collapse?" which she aims to complete in the spring of 2025.
This event will take place on April 18 at 6:00 pm in the Library of the German Society, and is jointly sponsored by the Language and Library Committees. Please R.S.V.P. to the office by April 16. Light refreshments will be served in the Ratskeller after the talk.