In honor of my Uncle Gorge who was my Grandma Lill's brother I like to talk about something that bothers me as a Michigander of German-American heritage. You see, people in Pennsylvania and Texas have their own unique German dialects that litter their expressions and idioms that define them as a German-American culture. In Pennsylvania, the language has survived because of groups like the Amish and even have a newspaper written in the dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch. The bumper sticker on the right of me says "We still speak the mother tongue" when in standard German it's Mutterspreacher in their language it's Mudderschprooch
Also in Texas, they have a dialect too known as Texas German which sadly is a dying dialect that is beginning to have a revival because of a water park with a very German-sounding name which means Slippery (Schlitter) and Rode (Bahn) in the town of New Braunfels, Texas which is also on my bucket list along with Dr.Seuss's home in La Jolla until a waterside called Verruckt ruined my dreams....wait that was in Kansas?
However something odd has happened to us as German American Michiganders, how did we lose the language of our immigrant ancestors? The answer may lie in our accents depending on where you are as a Michigander; for non-Michiganders, it seems odd that some car salesmen in ads say, "Buy this new kharr" with a k sounding c to the point where it sounds like Harr! This is because of the way an American English c sounds like the German k sound like Karl. Or this one that I make all the time, "I'm putting on my shwetter!" in German w can have a soft sh or hard rr sound. I hate it when people say we do not have an accent because we do and it's full of German-sounding vowels.
Also, take a look at this map; the purple and red spots are where the population of German ancestry is the highest in the 1990s before I was born in 1991; and here is a good challenge for Google Earth users find out which counties and cities land on the makers in red and purple because you won't just find Frankenmuth, you will find other towns that are predominately German. Because of the internet, we can finally learn our mother tongue in Standard German; but it was even harder for German Americans in the 20's and post-war years to fully embrace the language because of German anti- sentiment in World War One and the rise of the Third Riche in World War Two. If you listen to Volksmusik or the Leider of Schubert or even to Mozart's Opera The Magic Flute(Die Zauberflaute) you as a non-German speaker or regular person can learn to understand how powerful the language is but how beautiful it can be too. I end this post by letting you listen to one of the most beautiful sounding song in Jodeln history Der Konigsjodeler sung by Franzl Lang.
