Scandinavian languages

[Sheila Watts]

If this is meant to be Rick McAllister's response to my mail then sorry,
everyone, I must have been completely incomprehensible. I am not talking
about High German. Indeed, the Amish do use it in religious services -
Lutheran German, which is not really 'archaic', just a little
old-fashioned, like the English of the (King James) bible. It's still used
in German-speaking countries, so it's not certainly not archaic in the
religious context.

What I was talking about were written texts in 'Pensilfaanisch',
Pennsylvania Dutch, or whatever we want to call it, in which there is a
substantial body of literature. These texts show Pennsilfaanisch as having
a morphology and syntax which are like those of other German dialects and
pretty like those of modern standard German. Not, therefore, at all like US
English, as RMcA claimed in his original posting. The main English
influence in Pennsilfaanisch is in the vocabulary.

>>Rick McCallister wrote:
>>>	Pennsylvania Dutch, spoken by the Amish and other similar groups,
>>>is more or less a "relic language" in that the vocabulary and not much else
>>>are from the original language [mainly a mix of German dialects of the
>>>Upper Rhine valley such as Swiss German, Swabian and Alsatian]. The syntax
>>>and the morphology are principally from American English.

Sheila Watts wrote:
>>'Principally' is one of those words that can mean whatever you like, BUT
>>written PennDu, at least, has 3 genders, 3 cases, personal rendings on
>>verbs in the present tense separable verbs and rules for verb second and
>>verb last which look pretty like those of standard German - to mention just
>>a selection of features not terribly like US English. I'm willing to admit
>>to not haveing met any real live speakers myself, but I'd be surprised if
>>my large selection of textbooks on the subject is entirely misleading.
>
Rick McAllister replied:
>	The Amish conduct religious services in High German [or an archaic
>version of it] and are literate in the language but they don't speak it at
>home.
_______________________________________________________
Dr Sheila Watts
Newnham College
Cambridge CB3 9DF
United Kingdom

phone +44 1223 335816