Philadelphische Zeitung, Tolerance for German in early America

[Patrick, Peter L]

Hal will know this, but those who are new to the english-only 
debate may not know that Franklin was in bitter competition with
German-language publishers and wrote rather scurrilously against
the German language, possibly mainly because of his economic interests.
Presumably his German-language paper was meant to bite into their
market?
	-peter p-

Peter L Patrick
Dept of Language and Linguistics
University of Essex
patrickp at essex.ac.uk


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu 
> [mailto:owner-linganth at ats.rochester.edu] On Behalf Of Harold 
> F. Schiffman
> Sent: 10 June 2006 17:13
> To: Ling-Anth Network
> Subject: [Linganth] Philadelphische Zeitung, Tolerance for 
> German in early America
> 
> 
> 
> The other day I mentioned that Benjamin Franklin published a 
> German edition of his English newspaper (the Pennsylvania 
> Gazette), called the "Philadelphische Zeitung". I looked for, 
> and finally found, a facsimile of a page of this paper.  
> Since it's a rather large bitmap image, I won't attach it, 
> but it can be viewed here:
> 
> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/grafix/PhiladelphischeZeitung.bmp
> 
> Here's some more information about it:
> 
>  "As many as thirty-eight newspapers printed in the German 
> language appeared between the years 1732 and 1801. Many of 
> them had a very short life, among them the first attempt, the 
> fortnightly Philadelphische Zeitung, a German edition of 
> Benjamin Franklin^s Pennsylvania Gazette."
> 
> From The Cambridge History of English and American Literature 
> in 18 Volumes (1907^21).VOLUME XVIII. Later National 
> Literature, Part III. XXXI. Non-English Writings I.  6. 
> Eighteenth Century Newspapers.
> 
> http://www.bartleby.com/228/0806.html
> 
> Hal Schiffman
> 
>