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Unique Texas German dialect dying | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4737 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 18 23 May 2013 at 1:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry, I was being overly snarky. I was just shocked by the "good riddance" comment. This
dialect may not have been destined to live forever, but it is nonetheless part of a culture that is unique in the world and I'm sad to see homogenization wipe it out. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| wber Groupie United States Joined 4302 days ago 45 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Vietnamese, French | Message 10 of 18 23 May 2013 at 6:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Kyle, in your opinion does that mean we should all get rid of our accents? I mean we here in the US don't speak like the English, our vocabulary is different from the English, our spelling is different from the English, our grammar is different from the English and our slang is different. That means we are "inferior" right? We're not speaking pure English right? We can't claim to speak English right even though 99% of the English speaking population can understand us since it's not the true form, it's not the Queen's English right? 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 11 of 18 23 May 2013 at 10:35am | IP Logged | |||||
I googled this in German, and the the German article has some examples. Very amusing for German speakers:
The wave of German immigrants in Texas have an interesting story. One of the biggest cities during the last half of the 1800s was New Braunfels, founded by Prinz zu Solms-Braunfels. I live relatively close to the Castle of Braunfels here in Germany, so I know the story. In New Braunfels you can see the German influence wherever you go - many of the street and place names are German. (country western singer George Strait got his debut at "Gruene Hall") As far as the dialect goes, it's spoken by people over sixty or older. There's not much of an impetus to keep it going. So it's sad when dialects die out, but new ones are forming as we speak (Kiezdeutsch here in Germany, for example). 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 12 of 18 23 May 2013 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Don't leave us hanging! :-) What is Kiezdeutsch? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 18 23 May 2013 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's amazing that the language has survived for so long. It has been encircled by a sea of English so of course the make-up of the dialect has been modified over the years.
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| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 14 of 18 23 May 2013 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, the German article's title mentioned it as being a "Sprachinsel" -- Language-Island.
Kiezdeutsch was born out of a mix of Turkish, Arabic and German youth-speak, and those that label it a dialect say that it's even developed its own grammar. Others just label it street slang -- a bastardization. There are some comedians that have been using Kiezdeutsch as in their routine for 25 years, but it might be premature (?) to call it a dialect since it's still being debated in linguistic circles. Fasulye opened up the topic in the German Thread here some time ago. A great debate for this forum, actually! I think those that speak it are stigmatized, much like those German immigrants who came to America speaking German. Texas-German serves as kind of a biproduct of their assimilation (or non-assimilation). I like dialects and it's fun to draw these kind of parallels, but I'd love to hear what anyone else has to say on the matter^^ Edited by Sunja on 23 May 2013 at 6:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cpnlsn88 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5038 days ago 63 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, Latin | Message 15 of 18 24 May 2013 at 2:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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Very difficult to make dialects blive longer than they can. Still it's a story that deserves to be told and documented. So, important to make recordings and put up written resources for Texas Deutsch - it's an incredible linguistic story.
For more resources Bayern 2 feature Thomas Meinecke's Texas Bohemia which can be downloaded http://www.br-online.de/podcast/mp3-download/bayern2/mp3-dow nload-podcast-hoerspiel-pool.shtml The question of how one makes a dialect live on is an interesting one - clearly material availability is a key element. This is something we need to find out more about. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 16 of 18 24 May 2013 at 9:31am | IP Logged | |||||
The most important thing for a dialect to survive is that the young people have to speak it. That's the problem that Texas-German is facing. Only older people speak it. So unfortunately, that dialect's dead in the water. Media can help. Maybe Mr. Boas is working on that? There are radio stations in Germany, for example, that offer programs in many different regional dialects. Writing is not really very common. There are a few forums where people write in dialect (some older folks like to write jokes or prose). Young people text in it with their friends, of course -- but dialect is born out of speech and has no real systematic form of writing. There has to be an isolated social group for a dialect to grow, IMO. The Internet would unfortunately not make a good breeding ground -- to big and varied. There are local clubs (sports or otherwise) where dialect is spoken and is thriving. ;) Edited by Sunja on 24 May 2013 at 9:49am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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