PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH, or PENNSYL VANIA GERMAN. The language of the Germans who emigrated to Pennsylvania between 1683 (when Pastorius settled in Germantown) and the middle of the eighteenth century. During this time some 100.000 settled principally in the southeastern counties of the State, such as Lan caster. York, Franklin. Cumberland. Berks, Schuylkill. and Lehigh. The emigration was due partly to the ravages of the armies of Louis XIV., and partly to religious persecution. The settlers came principally from the Rhenish Palatinate, Wiirttentherg. and Switzerland, with a sprink ling from the Lower Rhine, Bavaria, Alsace. and Saxony. As most of the dialects spoken by these people belonged to the Alemannie and Franconian groups (see GERMAN , the idiom of the Pennsylvania Dutch is really High German, and the confusion with Dutch is due to the fact that the settlers called their language 'Dcitscl' (German I. Although a variety of dialects were originally represented. that of the Rhenish Pala tinate (iheno.Vranconian) so predominated and influenced the others that the language may be regarded as fairly homogeneous. Owing to their segregation in religious communities, the emi grants clung tenaciously to their mother tongue, but were gradually compelled by force of circum stances to accept many English words, especially the names of objects in daily use, until the dialect can best be described as a fusion of Franconian and Alemannic with an admixture of English varying from one per cent. in the rural districts
to a large percentage in the towns.
The language exhibits the characteristic dia lectic darkening of a to o (sehlof for &Nal; jar for Jahr), further the fronting of ii to e (here for Loren; Les for Liisc) and of ii to i (Licher for Bucher). German ci and flu generally appear as (7 (del for Tcil; Lem for /Manic). The consonants p, pp, ;mil d are not shifted (pund for Pfund; Hoppe for klopfen; kopp for Kopf; day for Tag; ve-udder for Mutter). Final vowels and inflec tional n ore dropped (mid for m iide ; be in for Minnie; finite for linden; gfunne for gefundca).
The writings of the Pennsylvania Germans have been mainly of a religious character, such as hymns and polemical pamphlets. They were writ ten as a rule in the Higlr German literary dialect, with, however, a number of exceptions. Within the last forty years, however, a number of poems in the dialect have been written. Consult: Sei densticker, Milder ens der dcutsch-pennsyl vanischca Geschichtc (2d ed., New York, 1886) ; id., The First Century of German Printing in America (Philadelphia. 1893) ; Cobb. Story of the Palatines, on Hpisode in Colonial history (New York, 1897) ; Saehse. The German Sectarians of Prorincial Pennsyloania, 16544800 (ib., 1895 1900) ; Haldeman, Pennsylvania Dutch (ib., 1372) ; Learned, The Pennsylvania. German Dia lect (Baltimore, 1889).