December 28, 2006
Survey probes 1911 law, Pennsylvania German Program studying decline of Pennsylvania German
BY BARBARA MILLER
LEBANON - When William Unger of Annville was a youngster in the late 1940s, he recalls getting slapped and having his knuckles rapped with a ruler by a fifth-grade teacher for speaking Pennsylvania German. In first grade in 1943, he got beat up by a fellow classmate because he spoke Pennsylvania German, which was the only language spoken in his home. "When someone got me angry, I didn't know how to chew them out in English," he said.
Unger only began learning English the summer before he started school from an older sister who had flunked first grade because of speaking Pennsylvania German, which is commonly called Pennsylvania Dutch. Those are the kind of stories that James Dibert, Alice Spayd and others in the Pennsylvania German Studies Program at the Lebanon campus of Harrisburg Area Community College have been hearing for years. They want to try to document those, and try to find what effect they had on the decline of the number of people speaking Pennsylvania German. Dibert said one of the major factors in the language's decline is believed to have been a 1911 state law that required only English to be used in the public school.
"We know some superintendents pressured or encouraged the teachers to basically, if anyone comes in speaking Pennsylvania German, to use whatever means necessary to get them to speak English," Dibert said. "We don't know how widespread that was. That's one of the things we're trying to figure out," he said, adding that some schools may have been more lenient.
Pennsylvania German was brought here by people from the Palatinate area of Germany from 1683-1776. An estimated 5 million people in the U.S. still speak it, Dibert said, including the Amish and descendants of these early settlers living in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and other states, and Canada. It is still spoken in the Palatinate area of Germany.
The decline of Pennsylvania German in America began in the mid-1800s with the industrial revolution, Dibert said. Workers had to learn English to communicate. But even in the colonial period there was an attempt by English speakers in Philadelphia to try to get Germans to speak English, he said. Dibert said he's not sure why the law was passed in 1911. There was a large amount of anti-German sentiment in World War I, which aided in the language's decline.
Unger said he believes anti-German sentiment during and after World War II also played a factor in the attitude in schools regarding Pennsylvania German. Dibert said they are spreading the word about the survey through Pennsylvania German language study groups, groundhog lodges and Pennsylvania German newsletters, and will collect them for at least a year.The results will be summarized in an article for the journal of the Pennsylvania German Society, "Der Reggeboge," for possible publication.
Their goal is not to cast blame on those who may have discouraged the language, Dibert said. "Our intent is two-fold: To what degree did this influence the decline of the speaking of Pennsylvania German, and how did it affect the people who went through it," he said. "We're not trying to point fingers at anybody. We're trying to understand what happened here and what was the impact of it," Dibert said.
"We do know, for at least a generation, often parents who spoke stopped speaking it to their children. Whether there is a connection between that and what was going on in the schools, we haven't connected those dots yet,"
Dibert said.
Unger said he holds no ill will toward his teacher for the punishment meted out, saying it was a different era.
The committee is also hoping to receive input from teachers who dealt with Pennsylvania German speakers in their schools.
BARBARA MILLER: 832-2090 or barbmiller@patriot-news.com