Were YOU able to understand anything? 😅 ++Go to buyraycon.com/felifromgermany for 15% off your order! Brought to you by Raycon++
@theresawrightman3097
2 жыл бұрын
Some of it but My husband says a little different he learned Northern German he what's to go visit Germany Again
@MrDonTabasco
2 жыл бұрын
Hi, great video, I'm from Sweden and I have been learning the German language for six years in school, I've also spent a lot of time visiting Germany and Austria for vacation. I understood almost everything without difficulty, the Pennsylvania Dutch was much more difficult for me to understand though.
@michaelgrabner8977
2 жыл бұрын
the soft "dd" like "Städde" instead of "Städte" is also in Franconia common use..and that is in the north of Bavaria which isn´t "the North of Germany" as you as Bavarian know but just so to say "the North of the South" = almost "the Middle of Germany". . Vernell says so often "hamia" instead of "haben wir" and your mentioned "Schul" instead of "Schule" and that are foremost "German southern maybe middle German dialect characteristics"...but the "Burch" instead of "Burg" is a northern middle- till northern German thing...my guess is that different Germans from different German areas and places simply intermingeled in Texas for so many decades and so did their way to speak German over the times as well. Don´t compare it with "Standard Deutsch/ colloquial called "hochdeutsch" but with "dialects" because "Standard Deutsch" just exists since 1905-06 and is a pure "artificial umbrella language"...it was first introduced 1905 at the Deutsche Sprachkonferenz in Berlin (where Austria and Switzerland also participated) based on Konrad Duden´s work who finalised the work of the Brothers Grimm and it was put in place in Germany by law soon after. (Austria + Switzerland took over most of it but kept their "local language peculiarities" foremost in behalf of vocabulary but also in behalf of spelling in some cases and a tiny bit of grammar differences = That´s why today 3 different - "official" - types of "Standard German" are in place in the socalled "German speaking area" which have some few differences amongst each other).. "Standard German" was back then as it was put in place for most Germans in Germany a complete different language to learn - especially in many areas in the North of Germany it was extremely "foreign" back then - in comparision to what they were used to speak back in the days which was "the huge number of completely different local German dialects" divided into just 2 branches = "hochdeutsche Dialekte" (southern + middle German Dialects) + niederdeutsche Dialekte" (northern German Dialects) and because "Standard German" took over by far way more language characteristics from the southern + middle German dialect branch in behalf of vocabulary and spelling and syntax the "colloquial term Hochdeutsch" for "Standard Deutsch" became "colloquial common use" because of that.... Although from the pure linguistic point of view/"Germanistik Ausdruck" the "original term" "Hochdeutsch" doesn´t mean "Standard German" at all it just means "Highland German" and is meant "geographically" and just concludes "all dialects in the South of Germany + Austria + Switzerland" and then there is also "Mittelhochdeutsch (which is geographically in the Middle and has in their dialects linguistic characteristics from both Hoch- + Niederdeutsch but foremost Hochdeutsch characteristcs therefore it counts as part of "Hochdeutsch" )" and "Niederdeutsch" meaning "Lowland German" and those "German Lowland dialects" have way more in common with "today´s Dutch" than with "Hochdeutsch dialects" especially syntax-wise...and those are all marked by certain linguistic peculiarities which are solely to find in the local dialects...besides the differences in syntax there are things like for instance "ch" becomes "k" ( Ich/Ik) or "pf" becomes "pp" (Apfel/Appel) and and things like that.. There are some different linguistic "border lines" trying to express that "geographically" because "the common political geographical borders in place" don´t match precisely linguistic-wise..and the most known ones are the "Benrather Linie" colloquial also called "Machen-Maken Linie" and the "Speyer Linie" colloquial also called "Apfel- Appel Linie" just google it...because I have already written almost an "Essay" ;-D I also want to mention the "Germany´s backthroat R" which was originally "a pure Niederdeutsch thing" (and partly a northern Mitteldeutsch thing) and didn´t exist in "Hochdeutsch dialects for the most part" where the "R" was for the most part "rolled" and still is rolled in their dialects as like for instance the "Bavarian dialect" and in "Schwäbisch/Swabian dialect" or in "Fränkisch/Franconian dialect" which basically covers the whole South of Germany and in almost all "Austrian dialects" BUT although I mentioned before that "Germany´s Standard German" took over way more things from the "Hochdeutsch dialects" it nevertheless became part of "Germany´s Standard German". In Austrian Standard German for instance the backthroat R doesn´t exist (it just exists solely in the Tyrolean dialect but there it is "extreme" sounding like snoring) = just one example of those previous mentioned "kept local language peculiarities" but here in behalf of pronunciation which I didn´t mention before so I did now just for the sake to have all covered.. ...
@carmenkraft
2 жыл бұрын
Interesting topic, great video. For me (from Austria) Texas German was really easy to understand. Understanding Pennsylvania Dutch took more effort.
@lisashun
2 жыл бұрын
Ich hab das Gefühl, dass der Dialekt von der älteren Dame dem friesischen Dialekt sehr ähnelt, nur ein wenig verständlicher. Aber ein paar Betonungen waren doch recht ähnlich. Und der ältere Herr, OMG mir kommt der Dialekt sooooo bekannt vor, aber ich weiß grade echt nicht woher... Ansonsten merkt man, wie die englische Sprache mit der deutsche Sprache verbunden wurde... Sound like eine Verbindung der beiden Sprachen, aber was mir auch aufgefallen ist, dass Menschen die Eingewandert sind und nicht als Muttersprache Englisch sprechen, klingen relativ ähnlich und das ist echt erstaunlich und ich finde das Wunderschön und erstaunlich, dass man alle so gut verstehen kann, obwohl sie die deutsche Entwicklung garnicht mitbekommen haben.
@kennethcrenwelge4971
2 жыл бұрын
It was interesting to see that you made a video about Texas German. All of my and my wife's ancestor came to Texas in the mid 1800's. I was born in Fredericksburg in 1943 and spoke only German at home until started public school in 1950. My parents were rather old when I was born. My father 1901 and my mother in 1906. They both learned English in school but my mother had almost forgotten her English by the time I was born, She spoke only German with all of her friends and relatives and we even attended Lutheran church service in German until 1957. My paternal oma was born in 1878 and never learned English so we had to sit with her in church. I also had to learn the old German fraktur font. The lady in the last video, Evelyn Grona Weinheimer, and I started the first grade together in 1950 and graduated together in 1962. I saw her just yesterday in a restaurant and we spoke of old times. My father sold fuel in a 25 mile radius of Fredericksburg and during the 1950's I could tell each community spoke different dialects. My generation attended school together and we picked up words from each other's dialect. Although we were not allowed to speak German on the school grounds, we did it when the teacher wasn't listening. It was not until the sixth grade that I had a teacher that was a Fredericksburg native that spoke German. New Braunfels and Comfort natives spoke more of a high German than we did in Fredericksburg. I was taught to speak "höfliche rede" to my elders and important people, but with my peers we mixed dialects. I have kept up with my German more than most of my generation because I have been visiting Germany 2 or 3 times a year for the last 30 years. We were there last month and we are going again next month. We have made contact with distant relatives on both sides of the family and made friends Most of the people that I have conversations with are people around my age. They are astounded to hear words that their grandparents spoke and are no longer in use. But I have learned a lot of new words. In Fredericksburg we call a traffic light "ein rotes Licht". I have learned to call it an Ampel in Germany. I quite often speak to people in Germany over the telephone for hours. Our 47 year old son understood quite a bit of our German when he was a child but he is exposed to a lot more Spanish now. My 50 year old daughter was an exchange student in Kassel and married a guy from Switzerland. They lived in Europe 14 years, but now live in Austin, TX. Her profession is translating for Swiss and German banks and lawyers. She understands Fredericksburg German, but she speaks "learned out of book" German.
@c0d3_m0nk3y
2 жыл бұрын
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
@da_pawz
2 жыл бұрын
Wow, love your story. Thank for sharing 😁👍
@mattkuhn6634
2 жыл бұрын
Love the added perspective! I'm a Texas native who learned German at UT Austin before going to grad school in Germany, and these kinds of personal stories are always to me the most meaningful as well as the most edifying about how dialect came about. Your story about mixing dialects in school is particularly great!
@annekabrimhall1059
2 жыл бұрын
That’s all really interesting! Thanks for sharing. I learned German in college and a bit of schwäbisch. My kids spoke German until 5 or 6 but didn’t get exposed to native German. It was an interesting experiment and experience. They are learning it on Duolingo now.
@karinland8533
2 жыл бұрын
Thank you very much!
@John-lx8iu
11 ай бұрын
My family were among the first settlers of Fredricksburg and Texas German was my grandfather's first language. I have often regretted not learning German in school. It would have been nice talking to him and my great uncle in German before they passed. That said, the accents from the people in your video remind me a LOT of my family.
@katrincarstens5125
7 ай бұрын
I believe that spirits are with us when we talk to them. I experience this that way. When you say "Guten Morgen, Opi!", you surely get a loving smile from heaven. ❤🤗🥰😉
@lindaberl3712
2 жыл бұрын
I had two years of German in high school…46 years ago. I was surprised at how much I understood!
@Seth9809
Жыл бұрын
Cool!
@LucysArt
Жыл бұрын
I understood every word they said cause I'm a native German speaker 😊 In regards to the word "jachten" the woman on the first video said, I can say that our dialect here in Ostwestfalen includes this kind of pronunciations very often. We say "Die Jacht" instead of "Die Jagt". Also we say "Jochurt" instead of "Joghurt". So the "g" often is pronounced differently here, like in the word "weg", we say "wech". Like in "where are you from?", we say "Wo kommste wech?". So this kind of pronunciations are very common in our region too. 😉
@katrincarstens5125
7 ай бұрын
Bei uns weiter im Norden gibt es diese scheinbar verdrehte Grammatik ebenfalls. Wo kommste wech, aber auch "nache Schule gehen" oder "nach Aldi einkaufen" ist ganz typisch und alltäglich.
@patrickseidel218
7 ай бұрын
@@katrincarstens5125An der niedersächsischen Grenze zu Ostwestfalen ist ,,Wo kommst du wech?" auch bekannt, aber ,,nach" statt ,,bei" oder ,,zu" wird eher weniger verwendet.
@oe8gar
7 ай бұрын
Als Österreicher kann ich da nur sagen, dass uns das Wort „jachten“ auch in den Niederlanden in der Provinz Friesland aufgefallen ist. Da gibt’s auch Jachtbitter - einen Kräuterlikör - zu kaufen.
@margaretqueenofscots9450
2 жыл бұрын
As a native PA Dutch speaker, I am surprised by how easily I understood the first woman, more so than I understand Feli’s German. It sounds similar to me to the Old Order Mennonites dialect.
@Xenogears76
2 жыл бұрын
Are you in Lancaster county? I used to work in the Pennsylvania Dutch country there and there were some Germans who tried to communicate with the Pennsylvania Dutch but really were baffled by each other lol. It was an interesting situation.
@margaretqueenofscots9450
2 жыл бұрын
@@Xenogears76 I’m in Cumberland Valley, Chambersburg, about 1.5 hours west, but also with a large share of Amish and Mennonites
@Xenogears76
2 жыл бұрын
@@margaretqueenofscots9450 ok that's a really nice area:) I didn't know that the Amish were out that way. I guess you are close to Gettysburg then?
@margaretqueenofscots9450
2 жыл бұрын
@@Xenogears76 Yes. And it is lovely here! 😊 I’m a transplant from the Midwest so I don’t take it for granted.
@davidmaynard4925
2 жыл бұрын
Feli, I took German as a second language for two years in an American high school. It's become a casualty of no practice since I had no one to speak Deutsche with. However I was able to catch several words in the interviews. I thoroughly enjoy your videos. Keep up the good work. It borders on the criminal to let our knowledge fade away.....
@paulwalther5237
2 жыл бұрын
I could catch a lot of it too but even she didn't catch everything which makes me feel better I guess.
@frae5
2 жыл бұрын
Well, the Texas German is a bit difficult to understand but nevertheless, it's close to nowadays' German. However I myself did not understand everything at first hear ... But it's much much more intelligible than the Amish German ... which is almost incomprehensible and which has taken on many unusual words, or altered their original meaning ..
@patrick9876
2 жыл бұрын
Same here David. There aren’t many German speakers for me to practice with, so now I only know small greetings or individual words. Now that I have more time, I hope to re-learn what I’ve lost over the past few years.
@suellenw561
2 жыл бұрын
Our younger daughter took German in school & had the pleasure of being taught in her senior yr by a young woman from Germany while her American teacher went to Germany to teach English. At a parent-teacher night, another of her teachers asked who our daughter was talking to. It was her German teacher so I explained. This teacher said "no wonder she seemed confused by some of our conversation." But, as you say, not using the language makes one forget.
@raisinsawdust
2 жыл бұрын
Me too - I had German for 2 years in high school - always enjoyed trying to translate German where ever I encountered the language
@ADHDWOOHOO
2 жыл бұрын
My family is Texasdeutsch and Vernell and Evelyn both remind me of my Oma
@ivettemckenzie1646
2 жыл бұрын
Hi Feli, I'm from Texas but recently moved from a town close to Fredericksburg. I self taught German while in high school. I understood just about everything in the video, except for some muffled clips. Thank you for sharing! It was great seeing Fredericksburg in the spotlight for a second!
@rockyracoon3233
2 жыл бұрын
I visited Fredericksburg back in 2004. Really loved that town. Like dying and waking up in Germanic heaven!🇩🇪😀
@kurthollman2987
2 жыл бұрын
I love your enthusiasm for language. It’s contagious.
@robertzander9723
2 жыл бұрын
Zuerst hätte ich sie ins alte Schlesien verortet, aber es scheint mehr ins Rheinische/Hessische zu gehen. Sie ist ein wunderbares Beispiel dafür, wie sehr sich die deutsche Sprache verändert hat und das hat sie eigentlich über die Jahrhunderte immer wieder durch verschiedene Einflüsse. Die Auswanderung fand ja über die Häfen an der Nordsee statt, Bremerhaven vorallem, da hat man sich eventuell zusammengeschlossen und dann ist mit der Zeit so ein Mischmasch an Deutsch entstanden. Vielleicht etwas von den Friesen übernommen. Spannend ihr mal zuzuhören.
@HenryvanElch
2 жыл бұрын
Es sind damals viele aus dem heutigen Hessen und Baden-Würtenberg in die neue Welt gezogen. Viele davon hatten militärischen Hintergrund oder zumindest eine Kampfausbildung und sind dann einfach geblieben, nachdem sie ihre Pflichten dort vollbracht hatten. Einige wurden direkt von ihren Fürsten dorthin entsand und andere sind einfach so als Söldner rüber. In der neuen Welt wurde damals viel Blut vergossen.
@barbara-xt6cc
2 жыл бұрын
Irgendwo Osten, "Preußen", Schlesien, war auch meine Idee.
@billbot7661
2 жыл бұрын
Guter Gedanke. Ich glaube auch das der Mix zustande kommt, wenn verschiedenste Regionen plötzlich an einem Ort wohnen und z.B. untereinander heiraten. Eine Friesin einen Hessen oder Schlesier? Oder der Deutschlehrer kommt aus Bayern...
@kennethcrenwelge4971
2 жыл бұрын
Nur wenige aus Schlesien haben nach Fredericksburg und New Braunfels ausgewandert. New Braunfels war bei Westerwalder gegründet und die meisten frühen Siedler kamen von dort. Fredericksburg hatte mehr Siedler aus Hannover und Hünsrück. Meine Schwiegermutter stammt aus New Braunfels. Die meisten ihrer Vorfahren stammten aus dem Westerwald, aber sie hatte eine Familie aus Bayern und eine Familie aus Vorpommern und eine Familie aus Schlesien. Aber das war selten der Fall. Mein Schwiegervater wurde in Hondo, Texas, geboren. Er stammt aus einer kleinen Ostfriesländersiedlung Mein Schwiegervater wurde in Hondo, Texas, geboren. Er stammt aus einer kleinen Ostfriesländersiedlung Mein Schwiegervater wurde in Hondo, Texas, geboren. Er stammt aus einer kleinen Ostfriesländersiedlung Sie heißt Quihi, Texas. Er hat noch Ostfriesen Dialekt gesprochen. Ich war in Fredericksburg in 1943 gebornen. Ich habe Vorfahren aus dem Hunsrück, aus Hannover, aus dem Raum Düsseldorf und aus Thüringen. Die meisten waren Christen. einige waren Juden, wurden aber Christen. Ich verstehe nochJiddisch. Ich habe 50 Jahre zurück viele Geschäfte mit Juden gemacht, aber die Sprache geht verloren. Ich spreche immer noch lieber Fredericksburg-Deutsch als wie Englisch, aber auch das geht verloren.
@Ashorisk
2 жыл бұрын
so faszinierend, man hört teilweise klar norddeutschen Dialekt, dann aber auch wieder Teile aus komplett anderen Regionen
@fawnjenkins7266
2 жыл бұрын
Feli, I lived near Hamburg and learned Hochdeutsch as an exchange student. My German ancestry were from Ulm, Germany and settled in Texas, but in Plano. I don't know how many of any of my ancestors kept their language. I will have to ask my cousins who still live in Plano, Texas.
@jimgreen5788
2 жыл бұрын
Feli, I learned something a year or so ago which you might be interested in learning also: New Braunfels got Anglicized over time to BRAWN-fulls. Around 25:00 you mentioned Lavaca County; when divided into La Vaca, it's Spanish for 'the cow', and would be correctly pronounced la VAH-cah. Even though I don't speak German, except for 1-10, and a few pleasantries, these 2 videos were quite interesting. Thanks.
@TheRival-_-
8 ай бұрын
It’s true, only a few people really speak German here in Texas, and schools don’t tend to offer it at all. I’m trying to learn it in a similar way to how I learned English in Elementary, the accent is a struggle though 😂
@chud67
Жыл бұрын
THANK YOU Feli for making this video. I am German on my father's side and live in San Antonio, Texas. My father's family settled in San Antonio back in the 1800's. My father passed away last year and I recently connected with my grandfather's niece who lives near New Braunfels. Going over the family history again and hearing about how my grandfather and his 11 brothers and sisters in San Antonio were tri-lingual (German, Spanish, and English) fascinated me. I had a great-great-grandmother who was born in San Antonio but only spoke German because her family and friends were all German speakers; but now none of us speak it today. It breaks my heart that this was not passed down. The same thing happened on my mother's side: she was Sicilian and I remember my grandmother speaking to my mom in Italian and my mom would understand it, but would reply in English. Neither I or any of my cousins on my dad's side speak German, but I was inspired by your video about Texas Germans to seek out German language classes here in San Antonio. Hopefully I can start soon. It is a tragedy that culture and heritage are not being passed down. However maybe I can fix that.
@muchacho56
2 жыл бұрын
This one was a real treat, Feli! I don't know if there is a way for you to search past comments by sender, but awhile back I posted for you a PBS hour-long documentary focused upon the very direct influence of German polka on what is now called "Tex-Mex" music. The appropriation of the accordion by Northern Mexicans is a real defining feature of Norteño culture, so much so that it is considered a point of firm, ontological identity. How cool it would be to live vicariously through you and Ben for you to take a visit "down them parts" someday soon!
@Soulgardenmel
11 ай бұрын
I live in Fredericksburg! I work at a local feed store and I heard somebody speaking this dialect on the phone as I was checking them out! I have also met other elderly locals who still speak it, but it's considered something the "old-timers" do. In our local high school it is highly encouraged to learn German if you don't learn Spanish. Also! Montabaur is Fredericksburg's sister-city, I know a lot of locals who have visited :)
@1983simi
Жыл бұрын
Texas was the first state in the US I ever visited way back 20 years ago when I was just 19 years old, and I remember being annoyed at the amount of Texans claiming they were German too and throwing a few phrases of their weirdly accented Denglish at me. But time has passed, and I have been living abroad for 10 years now, in a country where I barely ever get to speak German as all people I know are locals and we speak either English or the local language... and I have to say even after just 10 years whenever I come back to visit my parents back in Germany for at least 3-4 days I find myself switching between languages within a sentence, just cause a turn of phrase just is on my tongue quicker than my brain being able to check if it's the proper language to use at the moment... and I too occasionally find myself unsure if a German word I'm using is actually German or if I just made it up from a mix of English and German. The brain is a funny thing like that, whatever you don't use/need frequently it will become less dominant and be layered with other things. And this happens to me as someone who was a pure German speaker in Germany for almost 30 years of my life before moving abroad. So I've gained a soft spot in my heart and a lot of empathy for those immigrant communities who do try to preserve and maintain their linguistic roots but just from the nature of their environment can't possibly prevent certain overlap and merging of linguistic patterns. At this point I'm pretty sure, if I had raised a child in the country I'm living in, even if I had tried to teach him or her German, without actually living in Germany with plenty of other native speakers around that kid would most likely end up speaking very similar to those people whose ancestors migrated 4-5 generations back.
@kkrolf2782
11 ай бұрын
I found your comment intriguing! And a bit curious. In my young adult years I worked in nursing homes and hospitals, and occasionally took care of someone who HAD been a native speaker of some non-english language possibly for the majority of their growing up years but had lived and worked in The States for all of their adult lives. The interesting thing to me was that quite often, in their last years, they reverted to the language of their youth. One woman, whose mother was following this path, became saddened to the point of depression, as she could no longer understand what her mother was saying during these episodes. I wonder, too, how Mr Buttigieg keeps all the various languages he knows straight in his mind!?!
@greggbestgen780
2 жыл бұрын
As a child I used to hear conversations like this. Stearns county Minnesota was very german and Catholic. The old farmers would speak their version of Deutsch which had a heavy Luxembourgish and/or low german component. Sadly it seems extinct now. Time moves on.
@Joizygyrl926
11 ай бұрын
I lived in Bayern, Germany for 6 yrs and now I live in El Paso. And at the base Ft Bliss we had a German school for children. Sadly they closed it last year. We miss Germany so much😭. Our first year here we went to the Oktoberfest on post wearing our dirndls. I think it threw many folks off that I was able to sing some songs and speak German. German soldiers still come to train at the base. It's comforting to hear them speaking.
@evalinawarne1337
6 ай бұрын
I miss speaking German every day. My parents are both in Heaven There were a lot of German families 1960 70 80,90,2020 We went to German picnics. Munich dances. Berliner Club, and few other clubs. There is a german shooting club near me. Singing choir club. I had a lot of fun growing up in a German cultures. I so miss this life. ONLY a few living I know. I understood Most Texas German. SE MICHIGAN
@Drmcclung
2 жыл бұрын
To be fair, Texas German isn't what it used to be. At all. Today it's mostly a mangled memory.. Until recently it sounded very very close to exactly the way it sounded when newer German immigrants arrived in Texas. My grandmother is 103yrs old now, and she tells me her own grandparents were quite strict about learning the language and how it was spoken. They were protective of it. In the space between Houston & San Antonio German was alive and well all the way to about the 1930's when my great great grandparent's generation had mostly died off. The accents certainly evolved (people came here from all over Germany) but the language itself, they were pretty strict about preservation. I still correct people's pronunciation of town names just out of habit from my grandmother. But now that 3/4 of California lives in Texas I guess we can kiss that piece of TX history bye bye as well 😡
@cbfranke66
2 жыл бұрын
Great video. I grew up in Texas and I am of German heritage. My ancestors came from different areas of Germany. My mother remembered her grandmother only spoke German at home so she could understand & speak it some but forgot most as she grew older. My dad knows some German since his grandparents immigrated from Germany
@brownjatt21
2 жыл бұрын
You ever attempt learning yourself?
@joyoung2483
2 жыл бұрын
This will sound odd, but I took German in High School almost 50 years and was pretty bad at it, but I understood more of what the Texas Germans said than I would have ever thought I would.
@fonkbadonk5370
2 жыл бұрын
I assume their pronunciation being heavily influenced by English phonemes makes it much easier for English ears to understand. This is probably also why I as a German had to listen to some parts twice to get the meaning, even though I am very used to listening to spoken English - but less than I'm used to German of course.
@golden.lights.twinkle2329
2 жыл бұрын
@@fonkbadonk5370 Also the older ladies spoke German very slowly.
@stephanteuscher6583
2 жыл бұрын
For me as a "Badenser" (from the Baden part of German federal state Baden-Württemberg) it was everything easy to understand. For me it sounded like mixed dialects from the west (like Baden, Rheinland-Pfalz and Nordrhein-Westfalen) and the north.
@kennethcrenwelge4971
2 жыл бұрын
I am a 78 year old native of Fredericksburg and still prefer to speak our language over English but the native speakers are dying out. Most of the settlers f New Braunfels and Fredericksburg were from the Westerwald, Hunsrück and Hannover and Lower Saxony. My generation was the first generation to go to school together. Up until about 70 years ago there was a country school every 6 miles. I visit Germany several times a year. Most people think I was born there but they always wonder where because I use dialect words from so many different areas. I don't even try to explain. I just call it a Texas-Akzent.
@asmodon
2 жыл бұрын
I was born in Hannover and went to university in Trier, which is not that far from the Hunsrück area. I thought I heard traces of both regional accents and dialects but put it down to personal bias. Now I feel vindicated.😁 Thanks for sharing!
@Danny30011980
Жыл бұрын
There is such thing as the good old fashioned headphones with cable. Hard to loose, no charging needed, no accidental explosion in your ear or pocket, and inexpensive. Worls fir me every time
@judithwieser5443
4 ай бұрын
In the passage where the man said "reingemovt", "ausarbeiten" probably means something like "ausbauen", in the sense of fitting out or making the house (more) habitable indoors. At least that'a what I understood as a Swiss German speaker.
@awegjlappenaeofgihn
2 жыл бұрын
I swear, this Videos are a Timetravel for Germans, atleast it feels like it in my Opinion :D These words, dialects and mix with English is Fantastic! I hope this Languages dont die and i can Talk to someone who Speaks it ^^ Greetings from Kassel
@maryellencook9528
11 ай бұрын
Grüß Gott, Feli! I am glad that you're acknowledging that Texas has it's own form of German. I learned the language in school, with German being my second major at university. My late husband's maternal grandmother, Oma Goertz (Görtz) came over from Germany as a young girl and married her cousin in Rockne, a small farming community in Bastrop County. My late mother-in-law grew up speaking German until she went to public school in the 1940s. Even the nuns in the Sacred Heart parochial school spoke German. It always tickled me to listen to Mom's brothers because their English had a slight German accent and their Deutsch had a Texas accent, lol. Right before Oma Goertz passed away in the mid 1990s she would only speak German. I was one of the few "Kinder" who could converse with her. Have a blessed week. ❤️ 🙏
@aeolia80
2 жыл бұрын
I'm a US German descendant, my great-grandmother was born and raised in Quincy Illinois, so were her parents, all of them were full blood German, and did everything in German in their community in the town. My 3rd great grandparents immigrated from Westphalia/Lippe (part of me thinks that whole town immigrated, lol). My grandmother never grew up speaking German because her mother dies when she was very young and her father was not of German descent. And I think you're right, a lot of the German ethnic people in the US kinda gave up trying during WWI (my great grandmother died right before it). My brother ended up learning German and lived in Germany for a few years, and while I love Germany, I ended up marrying a Frenchman and immigrated to France 😂😂😂😂
@plainmarienc
Жыл бұрын
Wow! Haven't run into another person who even knows what Lippe refers to. I'm another descendant from the Lippe region. Interestingly, even in the early 1900's, there was an effort by the Lippe immigrants in the US to document and preserve their dialect and culture.
@jonathanr2830
Ай бұрын
Some of my descendants were Palatines who migrated through Philadelphia in 1739. They then moved south through the Carolinas, then west, to Texas, Oklahoma, and beyond. I live in Texas, and am proud of my heritage, which also includes Irish. In addition to a sizable German-rooted population and culture, Texas is also home to a sizable Czech-rooted population that dominates many parts of central and southeast Texas. Of course, there are also Texans with roots from Mexico, Spain, France, and elsewhere in the world; and their cultural influences are much appreciated here.
@daykibaran9668
2 жыл бұрын
Feli vergiss nicht das die Texas-Deutschen ausgewandert sind wo nicht all zu viele Hochdeutsch gesprochen haben, da war es eher so das man noch seine eigenen Dialekte gesprochen haben, deswegen klingt es sehr nach deutschem Dialekt
@Ingwersen
Жыл бұрын
Texas german sounds alot like the north german dialect ‘plat deutsch’ - the dialect of my grandmother and my father (both born and raised in Husum, Nordfriesland).
@privatepilot4064
11 ай бұрын
My grandmother and her family came here from Germany in 1915 from Eastern Germany (now Poland) and they of course were Prussian. They ended up living and farming in Adrian, MI amd New Brunfels, TX. My great grandmother doed in MI in 1968 and she couldn’t speak English until the day she died. Their last name was Luck.
@bes03c
2 жыл бұрын
Feli's American accent is getting so good. Few second language speakers ever get this natural of pronunciation.
@jdktoo
2 жыл бұрын
what do u think a native german's english sounds like? pfft
@brongulus2617
2 жыл бұрын
@@jdktoo I've known and talked to way too many native Germans in English, and not one of them had so strong a pronunciation. Except maybe in their heads...
@jdktoo
2 жыл бұрын
@@brongulus2617 it's about generations, not everybody had english in school for i dunno what time, but i can assure you, nowadays every german can speak more or less fluent english, can you speak fluent german? i guess no. end of story.
@michaelbledsoe9296
Жыл бұрын
@@jdktoo It’s not about fluency, it’s about accent/pronunciation.
@jdktoo
Жыл бұрын
@@michaelbledsoe9296 yes and what? i have been to the uk on school exchange, do you think my english pronunciation is bad? i talk to ppl from all over the world with no problem on a daily basis and i haven't been the only one.. can you speak german?
@SirDavidAsher
Жыл бұрын
I live in north San Antonio. Our street names are either German or Spanish names. I never really noticed how much German influence was here until my cousins from New York came to visit. It's all just normal to me, lol
@ronja_mattis_carlo
7 ай бұрын
Hey! Das war ziemlich interessant! Ich habe schon öfter von den "deutschen" Texanern gehört, aber dass das so ein deutliches und gutes Deutsch ist, finde ich mehr als überraschend! Sehr cool! Immer toll, neue Dinge zu lernen die es zwischen den USA und Deutschland gibt, ID denke das sind viel mehr als man meinen könnte. Ich glaube dieses "isch" usw kommt meist aus dem Süddeutschen Raum. VG aus dem verregneten Odenwald. ✌️
@rebekahtaylor9307
7 ай бұрын
I’ve been to the pioneer museum and I think we talked to this lady. Cool. It’s a great museum. I recommend it.
@khutchinsoncpa1
Жыл бұрын
My mother-in-law is from Pfleugerville. She was born in the 1930s. She doesn’t speak German much anymore, but it was her first language.
@johnshonder3750
2 жыл бұрын
My ancestors emigrated from Germany at the end of the 19th century. Exactly nothing of German culture made it down to my generation. How fortunate these people are that they were able to retain the language, albeit with some imperfections.
@pleitevogel
2 жыл бұрын
Also ich komm aus Schleswig Holstein und muss sagen, die Dame hört sich sehr stark nach Norddeutsch an. Die kann man prima verstehen und sicherlich nett unterhalten. :)
@Maliko21
Жыл бұрын
Hey Feli: So i hear the Texasgerman that the woman in the first video had spoken, it remindes me a little how my great grandmother had spoken when she had spoken "Plattdeutsch". I think the source of the Language they are spoken is a mix of Highgerman (Hochdeutsch) and LowerGerman (Niederdeutsch, or Plattdeutsch). Best greetings from Bremen in Germany.
@jawaidbazyar3437
11 ай бұрын
my grandfather was from a family that originally came from Germany in the 1800s. He called creeks "cricks" - didn't speak a lick of German. I think "crick" was somewhat common in that area.
@missDRAMACUPCAKE
10 ай бұрын
Many words sound a lot like 'Plattdeutsch' like it is spoken in Schleswig-Holstein. Esp. when she was talking about her sister - The way she said "Mein Vadder" is like a lot of people up there say that.
@sergioantonioblancoruiz929
11 ай бұрын
Hallöchen!!! I love your content, and enjoy your vids. Could you please make a video with modern german shortenings or pronunciations used in order to speak fatser? Greetings from Cuba ❤
@lwj2
Жыл бұрын
I was in West Texas -- the Amarillo area --- in the early 1970s. The nearby town of Canyon had a high German/German descendant population; enough so that most of the billboards in that area were in German instead of English. Although many of the original Germans came to the area in the late 1800s, they were in contact with their relatives and many were still sponsoring cousins, great- uncles, etc. for immigration. At that time Shiner Bock was a very popular beer, and frankly a lot better beer than most of what was made at the time, not that that itself was a particularly high hurdle to clear. I really enjoy your channel, thanks for putting it up for us. Cheers from the Southern border of Virginia!
@reneerivera108
8 ай бұрын
I enjoyed this video because I spent 5 years living in München where I learned some German attending the University of Maryland, Munich Campus which is nicht mehr da. I really miss speaking German. My parents also spent 7 years living in Turkey. Your name Feli, sounds Turkish. Might you be of Turkish descent, a Turkish German? Vielen Dank für alles!
@magnolia31611
11 ай бұрын
This is so interesting! When I was listening to the guy who spoke both check and German, he said a few words that had almost like a Cajun French accent. I’m not sure how close that is to Louisiana, but it would be interesting if the Cajun’s also had an influence on possibly some parts of his accent. Maybe not, but I’m Cajun French, and it just stood out to me listening to him. (Also, I’m not sure how to spell Check, so please forgive me, if I spelled that wrong).
@buixote
2 жыл бұрын
It might be interesting to hear how Northern Germans react to Southerners. I had a German friend who said ahe couldn't stand listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger because of his accent. I got the impression that it's a little like the way non-Southerners in the US react to those from the South; thinking of those folks as uneducated hillbillies... Just because of the way they talk.
@tnit7554
2 жыл бұрын
Arnold's accent is truely very "heavy", he came from graz/österreich, i think.
@nos4me
2 жыл бұрын
@@tnit7554 jo he is und they still speak like that there 😅
@Harry-Hartmann
8 ай бұрын
Ein sehr interessante Video 👌🏻👍🏻
@kaunas888
2 жыл бұрын
The anti-Democratic repression under President Wilson during WW1 (including the German repression) is a sad chapter in American history, one which has all too frequently been forgotten.
@macwinter7101
9 ай бұрын
My great-grandparents spoke German and lived in a German-speaking community in Wisconsin. I have since learned German to fluency, but I only know standard German from modern-day Germany. I wish I could go back in time and hear the German they spoke to know what it sounded like. Since it was in Wisconsin, I'd expect it to be different from Texas German. My grandfather, who is still alive, remembers a few phrases they'd speak to him, and the way he pronounces those phrases is very different from standard German. But I'm not sure if his pronunciation reflects that of his parents.
@ilonasmukke5715
Жыл бұрын
Vernell hat einen Hamburger Denglisch Dialekt. Es hört sich an als hätte sie in ihrer Kindheit und Jugend mit Hamburger Dialekt gesprochen, ist dann ausgewandert und hat nach den vielen Jahren nun ein wenig ihre Sprache verlernt und vermischt es nun mit ein wenig Englisch. In Spanien hatten wir mal eine Hotel Direktorin, die als Junge Frau nach Malle ausgewandert ist und mit den Jahren war ihr Deutsch nur noch gebrochen. Sie hats schlicht verlernt mit den Jahren. So hört es sich auch bei Vernell an :-)
@eisikater1584
2 жыл бұрын
Feli, you're Bavarian, as I am, so why don't you make a video in the Bavarian (Munich) dialect with English subs? I think your fans would appreciate it. As to your promo partner, do they have earphones with really WORKING noise cancellation? You know, I live in a small village in Bavaria, and reliably, each Saturday in summer, if it doesn't rain, at 8 a.m. someone starts the first lawn mower, and soon afterwards the whole village is covered in noise. Thank goodness I have a car, so I can flee.
@rolandmueller7218
Жыл бұрын
Have you heard of Leavenworth, Washington? I brought my German father there and he said he felt like was in Bavaria there.
@TariffRisinger
11 ай бұрын
The "stadde" instead of "stadte" could be because of the Southern drawl, too? Could be why the umlaut is dropped or altered as well?
@kay_su
7 ай бұрын
I was discussing this video with my mom, and she told me that her mother's parents in Nebraska spoke German at home. She said that they had been teaching her aunt German, but stopped when she started school because she was beaten for speaking it. My grandma was younger, and never learned to speak any German.
@s0cializedpsych0path
Жыл бұрын
Reminds me of my Oma with a Texas lilt. My family is originally from Bremen. She spoke Platt.
@og_tokyo
9 ай бұрын
my friends mom back in the early 2000's was of german descent and I'd often times hear her speak with family in german, it was legit.
@komakapitaen
Жыл бұрын
Fun fact about the East Prussian replacements of consonants; G becomes CH, but CH becomes K. "Marielke, zieh de Blechbüxn an - de Matrose kimmen" :D
@mathyou9
Жыл бұрын
Gawd-damn, all this time I thought that "crick" was just a small "creek!" (only in Utah)
@mitchjordan5441
10 ай бұрын
My ancestor came from Germany to Texas in 1838, and his family died from the cholera outbreak at Indianola, except for 1 son of 15 years. Too young, he wasn't given the section setup for his father. He bought out a property in what is now Mason county after years of working for the Prince. No one in my family speaks German as a second language anymore, they have all passed. But at family Christmas we do still read the story of Christ & sing 3 carols in German, using the old pump organ that came over from Hanover. The family Christmas gatherings will stop when my generation passes, maybe another 10 years if we are lucky. The other side of my family came from Swiss German canton Zurich in 1734 to Philadelphia. He signed the ships log as Henrich when boarding but signed as Henry when debarking, probably seldom spoke German again after pledging his aligence to the British king.
@DieterLo1
Ай бұрын
Very interesting! I do understand her very well as a German. From which region in Germany did she Original come. I heard that kind of Dialekt from Germans in Brasil too.
@jonv8177
11 ай бұрын
Here in Oklahoma we also had a large influx of German, Austrian, & Czech immigrants. That's actually where the Oklahoma "Chicken Fried Steak" comes from. It was a "Schnitzel" using what people could get ahold of.
@stefanboesen9941
Жыл бұрын
Hallo Feli, das Texas-Deutsch der Dame habe ich sehr gut verstanden. "Ich hab mich wie zu Haus gefühlt. Die hat so wie wir hier geredet." Ich komme aus Rheinland-Pfalz an der Grenze zu Luxemburg. Ich denke, ihre Vorfahren kommen aus dem westlichen Hunsrück. liebe Grüße Stefan
@yissnakklives8866
11 ай бұрын
I can pick up a bit of local Amish, but it has a lot in common with actual Dutch (Kaesefresser). They always look at me funny when I wander by mumbling to myself in German...
@MatthewHorne88
6 ай бұрын
Your English accent is fascinating. I’m a native British English speaker and while your English accent is clearly Americanised, I can hear some German enunciation come through but it sounds amazing.
@themonkeytrainer
11 ай бұрын
My family moved from North Dakota (also a prime destination for two different waves of German immigrants during the 1800's, where entire counties kept German as an official language of commerce) to Oklahoma (during the Oklahoma Land Rush, where the U.S. Government claimed "Indian Territory" and gave it away to citizens and immigrants rather than allowing Native Americans to keep it.) Growing up in the Dust Bowl era, my grandparents - who spoke German fluently and struggled with English at the time - would send the children (4 to 9 years old) into stores to speak with the American shop-owners, since the children could "pass" as native English speakers. My Grandmother became fluent in English, but would lapse into German when she became frustrated (or wanted to say things she believed the children couldn't understand.) My Grandfather was never comfortable speaking in English, but also would never speak German aloud in public, so he generally kept quiet all the time. Their children still understand some German, but none can speak it. Our ancestors immigrated from Bessarabia (think of Southern Ukraine), and are ethnically recognized as "Germans from Russia" - a fascinating story you should look up.
@donelmore2540
11 ай бұрын
My best friend in the ‘70s, was born in northern Italy, but ran a restaurant in Germany for 10 years, married a German woman and moved to the US. His German wife once told me that his German was perfect except for the articles, but she said that many native Germans couldn’t get the articles right. He would listen to American Italian speakers and he would get angry when they would come to a word they didn’t know in Italian, they would just throw in an English word. I hear that a lot when I listen to native Japanese speaking Japanese in Japan and they thrown in a lot of English words that don’t (I guess) have a Japanese equivalent. For example Japanese Martial Artists don’t have a Japanese term for the English “warm up”. So they use the English term, but they shorten it to just “up”. At the beginning of class they would say “Let’s UP!” Which would make no sense to an American Martial Artist. LOL
@Grandpa82547
7 ай бұрын
I took German for 4 years in high school and college. I didn't follow everything they said, but I could fairly well follow the general sense of what they were saying.
@jeanade9010
Жыл бұрын
The only time I ever spoke up on behalf of Germans was when I was sitting on the beach in NJ in the 1990’s with a Swiss friend who casually said that you could never trust a German. I was astounded and told her that I was German (one of the few times that I admitted it) . She was shocked.. she thought I was Swiss.
@forrestpugh7575
11 ай бұрын
listening to the 1960's interview and the 'arrow to the knee' meme just pops right out of the story.
@jamiefraser0
5 ай бұрын
The first speaker sounds like the mother of my uncle and they are from a little town near Rostock. Typically northern German dialect.
@cbm2156
11 ай бұрын
Most of the Texas Germans have been in Texas since the 1850s so it would be realistic to think that after 150 years isolated in Texas their German language would evolve. The big surprise is that some of them can still speak German.
@txaggievet
2 жыл бұрын
Although Texas German is almost gone, in the 90s I had a coworker who moved here from Germany. So we took her to wurstfest in New Braunfels. She asked if we thought she would run into any German Speakers, and we said no... that there were very few left and they were all very old, however, the very 1st place we went into, was a older lady who spoke Texas German... and they had a long conversation, was quite funny.
@fapfapfap1892
Жыл бұрын
Its german, how funny does it get?
@StarshipTrooper32
Жыл бұрын
I can speak some Texas German, half of my family are Texas Germans from New Braunfels, Seguin, Schertz, Cibolo, Northeast San Antonio and Boerne
@kie7124
Жыл бұрын
@@StarshipTrooper32 that's great! I hope you and others continue to preserve it😊
@bluesdealer
11 ай бұрын
There were still quite a few left in the early 90s. Mostly the WW1 generation, but also some of the WW2. Not so much anymore.
@likeorasgod
11 ай бұрын
My mom side is from the Shiner area of Texas and came from Germany. I remember in the 90's one of my dads cus who had married a German Girl while in the Army and stationed there before he retired. She was pretty young but she spoke good English. They came and visit a few times and once brought another German couple. I could speak a little German from my grandma so I could talk to the couple, but what was funny is I was taking Latin in HS and as a second language so did my cus wife. We where speaking in Latin behind every one back, while speaking broken German (for me) and mixing English in it during the whole trip/visit.
@sherrysagebiel463
2 жыл бұрын
I grew up in Fredericksburg and spoke Texas German as my first language. There are definitely different dialects in Fredericksburg influenced by those decedents from North German and those from Bavaria. Thanks for this video-it was nice hearing Vernell and Evelyn speak 💚
@jimtheedcguy4313
2 жыл бұрын
I absolutely love Fredricksburg!! I go there once a month! It's such a nice little town!
@DeutscherZocker2000
Жыл бұрын
Thats nice to know. I grew up in northern Germany and the pronunciation of Texas German in this Video sounds very similar to pronunciation in "Plattdeutsch". Plattdeutsch is a language used in many parts of northern Germany, with many dialekts, but like Texas German it's mostly used by older people, who grew up with speaking Plattdeutsch.
@johnmentink4732
11 ай бұрын
My mother, also from the Fredericksburg - Doss. Texas area. She learned English when she started school in 1932. She was a Dietmar and in all seriousness was probably related to you.
@gabrielh7517
11 ай бұрын
Small world 😂 for a town of 12k it is weird to find someone else in a random KZitem comment section
@AlexaPatara
11 ай бұрын
I am of Texas German descent on my maternal grandmothers side, from New Braunfels. Her father died before I was born, but he spoke the Texas-German dialect as his first language. Ich lerne jetzt als meine dritte Sprache Deutsch ❤
@kalilikescheese
2 жыл бұрын
Love my Texas German getting represented!!! I grew up in a North Texas German town, with my grandparents always arguing over high German to low German. I definitely speak a mix. Although we’re a dying culture in the area, I’ve spent the last 10 years educating people on and celebrating Texas German culture, and being one of the few young people who dance polka in the tents with the old folks in my dirndl and cowboy boots! Thank you for representing our language and small slice of German on here! 😁🇩🇪
@deutschmitpurple2918
2 жыл бұрын
👍👍
@mftepera
2 жыл бұрын
I'm wondering if you're from Lindsay or Muenster - two small north Texas German towns where my parents used to live.
@Asdfhjkl998
2 жыл бұрын
❤️❤️❤️❤️ I love Germany and german culture, my home typical german design ………..
@deutschmitpurple2918
2 жыл бұрын
@@Asdfhjkl998 Me too, my friend
@G-grandma_Army
2 жыл бұрын
Keep up the good fight to preserve the language. When I hear about native dialects being lost, it is so sad to me. I think it’s important for parents to pass down the language.
@brandiwooten4495
11 ай бұрын
My great grandmother was interviewed for the Texas German Project a few years ago. She passed away in December 2020, only a month before her 110th birthday. I used to love listening to her speak German. Her family did not speak English at all even though her parents and grandparents were born in the US. She learned English when she started school. Her teacher didn’t speak German, but would keep her in during recess to teach Great Gran English.
@BremenUSA
Жыл бұрын
I'm a native Texan but also learned German while living in Bremen as a teenager. The first lady's dialect is really interesting. Her accent sounds strongly influenced by--not just the American accent--but specifically by the Texas accent. Yet, her pronunciation and grammar in German reflect a lot of quirks from how northern Germans speak. You noticed, for example, that she said something like "nach die schule gehen." In the north of Germany, it's common for people to use "nach" in place of "zu." I also noticed her pronunciation of "Fredericksboich" right away as typical north German pronunciation.
@derrikgilmore5975
Жыл бұрын
Born and raised in Bremerhaven, and yeah, that sounded very much like home to me 😁
@bola6740
Жыл бұрын
Right? im from north Germany i thought that too. kinda sounds like low german
@JonBrase
Жыл бұрын
The Texas German accent really throws me for a loop. I learned German (as a second language) in Texas (and not in a Texas German community), so I'm used to hearing this kind of accent from kids that just need the language credit and aren't really trying. But these are native speakers speaking with the accent they grew up with, and it creates all sorts of cognitive dissonance. It's also interesting in that I can understand English in a rural Texas accent just fine, and I can understand German just fine, but German in a rural Texas accent is hard for me to follow.
@ComeandDriveIt
Жыл бұрын
"geh nach hause" is how I was taught ... and yes on the Texas accent.
@denverberry
Жыл бұрын
Amazing... As an American English speaker relearning German ( lived in Germany for 5 years as a child ) I was able to understand her easier than most of the German videos that I look at. Erstaunlich... Da ich amerikanisches Englisch spreche und Deutsch lernte (habe als Kind fünf Jahre in Deutschland gelebt), konnte ich sie leichter verstehen als die meisten deutschen Videos, die ich mir ansehe.
@mark-wright
2 жыл бұрын
As a German learner and a Texan, I found their dialect fairly easy to understand, because my attempts to pronounce German often sound like the way they pronounce it.
@matthiasscherer9270
2 жыл бұрын
Use this! I also guess so, because some West German dialects have some Words that sound like English.
@rear5118
2 жыл бұрын
Yeah, the Texas-Germans honestly just sound like Americans who are being taught German by a a teacher that primarliy speaks Western-German dialects
@mattbradbury1797
2 жыл бұрын
2 years in HS and 3 semesters at UT Austin and I feel the same way as you. I was able to follow much better than native german speakers
@deutschmitpurple2918
2 жыл бұрын
👍👍❤❤
@trixisum
2 жыл бұрын
The 2 ladies from Fredericksburg spoke rather slowly. It felt like searching vocabularies while speaking
@ashleyronquillo102
Жыл бұрын
Texan here. Interestingly, we actually have two German dialects. The Texas German you talk about in this video, and what I've been told is called "Low German" which is spoken by the Mennonite communities here. Because most of the Mennonites here had a different path than the northern ones, their German sounds different. They mostly migrated to Mexico from Canada in the early 1900s and within the last few decades have started moving up into Texas. There's a large community of them here in west Texas. They can speak English, Spanish, and their German dialect.
@karentownsend8434
10 ай бұрын
My grandmother was Texas German, she always talked about the 2 dialects. High German and the low German. My mother was raised with both English and German. My uncle worked as a translator during WWII.
@alcelaya1365
6 ай бұрын
Of course, Feli should be comparing Texas German to the German spoken in the mid 1800s when most of the ancestors left their homeland. The English spoken in Texas today has some differences from the English spoken in Texas in the 1850s
@bertae.5393
5 ай бұрын
This is very interesting. As Feli referred, the Ladies sounded a bit like people from the North of Germany and this Dialect in German is called 'Plattdeutsch (Pattdüütsch)/Niederdeutsch' which can be translated as 'Flat German/Low German' - maybe this is why this kind of Texas German is still called Low German. (I am German living in Germany)
@johndavis8669
5 ай бұрын
Some of my German ancestors were from Rostock when it was still Prussia. They spoke German for decades after coming to the United States. It was the 19th century. English was already getting to be required to become a US citizen way before the 20th century. So my family who came over in the early 19th century by the time the mid 1860s showed up. The 1st generation born after 1860 only spoke English while the grandparents were the last to speak mainly German but had already begun to learn English in its entirety and spoke English mainly around the grandkids.
@tylersmith3139
4 ай бұрын
No, Mennonite Low German is very different from this. Low German is similar to Dutch or English, what they're speaking in this video is High German pronounced in a Northern/Low German way. Think of how Irish people speak Gaelic originally so when their ancestors learned English, they spoke and now speak it with a distinct Irish accent. When Northern Germans/Low Germans/Low Saxon speakers learned High German, they spoke it with a Low Saxon accent, resulting in some distinct pronunciations. This is different from the Low Saxon dialect of the Russian Mennonites who settled in Canada and then Mexico and the US. Their speech is a different language that is a little more closely related to Old English and Old Frisian than Old High German. It has different grammar, vocabulary and often pronounces words closer to English or West Frisian minority language in the Netherlands) than High German. So "Ship" in English would be "Schiff" in Standard/High German, but "Schepp" in Plaudietsch/Mennonite Low German. A lot of the sound changes that High German went through like turning d> t in the beginning of words and p> f at the ends of words or k > ch, English, Dutch and Low German never went through, but conversely at lot of changes English went through like dropping changing 'g' to 'y' at the beginning of words like "yesterday" and Plaudietsch "jistren" or dropping n in the middle of words like English "Five", Plaudietsch "Fiew", but German "Fünf".
@exstock
11 ай бұрын
Mostly, as a Texan who has lived around a lot of different accents, I'm just blown away by how much Texan accent I can hear in all their voices! I don't mean in the same way that a Texan would sound _while_ learning German, though; it's much more built-in than that.
@sabishiihito
11 ай бұрын
I'm not from Texas and I thought something similar, not sure how I can even tell that.
@josephheath5841
10 ай бұрын
I know a lot of Tejanos that speak fluent Spanish with a Texan accent. It's super cool to see the unique blending of cultures. I hope Tx German makes a comeback. My Nonna didn't teach her Kids Italian for the same reason.
@AVToth
10 ай бұрын
The Texans from the greatest generation often had parents that didn't have Texas accents but had German accents. My grandmother being one, but of her generation, the WW1 generation almost all spoke English with German accent. There is also Tex-Mex, this is similar but different than Spanglish. Spain Spanish and Mexico Spanish are different. My grandmother's, we called her Grossmutter, generation could speak German, English and Spanish. It was mostly the men as they were the ones involved in trade. It wasn't perfect but the people with Mexican backgrounds and people with British backgrounds all spoke the three languages well enough to easily communicate. It always made me giggle to hear Spanish spoken by my great uncles and friends of that age because German accent speaking Spanish and vice versa with both dropping English or Texan words in is almost a language unto itself.
@exstock
10 ай бұрын
@@AVToth Heh, Spanglish was my first language, but mine is Colombian Spanglish. Mexican Spanish can be a bit hard to parse, as can all the zillion other varieties-for years here in the US I thought I had forgotten a bunch of my Spanish, until I got to hear Colombians talking again, and understood everything clear as a bell!
@AVToth
10 ай бұрын
@@exstock I'm a retired nurse. I was the charge nurse in a dialysis clinic for a while and we got a new patient. This man and his family were here visiting relatives and arrangements had been made with my clinic so he could continue his dialysis while he was visiting. The problem occurred when the Spanish speakers who worked for me tried to ask the routine questions. They were here from Seville, Spain. I lived in Madrid, as an Air Force brat, for the first almost 5 years of my life. I'm told my Spanish was perfect or as perfect as any Spanish 5 year old. My English was American south from my parents and my Spanish had no foreign accent because I wasn't learning it on top of English but simultaneously. However, after Spain, we went to North Carolina where nobody spoke Spanish and by 2nd or 3rd grade, having spoken no Spanish at all, it was gone. It never occurred to me that the language could be the same so differently. I was told that it's not that the words are so much different but that how it's put together was confusing. It was eventually worked out but I've never actually been able to figure out what it would sound like. I guess I don't know what I don't know.
@gabriellashdiaz7007
2 жыл бұрын
I am a language enthusiast and it just breaks my heart to see culture and heritage not being passed down to the point it causes tears to roll down my eyes. People can discriminate all they want but ultimately it’s up to parents and grandparents to pass it down! It still can change I’m hopeful of that! Maybe Texas could do something like the French program they have in Louisiana where a lot more younger folk are learning French
@gabriellashdiaz7007
2 жыл бұрын
Send a direct message? Didn’t know I could do that on KZitem lol it’s sad because I’m a gen zer too. Something special, like perhaps news of a new program in Texas designed to teach children the dialect? Thanks for the reply
@Leif208
Жыл бұрын
@@gabriellashdiaz7007 I'm not sure, but I think that was an advertisement. It's made to appear as though it's from someone associated with the video or that is responding to your specific message. I could be wrong but I think that's what it is. I was tricked by one of these once where they even used the name an image of the video creator. Btw, as a ligitamate response to your comment, I'm from a Scandinavian American settlement and community and have had the same idea. Hardly any of the language has been passed down to my generation. My wife is from a German American settlement, so we debated on which language to pass down to our children. The result was each chose their own preference. Did't work to well.
@thedarkenigma3834
Жыл бұрын
They will prioritize Spanish before anything else instead.
@The_WatchList
Жыл бұрын
In La Grange, TX, they do teach German classes! In nearby Schulenburg where I work, there are Czech classes taught at the Blinn community college. This area is pretty much a "Czech Belt," but enough Germans settled that their influence was also huge!
@WGGplant
Жыл бұрын
@@thedarkenigma3834which is reasonable as spanish is very common in the us especially texas
@JediOfTheRepublic
11 ай бұрын
Holy crap, this was amazing! As a Texan with German Descent it’s great to see a video on this dialect of German. My Grandma speaks it and it’s sad it was never passed down. Thank you!!
@nenaj1
9 ай бұрын
Let her teach u
@NicholasShanks
8 ай бұрын
You should learn it to help keep it alive.
@allanprimeau7864
7 ай бұрын
Viele freundliche Grüße aus Montreal, Kanada! Ich bin erstaunt, wie gut manche Deutschsprachige nach so vielen Generationen Deutsch sprechen. Ich spreche in zweiter Generation fließend Deutsch und habe die doppelte deutsch-kanadische Staatsbürgerschaft. Ich wurde in Kanada als zweiter Sohn einer in Frankfurt am Main (Hessen) geborenen deutschen Mutter und eines franko-kanadischen Vaters geboren. Ich schätze meine Verbindung zu Deutschland und Europa sehr und kultiviere sie jeden Tag mit Familie und Freunden hier und in Europa. Das gehört zu meiner Identität als dreisprachiger Mensch: Deutsch, Englisch und Französisch. Ich wünsche Dir viel Erfolg bei Deiner beruflichen Tätigkeit!
@garyh7949
2 жыл бұрын
This really hits close to home as I was born in New Braunfels and later moved to another small town nearby. Unfortunately, even tho my parents both spoke German fluently, they didn't really teach me or my sister. So, all the German I know I learned in school, from books, and in Germany.
@springbloom5940
2 жыл бұрын
Which town?
@Toddel1234567
2 жыл бұрын
It is also interesting that the Texas Germans rejected slavery. This made things difficult for them in the American Civil War. Since they themselves were looking for freedom in the 1830-40's in the USA and they said no one should be a slave. Many Texas Germans suffered at the time because of this. There was a documentary about it on German TV.
@michaelyew1926
2 жыл бұрын
Yes. and there is a Civil War monument in Comfort ("Treue der Union") to thirty-four of them who were massacred/executed after being caught trying to flee Texas .
@jeffslote9671
2 жыл бұрын
The same thing happened in Missouri
@deannacorbeil5571
2 жыл бұрын
I know that much of the farmland purchased by German immigrants to Washington County, TX after the civil war was purchased from those who had enslaved people before the war.
@cmp052
2 жыл бұрын
Yes, most of the Texas Hill Country where the german immigrants settled was under martial law during the civil war.
@Quotenwagnerianer
2 жыл бұрын
The irony of being liberal minded and then settling in Texas of all places in the U.S., the reddest of the red states, was not lost on me. Although back then it was probably different considering that the Republicans used to be the liberal party by our modern standards and then completely swiched sides in the 1920's.
@sunflowerrosem.8651
2 жыл бұрын
My nanny was a German native who had recently (within 10 years) moved to a prominently German area of SW Minnesota. She spoke German and taught me German prayers, baked German foods, and had a huge garden. The region near New Ulm, Mn was full of German heritage. I grew up thinking everyone ate sauerkraut and sausage! I would love to see you visit the area, or make a video about the region.
@deutschmitpurple2918
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks for sharing, my friend ❤❤
@karahendrickson8650
2 жыл бұрын
Yes! I grew up in New Ulm!
@joyful_tanya
2 жыл бұрын
My grandma too. She married a Norwegian. Southwestern MN/northwest IA. She taught me to cook. The German side of my family emigrated in the 1700s and the Norwegian side in 1800.
@sweynforkbeard8857
2 жыл бұрын
Don't forget Schell's beer. The second oldest privately owned brewery in the U.S.
@lesliefranklin1870
2 жыл бұрын
Just a minor note. The word "creek" is sometimes pronounced as "crick" in the southern U.S., even outside the German communities. Love your videos.
@ElonMuskrat1930
Жыл бұрын
As someone who lives in the southern US, you are correct
@nkarnok
Жыл бұрын
Not just in the south - rural Midwest also.
@landontesar3070
Жыл бұрын
@@ElonMuskrat1930 well into the midwest as well.
@thumbwarriordx
Жыл бұрын
I like the reversion to "Bidde" with exposure to modern english. Because 1000 years prior it was exactly the same in old english. It's so cool to see people breaking with the German consonant shift without y'know... speaking Dutch.
@TS-ef2gv
Жыл бұрын
Yes, I grew up in the Midwest, and it's common in rural Midwestern dialect to swap long "e" sounds with short "i", and vice versa. Crick/creek, dish/deesh, etc.
@alexandrajaschan3349
7 ай бұрын
I’m from Northern Germany and I can recognise a lot of our Nothern dialect like “hamse”, “Vadder” and “…burch”. First time I heard of Texas German.
@KrisOrt-i2s
Ай бұрын
There's a lot of us here in TX. Central TX has the most But the Germans and the Dirty irish settled heavy in TX. I believe alot of it has to do with an Austrian ruler in Mexico in the early 1800s. This is also why Mexicans love accordion music and tubas
@sieglindesmith9092
2 жыл бұрын
One speaker uses the word "Neger" (Negro) which is a previous to "Black" or "African American" descriptor. It's not, as you suggested, the "N-word" epithet - or intended as such. Nice work - fun videos. Thank you.
@longiusaescius2537
6 ай бұрын
Real
@ehmha3641
Ай бұрын
It's the N word so just stfu
@Boss_Scaggz
Ай бұрын
Was going to comment this too. It's just an old, outdated word, not a slur.
@christianebrown9213
2 жыл бұрын
Also, being used to my mother's German schwäbish accent, whenever we've visited places like Fredricksburg, New Braunfels, Round Rock, Gruene, etc. I've always been fascinated overhearing Texas German in restaurants and shops and amazed that people do still speak German in those places. It sounds funny to me, but at the same time really interesting and makes me smile.
@deutschmitpurple2918
2 жыл бұрын
👍👍
@DanMcClinton
11 ай бұрын
I'm a native Texan and both of my mother's parents were children of German immigrants. They both spoke German but it wasn't Texas German. What's interesting to me is that when I joined the Army I noticed that around most installations in the US there were always German restaurants usually run by Germans. This, I figured out was because during the Cold War, a lot of Soldiers serving in Germany met and married Germans, so there is as a result a lot of German influence in Army towns. If you ever get the chance, I think you'd enjoy visiting the Texas hill country, even if the language is dying out there is still a lot of German influence in the area.
@RT-qd8yl
11 ай бұрын
Is it true you guys are allowed to speak whatever language you want without having problems?
@seanwilliams3103
11 ай бұрын
This was very interesting. I'm 57 and have lived in Central Texas for 20 years. From ages 9-13, I lived in a small German town near Baden-Baden, and was fully immersed into the language/culture, coming from a Canadian English background. I spoke German fluently 45 years ago, but that muscle has atrophed, lol. I could definitely hear the Texas drawl in their speech and was surprised at how much I still understood. There's a traditional Gasthaus/Beirgarten nearby that I like to frequent once in a blue moon to get my spaetzle fix. There's no doubt that German settlers influences both beer and BBQ here.
@1.WhiteTiger
10 ай бұрын
what's the name of the small town near Baden-Baden?
@seanwilliams3103
10 ай бұрын
@@1.WhiteTiger Vimbuch, little town next to Bühl.
@1.WhiteTiger
10 ай бұрын
@@seanwilliams3103 👍nice area, my wife is from Baden-Baden
@HistoryNerd808
2 жыл бұрын
I don't know German but it's definitely cool to see you react to the different dialects, Feli. A lot of people don't know how influential Germany is on our culture and history down here(along with Mexico, obviously, among others), especially in what we call the Hill Country, in the central part of the state.
@TeemarkConvair
2 жыл бұрын
totally agree,, watching her react was fun
@vanevarnel7131
2 жыл бұрын
@@TeemarkConvair yes
@robertewalt7789
2 жыл бұрын
I have heard that more Americans trace back to German heritage, even more than English.
@HistoryNerd808
2 жыл бұрын
@@robertewalt7789 Yeah, I don't have German heritage but a lot of us do. It's the highest nation of ancestry. According to the 2020 Census(I'd link it but outside links are hit or miss on KZitem), at over 42M Americans, 13.0% of us have German heritage. The next closest is Irish at 9.7% and the English are at 7.7%.
@chitlitlah
2 жыл бұрын
@@HistoryNerd808 My ancestry report on 23andme says I'm mostly German, Engilsh, and Irish. You've made me feel a lot less special.
@bluedrummajor2876
2 жыл бұрын
One time here in San Antonio, Texas I heard a German family from Mexio talking at lunch ( we were in the same restaurant), Sometimes they spoke all in German and sometimes all in Spanish. But, then the 7 year old daughter actually said "quiero ir mit mutter." I never thought German Mexicans would mix the 2 languages.
@BillB23
2 жыл бұрын
Is that "espaleman"? Many in the US speak "spanglish."
@jefflittle8913
2 жыл бұрын
That happens to me all the time. I try to speak Spanish and can only think of the German word...
@mcgregorpiper
2 жыл бұрын
When I taught ESL, I would forget the Spanish word and use a German word. My students were a little confused.
@miriamromero2995
2 жыл бұрын
Many German immigrants came to the northern region of Chihuahua, Mexico over a hundred years ago. Many kept their language due to isolated religious communities but of course, also learned Spanish 🇲🇽
@G-grandma_Army
2 жыл бұрын
Can you translate that quote? I’m so curious. :)
@andreaohne26
Жыл бұрын
I can clearly hear a "sudetendeutschen" dialect especially the grammar (tun machen) in the fourth speaker and I love it! It sounds so familiar to my ears, my grandpa, whom I dearly loved, was my hero. My paternal grandparents were from the Bohemian part of the Czech Republic and were deported to Germany in Nov.1946 right after the end of ww2 (grandma was 5 months pregnant with my dad...), but you can hear clearly the czech influence in their language. It's "quasi" 3 languages mixed together! I love your channel! Andrea, also from Munich, temprarily in lower Bavaria to care for my dear parents!!
@mickeyrube6623
11 ай бұрын
I just got done visiting a welfare office in Austin, TX. I saw some of the official paperwork elderly folks need to fill out to get their benefits. It was in three languages: English, Spanish, and German. Edit: for those who don't know, Austin is the capitol of Texas. Often if some issue needs to be resolve that might not be able to be handled locally, though mail, or internet, people have to show up in person to government offices in Austin. The amount of people who might need to read paperwork in German, in any one given city, even one as big as Austin, is extremely small. But, when speaking of the state as a whole, there are enough to warrant German language paperwork. Keep in mind, although languages like Vietnamese and Arabic are spoken at home far in much greater numbers in Texas than German, the physical paperwork in German, Spanish, and English only, gives evidence of a particular elderly population, who needs might not be meet through the phone, or perhaps have lack of internet access.
@likeorasgod
11 ай бұрын
Houston has a very big Vietnamese population from when Nam failed and a lot of them came to the states to live. So most places you go you see paper work in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. It's crazy we where one time one of the biggest rice producer (all these homes now built over old rice paddies). And folks wonder why it floods bad some times lol
@thejohnbeck
10 ай бұрын
@@likeorasgodI read somewhere the climate around Houston and Louisiana is like that of Vietnam, which could explain the concentration there, especially with the opportunities to work in fishing
@lor3605
2 жыл бұрын
There’s a German made feature film partly about this region of Texas - some would say too little happens, but definitely highlights the quirkiness of regional america. It’s called “Schultze Gets the Blues” (2003), and it’s all about how Schultze ends up in the German hill country in Texas.
@BuffaloC305
2 жыл бұрын
Swedes, Poles, Czechs all had significant immigrant numbers from 1830 into the 20th Century.
@jwsoaresjones1560
2 жыл бұрын
He hears "zydeco" music on his radio in Deutschland, and travels to Louisiana to discover more about this infectious hybrid music, which heavily features the accordion and a fast rhythm.
@clap5
2 жыл бұрын
That's cool. "Italian Americans" who still speak Italian from what I have researched are far removed from standard Italian. During the migration into America. Italians didn't have a standardized Italian language yet. So you had different dialects of Italian mixed together and words were chopped down or shortened or almost make a American version of Italian.
@gregorde
2 жыл бұрын
Most Italians who came to the US didn’t speak standard Italian. They spoke dialects of southern Italian languages like Sicilian and Neapolitan. They’re not really mutually comprehensible with standard Italian (which is basically Tuscan dialect)
@prebenelkjaer2326
Жыл бұрын
@@gregorde yeah, whats interesting is that while Italian immigrants to the us were mostly from southern Italy, Italian immigrants to southern America like Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay were mostly from northern Italy, and some of them still speak the Venetian language :)
@Reazzurro90
Жыл бұрын
Most of the "shortened" words come from the Neapolitan dialect, which tends to do that even in Italy today. The Italian government actually invested in making sure the standard Italian language was learned by Italian-descended people in the US, but of course all of this ended after WWII and both the dialects and the standard language experienced a collapse.
@Annie_Annie__
Жыл бұрын
I think a lot of the difference too is that Italians that immigrated to the US typically settled in large, diverse cities. Texas Germans established their own tiny isolated towns. They were mostly in these hills that were difficult to get to and travel between until the 1960s and 70s. Two towns could be 5 miles apart as the crow flies, but be nearly impossible to travel between because of the rocky hills, creeks prone to flash flooding, and caves that can open up from sinkholes. Not to mention the heat in summer. So because these towns were so isolated, the families that first settled in them intermarried for a few generations and the language stayed fairly static unless the US government stepped in during WWI or WWII (the smaller the town, the more likely to avoid this fate) to force the schools to operate in English only and teach a very pro-America, pro-assimilation curriculum. But I grew up in the 90s and there were still towns then where all the older folks spoke German. And in those towns even now it’s common for the restaurants to be German food, or a German influence (along with a Czech influence).
@csnide6702
2 жыл бұрын
there are numerous "German" communities in Texas. Many have polka bands that crossover both cultures . One band i saw had a slogan posted on stage " prost, y'all".
Пікірлер: 3,7 М.