Pennsylvania Dutch Research Articles

Memories

The author recounts family meals in rural Pennsylvania Dutch country during her youth (early 20-the century).

William Woys Weaver: Sauerkraut Yankees. Pennsylvania Dutch Foods and Foodways

William Woys Weaver: Sauerkraut Yankees. Pennsylvania Dutch Foods and Foodways

Amish Attitudes and Identity in Relation to Pennsylvania Dutch

Pennsylvania Dutch is the language of hearth and home for most Amish. As such, it serves the communication purposes of the in-group and is tightly interwoven with Amish identity. In this paper, I analyze data from a sociolinguistic survey that poses questions about language use, attitudes, identity, and religion. Current and former members of various Amish groups participated in this survey along with nonaffiliated descendants of the Amish. This study finds that each group—current, former, and descended—tends to have a different relationship with the language. Current members of the Amish and/or more proficient speakers unsurprisingly identify more strongly with the Pennsylvania Dutch language and their Amish background. Individual and region-based differences also emerge, demonstrating the complexity of the issues at hand and the diversity of Amish community practices and expectations surrounding language use. How current, former, and descended Amish view and engage with the language that sets them ethnically, religiously, and culturally apart from mainstream society has much to reveal about the interplay between minority languages and perceptions of ethnoreligious identity.

Laughing at Ourselves: Professor Schnitzel and Pennsylvania German Humor

Although humor is often used to disparage ethnic groups, it is sometimes used by members of an ethnic group to draw laughs about people from their own background. This article describes the cultural and linguistic contexts of Pennsylvania German/Dutch humor and jokes. An exemplary and influential example of Pennsylvania Dutch English humor can be found in Ted Rickenbach, who performed as “Professor Schnitzel” from about 1927 until his death in 1969. He was very popular during his lifetime and continues to influence contemporary Pennsylvania German comedians. The article contextualizes the main linguistic and cultural themes in Pennsylvania German humor and then discusses Rickenbach’s Schnitzel in terms of his broad discourse features, demeanor and overall presentation. His discourse is a constructed one that expresses or enregisters a Pennsylvania German identity. His presentation both makes fun of himself as a Pennsylvania German while also expressing a regional authenticity and, for many, an endearing ethnic identity.

Cunning Distortions: Folk Christianity and Witchcraft Allegations in Early Mormon History

Cunning Distortions: Folk Christianity and Witchcraft Allegations in Early Mormon History

Varieties of Pennsylvania Dutch

Some language communities continue identifying with their heritage language even after a shift to the majority language has occurred. In this paper I use a comparative approach to investigate the extent to which this postvernacular phase can be found among the broad spectrum of Pennsylvania Dutch-affiliated groups in North America. The results of a sociolinguistic survey presented here reveal that vastly different relationships to and experiences with the language and its affiliated cultures exist under the Pennsylvania Dutch umbrella. The postvernacular framework effectively describes the status of the language among the non-sectarians. However, with some exceptions, it cannot account for the extremely diverse scenarios existing among the sectarians (i.e., separatists). A better understanding of each of the relevant linguistic and cultural aspects at play here will have cross-linguistic implications for how languages are bound to human identities.

Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch

In this article we examine the allomorphic variation found in Pennsylvania Dutch plurality. In spite of over 250 years of variable contact with English, Pennsylvania Dutch plural allomorphy has remained largely distinct from English, except for a number of loan words and borrowings from English. Adopting a One Feature-One Head (OFOH) Architecture that interprets licit syntactic objects as spans, we argue that plurality is distributed across different root-types, resulting in stored lexical-trees (L-spans) in the bilingual mental lexicon. We expand the traditional feature inventory to be ‘mixed,’ consisting of both semantically-grounded features as well as ‘pure’ morphological features. A key claim of our analysis is that the s-exponent in Pennsylvania Dutch shares a syntactic representation for native and English-origin roots, although it is distinct from a ‘monolingual’ English representation. Finally, we highlight how our treatment of plurality in Pennsylvania Dutch, and allomorphic variation more generally, makes predictions about the nature of bilingual morphosyntactic representations.

Cunning and Disorderly: Early Nineteenth-Century Witch Trials of Joseph Smith

Cunning and Disorderly: Early Nineteenth-Century Witch Trials of Joseph Smith

Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language

Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language

Ruby’s Oyster Dressing, or Edible Nostalgia

Ruby’s Oyster Dressing, or Edible Nostalgia

Methodological Considerations for Amish-Focused Opinion Research: Lessons from a Study of Beliefs and Practices about Agriculture and the Environment

Certain aspects of Amish agriculture have been studied extensively but much is still unknown about Amish environmental attitudes and beliefs. This is due, in part, to the difficulty of directly soliciting responses from adherents. This article—part of a larger study of the Kishacoquillas Valley Amish settlement in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania—reflects on methodological challenges that arose during a study on Amish environmental attitudes and behaviors. Farmers from two Amish groups, as well as two non-Amish groups used for comparison, were interviewed about their environmental attitudes. Recruiting Amish participants for interviews was difficult due to the limited use of modern telecommunications technology, what can be perceived as a general suspicion of non-members, and concerns about possible publicity. Further, the use of standard academic research method protocols and survey instruments proved challenging with the Amish. Administering an academic-level survey to the Amish, a group whose formal schooling generally ends at eighth grade and whose first language is Pennsylvania Dutch, posed challenges for the interviewees’ understanding of certain technical terms and for the interviewer’s interpretation of responses. As the study unfolded, methodological flexibility was necessary to adapt the research to the people. Namely, open-ended questions were added to the formal survey in order to learn more about Amish attitudes about stewardship. These study reflections suggest that researchers should take time to learn about the local context and culture and be flexible in selecting and adapting methodological instruments. [Abstract by author.]

Plain Talk About Health: Linguistic Aspects of Mediation between Amish and Mennonites and Health Care Professionals

As the population of Amish and Old Order Mennonites grows exponentially, so are the contacts between Plain people and medical professionals increasing. All Plain adults are bilingual; however, the fact that the primary everyday language for most is Pennsylvania Dutch is important for understanding how they navigate the health care system. In this article I give an overview of language-related questions involved in communication between Plain people and health care providers with a focus on three areas: translation, interpretation, and patterns of language use. Much of the information I present in this article is drawn from my experience as an interpreter and cultural mediator for Plain people in a number of different public spheres, mainly health care.

Review of <em>German Language, Cradle of Our Heritage</em>—Amos Hoover

<em>German Language, Cradle of our Heritage</em> provides a window into the social story behind heritage language maintenance among High German-speaking Swiss Mennonites (as opposed to the Low German-speaking Netherlandic Mennonites). Pennsylvania German, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch, is a variety of New World High German, historically spoken in the Old Order Mennonite community, among others. As with many heritage languages in the United States today, Pennsylvania German has faced obsolescence due to a gradual contraction of the appropriate social settings for heritage language. In these communities, American English use expands and fills the social spaces that were historically reserved for the heritage language. [First paragraph]

Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: 'Small Gods' at the Margins of Christendom ed. by Michael Ostling

Reviewed by: Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: 'Small Gods' at the Margins of Christendom ed. by Michael Ostling Timothy Grieve-Carlson fairies, demons, "small gods", Christianity, animism, paganism, demonization, superstition, popular culture, popular belief, folklore michael ostling, ed. Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: 'Small Gods' at the Margins of Christendom. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. 366. During a visit to my hometown last Christmas, I was asked by a friend if I had heard anything about something called an "Albatwitch" in my reading on the folklore and religion of the Pennsylvania Dutch. This friend of mine had a coworker who had described a tradition in her own hometown where newlyweds are woken up at midnight for an "Albatwitch hunt," a kind of harmless hazing like the (much more common) tradition of "snipe hunts," in which the presumably very confused and tired newlyweds would be made to chase nondescript beings called Albatwitches through the woods and fields at the midnight hour. I had, in fact, heard of Albatwitches, but only in books, so I was delighted to hear that this particular legendary "small god" was alive and well in central Pennsylvania, even if it was only (apparently) to be hunted by half-sleeping newlyweds. These beings called "small gods" are the focus of Michael Ostling's edited collection in Palgrave's admirable series, Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic, edited by Jonathan Barry, Willem de Blécourt, and Owen Davies. The present volume marshals a vast array of periods, places, and methodologies in pursuit of beings "at the margins of Christendom," including but not limited to fairies and demons. But what is a small god, precisely? Michael Ostling provides an operational definition of his new category "small god" in his sweeping introduction to the volume, an essay that might be worth the price of admission alone: "they are found within the encompassing, totalizing framework of a world religion that tends to find problematic the relationships characteristic of animism, and therefore seeks to condemn, contest, and marginalize continued belief in 'small gods' among the adherents of the world religion in question" (10). Ostling's definition highlights the main historical claim of this volume: "small gods" are represented, written, understood, and encountered within the framework of a major religion that, at best, feels ambivalent toward them. Belief in small gods is always in dynamic tension with a totalizing religious framework that might dismiss, reject, diabolize, or pathologize such a belief. Ostling and the other essayists in the volume (mostly) set aside questions of pagan survivals and parallel traditions coexisting with Christendom. Indeed, Ostling sets this particular temptation to rest in no uncertain terms in his introduction: "There are no pagan survivals: small gods are Christian creations with which to think the limits of Christianity" (43). This is a major claim at the outset of the volume, and it is perhaps a necessary one to follow through on the major project of the collection: organizing [End Page 291] and classifying the varieties of relationships that small gods might have with Christianity. Ostling classifies these relationships along a spectrum ("Variations on a Goblin Theme," he calls it) from full-on belief/demonization to a "Post-Christian Re-Enchantment." The essays in the volume are helpfully organized into a chart of their place on the spectrum in the introduction. (The essays are arranged more or less chronologically by period in the volume; this review and Ostling's chart arrange them schematically). The first variations of Ostling's Goblin Theme are what he calls "Negative Cults," in which small gods are recognized as ontologically real diabolical agents to be exorcized or destroyed. Within this framework, typified by examples like the medieval Christian church or contemporary Pentecostal movements, small gods are deadly serious threats that demand sustained attention. In so doing, they demarcate "the limits of Christianity," by representing the danger and evil of the spiritual world beyond its borders. Essays in the volume under this category include David Frankfurter's analysis of "headless beings" in late antique Egypt, Dmitriy Antonov's study of early modern Russian demonology, and Artionka Capiberibe's study of contemporary Amazonian experiences of Crise, or demon attacks. The Negative Cult variation is perhaps...

Review of <em>Reflections on Old Order German Sects in Berks County: Past, Present and Future</em>—Owen Reitenauer, et al. (eds.)

Berks County with its diamond-shaped area of 864 square miles located in southeastern Pennsylvania is rich in history and scenic resources. Its mild climate, fertile soil, and the Schuylkill River attracted European settlers in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Looking at a map of the county and reading the names of towns such as Hamburg, Womelsdorf, Rehrersburg, and New Berlinville, the German origin of these immigrants is easy to identify. In fact, Berks County is known as part of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, with Mennonites having settled this land as early as 1717. The county is also home to the first known Amish congregation in America, established sometime between 1736-38 along Tulpehocken Creek, and to numerous other Old Order Germans, less “plain” Moravians, Mennonites, and mainstream Protestant Pennsylvania Germans. These German immigrants have put their stamp on all facets of religious, economic, and cultural life of the area, creating a rich heritage and diversity of denominations that is explored by the eleven contributors of the book entitled <em>Reflections on Old Order German Sects in Berks County</em>. [First paragraph]

Civil War writings of the Pennsylvania Dutch

AbstractFor eighteenth and nineteenth century Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, a variety of German was the language of their books, their newspapers, and their schools. Being far from the European homeland created a hegemonic shift in the linguistic lives of these early German Americans; they were adopting an American regional identity. Along with their shift in identities and in linguistic hegemony, structural aspects of the languages they used also changed: their written German was in contact with English and with their spoken Pennsylvania Dutch. In addition, the limitations of formal education in German at rural schools meant that the emphasis among most Pennsylvania Dutch was on the receptive knowledge of German and not on productive control of the language. In time, a variety of German called Pennsylvania High German emerged in the publications, writings, and schools of Pennsylvania. This article shares recent findings of a large corpus of written attempts at Pennsylvania High German by Civil War soldiers. It discusses both the structural aspects of their written language as well as the negotiation of their American regional identities through a multilingual lens at the first major moment of increased contact with outsiders.

Horse‐and‐Buggy Genius: Listening to Mennonites Contest the Modern World, by RoydenLoewen, Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press, 2016. 256 pp. $27.95 (paper). ISBN: 9780887557989.Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language, by MarkLouden, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. 473 pp. $59.95 (cloth). ISBN: 9781421418285.The Amish: A Concise Introduction, by StevenNolt, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. 152

Horse‐and‐Buggy Genius: Listening to Mennonites Contest the Modern World, by RoydenLoewen, Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press, 2016. 256 pp. $27.95 (paper). ISBN: 9780887557989.Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language, by MarkLouden, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. 473 pp. $59.95 (cloth). ISBN: 9781421418285.The Amish: A Concise Introduction, by StevenNolt, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. 152

Mark L. Louden. 2016. Pennsylvania Dutch. The Story of an American Language (Young Center Books in Anabaptist & Pietist Studies). Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. xxii, 473 S.

Mit dem hier besprochenen Band liegt eine Monographie zu Pennsylvania Dutch(Pennsylvania German, Pennsylvania-Deutsch; im Weiteren auch PD) vor, die sowohl die Entstehungsbedingungen und -verlaufe und den soziohistorischen, soziopolitischen und religionsbezogenen Kontext seiner Entwicklung als auch seine sprachlichen und literarischen Formen, seine historische und heutige gesellschaftliche Stellung und Verwendung umfassend und grundlich darstellt. Louden wendet sich dabei nicht nur an ein linguistisches Fachpublikum, sondern auch an LeserInnen ohne eine speziell linguistische Vorbildung. Dementsprechend werden fur die Darstellung relevante linguistische Konzepte eingefuhrt und erklart. Ein umfassendes Stichwortverzeichnis macht die Monographie gut erschliesbar, und die umfangreiche Bibliographie ermoglicht es, sich weitergehend zu allen angesprochenen Themen zu informieren. Die Endnoten werden strategisch gut eingesetzt, da sie nicht nur fachwissenschaftliche ‚Unterfutterung‘ bieten, sondern auch dazu genutzt werden, alle zitierten Quellentexte sowohl auf Englisch als auch in der (pennsylvania-)deutschen Originalfassung zur Verfugung zu stellen.

Horse-and-Buggy Genius: Listening to Mennonites Contest the Modern World by Royden Loewen

Reviewed by: Horse-and-Buggy Genius: Listening to Mennonites Contest the Modern World by Royden Loewen L. Good Gingrich Horse-and-Buggy Genius: Listening to Mennonites Contest the Modern World. By Royden Loewen. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2016. vii + 238 pp. Illustrations, map, annotated bibliography, index. $27.95 CAD, $31.95 USD, paper. Loewen presents intimate and compelling testimonials from members of two distinct groups of traditional Mennonites—Old Colony Mennonites in Central and South America, and Old Order Mennonites in Ontario, Canada. The Old Order Mennonites of this research are of Swiss–South German descent, preserve their traditional language of Pennsylvania Dutch, have lived in close-knit agrarian communities in rural southern Ontario for over 200 years, and today number approximately 8,000. The estimated 100,000 Old Colony Mennonites are descendants of the Anabaptist movement in the Netherlands, and their histories of persecution, hardship, and migration are intertwined and (seemingly) endless. Today they live in (and move between) separate and largely self-contained colonies scattered throughout Mexico, Belize, Bolivia, and Paraguay, and strive to preserve their Plautdietsch language and way of life that is infused with a unique blend of Dutch, Russian, and Mexican food and culture. Despite their divergent geographic and linguistic histories, communities in these two groups of Mennonites share a religious commitment to lives of "continuity, simplicity, and obedience" (9). The "remarkable coincidence" (5) that identifies both Old Order and Old Colony Mennonites as "horse-and-buggy" people goes beyond outer expressions of antimodernity, as their accounts reveal similar lifestyle ideals and religious traditions that "emphasize the community over the individual, the local over the nation, simplicity over profit, and peace over violence" (4). Ironically, political borders and "earthly kingdoms" are used to frame the stories of two peoples whose practices and beliefs transcend such boundaries. The selection of these two groups of horse-and-buggy Mennonites is based on a shared link with Canada, yet this geopolitical connection is tenuous. The Canadian Old Order Mennonites are tied in culture and kin to the thousands of horse-and-buggy Old Order Mennonites of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—communities that are curiously omitted from this study. The Canadian story for horse-and-buggy Old Colony Mennonites is limited to brief moments in their migratory history, and represents a "corrupting" land (201) where threats to their antimodern convictions drove them south in the 1920s, and where their colony lifestyle practices (including use of horse and buggy) must be forfeited when poverty and violence drive them back north. It is clear, through his own admission and [End Page 122] in his retelling of the stories, that Loewen's affection and affiliation favor the Old Colony Mennonites. This is not necessarily a weakness or flaw of this work, as all researchers, even historians, must write from our own peculiar perspective and bias. However, the uneven attention given the two groups, in both depth and breadth, suggests a competitive rather than comparative analysis. As a result, some distinctive features of each group are overlooked: the unique social and political structures of the Latin American colony and the Canadian farming community; differing roles, responsibilities, and status of women, due in part to dissimilar farming and livelihood practices; and widely divergent migration histories and associated meanings. Loewen urges the reader to take seriously the religious convictions of these peculiar peoples, and to recognize their daily life practices as challenge to "conspicuous consumption" (219) and the isolation of individualism. In this way, the work makes an important contribution to scholarship, especially in its engaging, personal, and respectful presentation of Old Colony Mennonite narratives. Their curious practices, which are often judged to be foolish and self-defeating, are re-storied in deeply rooted religious convictions and traditions. This re-framing is instructive for encounters with all groups who hold to a worldview and preserve a lifestyle that contest dominant norms. L. Good Gingrich School of Social Work and Centre for Refugee Studies York University, Canada Copyright © 2018 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Pennsylvania: The Foundation of American Cuisine

Pennsylvania: The Foundation of American Cuisine William Woys Weaver (bio) The third-largest agricultural state in the country, Pennsylvania includes at least five distinct culinary regions: Philadelphia and its surrounding counties; the Northeast coal region; the Pennsylvania Dutch heartland, comprising some twenty-five counties; the Allegheny Highlands centering on Pittsburgh; and the Lakeshore region bordering Lake Erie. Within this unique cultural heritage lie pockets of foods and foodways that await more intensive scholarly exploration. Fieldwork based on recorded interviews is one valid approach that should be given top priority because "food memories" do not last forever. But Pennsylvania's situation is more complex than that. The commonwealth's historical timelines are different and more challenging than those of many other states, mainly because a diversity of European cultures settled side by side in the Delaware Valley. This cultural diversity characterized the development of Pennsylvania's food history; in essence, Pennsylvania is where cultural fusionism first began. It is also where, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, culinary leaders including pastry cook Elizabeth Goodfellow (1768–1851) and confectioner James Wood Parkinson (1818–95) consciously advocated a new American cuisine. Parkinson even published a manifesto outlining where he thought American cuisine should be headed. But there are many other individuals whose careers are equally as important, such as Italianborn Nunzio Finelli (1834–86), who in the late 1870s created the iconic Philadelphia blue-plate salad composed of fried oysters and chicken. The historian's task is to document and increase understanding of this vast heritage and then to build upon its creative vitality to keep this regional identity alive. Food studies as a science is still very new and embraces many different points of approach: culinary history (until recently, largely a study of old cookbooks); anthropology (the connections between food and behavior, the social history of food, customs and foodways); culinary arts (the hands-on practice of cookery); food ethnography (the cultural [End Page 237] dimension of food and its role within certain social groups); and food as material culture, an object that, if more ephemeral than art—when consumed, it is destroyed—is every bit as complex and meaningful. Yet is it really destroyed? Philosophically, emotionally, and psychologically, food is art that becomes part of us. This is one of several underlying challenges in studying food and what constitutes its "authenticity"—a much-discussed and somewhat slippery concept endemic to the postindustrial age. In short, food derives its dimension of authenticity from associations with family, with locality or region, or even from religious ritual. Authenticity is personal and subjective, differing from person to person, like the restaurant critic who is looking for that crystallizing moment when things come together at the table. A similar ongoing search for culinary truths is driving much of food scholarship today, and happily there are many paths to achieve this. The essays in this collection point to those places beyond individual epiphanies, where scholars may start to decode empirical narratives and make more orderly sense of this new science called food studies. The list of starting points for research is huge and growing: archival collections (even old wills and inventories); hidden gems of data buried in out-of-the-way libraries; cookbook collections, including the one Philadelphia chef Fritz Blank bequeathed to the University of Pennsylvania after his 2014 death; rare agricultural journals in the state library; or my own collection of culinary ephemera, now at New York University. Ideally, a volume like this would spread the food stories evenly across the state's five culinary regions; in reality, some regions have a more developed sense of local identity than others. All the same, the surprising finds of this issue's authors should encourage anyone who wants to explore the culinary history of the Keystone State. With luck, this pioneering publication will lead to a much larger and more sustained effort to understand Pennsylvania's extraordinary and unique culinary riches. [End Page 238] William Woys Weaver Devon, Pennsylvania William Woys Weaver William Woys Weaver is a retired professor of food studies living in Devon, Pennsylvania. He is the author of seventeen books and received his PhD in food ethnography from...