Influences of the Pennsylvania German Dialect on the English Spoken in "Pennsylvania Dutch Country" as a Regional Identity Marker

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1991
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
This paper examines the influences of the Pennsylvania German dialect on the English spoken in a rural region of Pennsylvania known as "Pennsylvania Dutch Country." The English of this region, inhabited mainly but not exclusively by Americans of German or caermanic descent, exhibits distinctive patterns strongly influenced phonetically, syntactically and lexically by the Pennsylvania German dialect. My thesis is that these Pennsylvania German influences serve not only as an ethnic marker in the speech of those speakers of German descent, but also as a regional marker, separati"ng denizens of this region of Pennsylvania, through their speech patterns, from inhabitants of the surrounding areas, who use a more standard American English. To support and expand this thesis, I use as an apparent counterexample the English spoken by Old Order Sectarians (i.e. Amish and Mennonites) of the region, who lack Pennsylvania German influences in their English.
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