Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1883-03-14
THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH.

In this great America of ours and in
the very heart of its oldest and highest
civilization, writes a correspondent of the
Buffalo Courier, from Dauphin Co.. Pa,
there are whole communities whose pres
ent inhabitants. as well as their ances-
tors for a century past, were born where
they now reside, and yet are almost en-
tlrely strangers to the English language,
hundreds and even thousands OF them
not being able to speak or understand Il
word OF IT, Take the counties of New
York, Lancaster, Lehigh, Berks, the
northern hall OF Bucks and the southern
half of Dauphin, beside several other
counties OF the state, and four-fifths of the
people will be found TO entirely ignore
the English language among themselves,
and in many communities the English
traveller will scarcely be able to find any
one to whom he can make himself under
stood, certainly no woman.
These people are what are known as
Pennsylvania Dutch. They have no writ
ten language, their speech being simply
dialect, the only analogy of which with
ANYTHING else OF human antecedeEts lies
i'll the TACT that an occasional English,
German, French or Spanish word has
been san1witched with strange discord-
ance inlo it A great number Of the peO-
pie are bitterly opposed to their chill
dren's learning to speak English, and if
allowed to go to school at all, it is to a
private one With Dutch teacher, and
even atsthe public schools, where, of
course English Is taught, the children re-
lapse into their native on upon the
playground, as was observed by the writer
while passing country school house on
ly few days ago. Ia fact, in passing
through this entire section of Central
Pennsylvania the ordinary American will
find his surrounding, as regards both
language and the social customs OF the
people, just rs strange and foreign to his
ideas as though he were in Westphalia
or Norway.
And not ouly his but he will find that
he is looked upon with the same degree
of half suspicious curiosity and and as
being as much of an enterloper as would
be the case in the foreign countries men,
toned. This condition of things en-
braces territory of many thousands of
square miles of the very finest sections of
this great commonwealth, and popula-
tion of more than 100000 people in the
very heart of our civilization. The mass
es of the Southern people have ever
labored under the impression that dur
ing the late unpleasantness our army
was very largel y recruited from foreign
countries. This view has been held up
to the writer on innumerable occasions
and made to explain our abili-
ty to place such overwhelming armies in
the field. This belief arose from the fre-
quent capture of these Pennsylvania
Dutchmen, who could not IN many cas-
es speak English, and in their contact
with several regiments of troops raised in
this region. And yet the ancestors of
these soldiers for generations back were
born upon this soil. In fact, SO far as
the matter can be tracted, this language
is indigenous to this section, as no peo-
pie using the same or similar dialect are
known anywhere else on the face of
the earth. The native Hollander, be he
either high or low Dutch origin, can no
more understand the people here than
can:the ordinary American. AS q rule
they are not agreeable people to mingle
with either in business dealings or in
social intercourse. Ignorance, selfish
ness ssand greed are their governing traits.