Do something with language!

I’ve wanted to participate again for a while in Mach was! but I haven’t had the inspiration. This is actually a topic (Sprache) that fascinates me but the perfect topic didn’t hit me. It’s a bit lazy, I suppose, but I thought perhaps some readers (less so Americans than non-Americans) might be interested in Wisconsin dialect.

Wisconsin sits at the crossroads of three American dialect boundaries: Inland Northern (how Hillary Clinton speaks); North Central (Frances Dormand speaks a somewhat dated version of this in Fargo, or if you saw Making of a Murderer, Steven Avery speaks this way); and Midland (in the southwestern part of the state; this dialect doesn’t really affect our speech). Class differences involved — again referencing Making of a Murderer, the judges are speaking one dialect and Steven Avery speaks another, and it would make clear to the Wisconsin audience that Avery is from a poorer, rural part of the state. Additionally, it matters where the primary European settlement in any era came from (Germany, for instance, or Scandinavia, which are the two most prevalent sources of the Wisconsin population, but also other groups like the Scots-Irish). Heavy European migration to Wisconsin began in the 1840s / 1850s. And finally, there are strong generational differences. Most of my grandparents’ generation (and certainly their parents) spoke a European language at home either actively or passively, and / or worshiped or went to school in such a language, which shaped their pronunciation and vocabulary choices. Even though the German defeat in WWI led to the erasure of German language in Wisconsin, those influences are still apparent to a German speaker listening to Wisconsinites talk.

Peculiarities that came from German that you hear people around here saying all the time:

• Inserting “once” into requests or demands. “Hold still once!” or “If you’re going to the store, bring me some eggs once.” This doesn’t mean “one time,” but is a literal translation of the German particle mal, which is used to soften the tone of imperative statements. Depending on context, it can mean “for a second” or “when you have a chance.”
• Using “with” at the end of a sentence without an object, as in “Do you want to come with?” This is an adaption of something called a separable prefix verb that is common in German and Dutch, where the prefix of the verb detaches during its conjugation to indicate meaning. Mitkommen (to come along) in German is an infinitive, so here we just tack that separable prefix on to the end of the sentence.
• Saying “yet” when we mean “still.” This leads to all kinds of confusion. “Are you up yet?” in Wisconsin can mean either “are you still awake?” (German influenced) or “have you gotten up?” (standard English grammar). it has to do with the literal translation of the German adverbs “noch” and “immer noch” and confusion about the differences to how “still” and “yet” work in English. If you’re interested in this problem, there’s more about it here.
• This is a pronunciation thing — the more rural we are, the less likely we are to pronounce English “th” properly. This is probably because German and the Scandinavian languages lack this sound. (Germans learning English really struggle making this sound at the beginning, too.) Many relatives of mine say “dere” instead of “there,” and so on.
• Saying “borrow” when we mean “lend” — “Can you borrow me some tools?” This is a literal import from German, where borgen can mean both “borrow” and “lend.”
• Ending questions with “not” or sometimes “or no”. This follows the German pattern of ending a question with “nicht.”  There’s also a comparable pattern of ending an affirmative sentence with “and so,” which is something I’ve heard a fair amount in Germany (restates an assumption agreement).

There are also a few phrases that are somewhat unique to Wisconsin, but may be found in other places:

• “Stop and go light” for “traffic light.”
• “Bubbler” for water fountain.
• “Brat” for “bratwurst.”
• “FIB” —  rude expression for people from Illinois.
• “rummage sale” — what other people call a garage sale or yard sale.

There are also a few things that have disappeared or are disappearing that I think must be related to older German usage. For instance, the verb “visit” to mean “catch up on things with a friend,” i.e., “I called her up and we visited for a while.” There are also archaic expressions that used to be common that we now only use ironically — “How’s by you?” would be one of these. This phrase is common in several German dialects, including Yiddish.

There’s more to say but I see I’ve already missed the deadline. Anyway. Speech is a fascinating thing.

~ by Servetus on September 29, 2019.