Talk:Pennsylvania Dutch

Professor Daniel Miller's comment, and Fraktur

I've attempted to delete the lengthy quote of "Pennsylvania Dutch Prof. Miller" several times, and the revision has been reversed every time. In my mind, it is enough to say that the PA Dutch were the butt of jokes that they did not appreciate, no need for the polemic.

Professor Miller doesn't seem to have any trace or relevance outside two articles where his opinion is quoted, and the source for those quotes. There is no way to verify that his opinions were particularly relevant in 19th c. PA.

Regardless of the relevance of this source, though, I find the use of Fraktur for the quote particularly impractical and pointless. In articles on actually German topics, I have never seen an app-generated Fraktur being used to represent quotes. Likewise, in articles that quote letters written in cursive, the quote is almost never turned into an internet-generated cursive font. Medieval sources are not quoted in Carolingian Miniscule, etc.

It is important that the point of including quotes in articles, whether in their original language or translated into English, is so that they can be read. For users not acquainted with German archival sources (arguably the majority of Wikipedia users), the font makes it hard to read.

Thanks to the use of images in the article, users can see that PA Dutch wrote in Fraktur. There is no reason why this must be "drilled further home" by the use of illegible internet-generated font.

So, if nothing else, I implore the conversion of the quote into a normal font. Theodore Christopher (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

You have already demonstrated your subjective opinion of Fraktur earlier writing by calling it "cartoonish" in a recent edit, insulting it for no other reason than your personal opinion, and you continue your subjective opinion here by stating that there is no reason why this language should be "drilled further home" and call its usage as just "illegible internet-generated font".

Your argument stems from a flawed supposition that the historic Palatine language in use between Europe and America should be treated the exact same as modern Standard German; to commit this error would be to invent an inaccurate rendering of the international Palatine language.

Examples of this international Palatine literature, are: Pälzer Humor, Lina Sommer, 1914; Wie's klingt am Rhei': mundartliche Gedichte aus der hessischen Pfalz, Elard Briegleb 1885, Die pälzisch Weltgeschicht, Paul Münch, 1910, Pennsylvania German: A collection of Pennsylvania German productions in poetry and prose, Band 1, Daniel Miller, 1903, Miller's Prose and Verse, Part English, Part Pennsylvania German: By Edwin C. Miller, Edwin Charles Miller, 1924, Pälzer Duwak: schnurrige Erzählungen in Pfälzer Mundart, Max Barack, 1886, Pennsylvania German: A Collection of Pennsylvania German Productions in Poetry and Prose, Volume 2, Daniel Miller, 1911

We can compare this exact case of preference to maintain the original language in other Wikipedia articles, such as using Coptic script for Coptic language, Egyptian Greek, and Nubian Creole Greek, as these were only written in Coptic script, e.g. "ⲇⲟⲝⲁ ⲡⲁⲧⲣⲓ ⲕⲉ ⲩⲓⲱ: ⲕⲉ ⲁ̀ⲅⲓⲱ ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁⲧⲓ: ⲕⲉ ⲛⲩⲛ ⲕⲉ ⲁ̀ⲓ̀ ⲕⲉ ⲓⲥ ⲧⲟⲩⲥ ⲉⲱⲛⲁⲥ ⲧⲱⲛ ⲉ̀ⲱ̀ⲛⲱⲛ ⲁ̀ⲙⲏⲛ", and are presented in this manner for the sake of accuracy, rather than rendering them in modern Greek script; another example is the accurate usage of Gothic script, e.g. 𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌹𐌽𐌰𐍃𐍃𐌿𐍃 𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌹 (Ostrogothic Kingdom), instead of choosing to render it in the historically inaccurate modern transliteration Thiudinassus Eitaljai solely for the purpose of "better legibility".

In regards to your tangent about not using Medieval fonts such as Carolingian Miniscule, this case is not at all the same as rendering in Palatine language in Fraktur, as Medieval fonts such as Carolingian were almost exclusively used for standard Latin, which in modern convention we render in modern Roman script.

The spirit of this international Palatine language would be corrupted by presenting it in another format. This international language, which was shared between European Palatines and American Palatines, particularly the Pennsylvania Germans, was supplanted between World War 1 and 2, and is not in use today; nevertheless its literature should be presented as accurately as possible. Aearthrise (talk) 01:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

As a speaker of Franconian and reader of Fraktur, I am perfectly aware that Palatine German has defined differences with standard high German. I am also aware of the prominence that Fraktur held in printed German until the mid-20th c.-- This doesn't change my thoughts on the font. German in Germany, as I'm sure you know, wasn't standardized until the 19th c. Dialects, non-standard German, and so on are everywhere on Wikipedia. Nonetheless, though, the page for Middle High German does not convert MHG into any early German font that it might've been originally rendered in, miniscule or not. The pages for German-speaking rulers, such as Franz Joseph I of Austria, do not contain generated Fraktur, even though one can assume that titles, for instance, were originally written in calligraphic Fraktur. What makes this quote so unique? Theodore Christopher (talk) 20:54, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

None of the statements in your last reply address anything I said in my previous rebuttal. Nothing you constitutes an argument:

1. You say that German wasn't standardized until the 19th century- *Whether German was standardized or not in the 19th century is irrelevant to this discussion.

2. You talk about how we render Middle High German on Wikipedia, saying we don't write it in miniscule script- *Besides that miniscule script doesn't exist as unicode on computers, how we render Middle High German is irrelevant to this discussion.

3. You talk about how we write German royalty titles on Wikipedia- *How Wikipedia writes German royalty titles is irrelevant to this discussion.

As stated before, you are still committing the error of treating this form of Palatine language and its Pennsylvania German variant the same as German.

An example of graffiti in Yiddish, Tel Aviv, Washington Avenue (און איר זאלט ליב האבן דעם פרעמדען, ווארום פרעמדע זייט איר געווען אין לאנד מצרים). "You shall have love for the stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Deuteronomy 10:19)

Your argument is the same as wanting to write Yiddish (a dialect of German) in a different script, solely because you think "it's more legible," when the only accurate rendering of Yiddish would be in its traditional Hebrew script, as is the practice on Wikipedia.

You stated "This doesn't change my thoughts on the font." I will tell you, based on the subjective comments you've made, and the irrelevant blathering and waffling, your thoughts are not worth very much.

To end, you ask a last question: "What makes this quote so unique?"

Although I already answered this question in an edit, which you choose to ignore now, I shall entertain it with this response:

Daniel Miller's quote provides an excellent snapshot into the prejudice and stereotypes the Pennsylvania Dutch faced, and paints the reality of their living situations, the sophistication of the Pennsylvania Dutch society in lieu of the stereotyes; further, it demonstrates a clear meaning of "Yankee" in Pennsylvania Dutch culture, and the rivalry between the cultures; to speak simply, Daniel Miller's quote ties the section together splendidly. Aearthrise (talk) 22:27, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Palatine German is a dialect. Yiddish is a language.

Yiddish uses Hebrew script. Palatine German, as did most every other dialect of German written between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, used Fraktur. The way that Palatine German was written is in the same way that Saxon German, Franconian German, etc. were written. So the inclusion of standard and non-standard German examples in this conversation are relevant. The only accurate (or sensitive, choose your word here) way to read Yiddish is in Hebrew letters, but Fraktur is not the only accurate way that Palatine German can be read-- it is still spoken (and written) within the Palatinate, and I seriously doubt that they're using Fraktur to write it.

Miller's lengthy quote is not necessarily a true-to-form representation of society at the time. He is alleging that PA Dutch lifestyles are superior to Yankee/English ones, it's only proof that PA Dutch and Yankee people thought each of their respective communities were better than the other... something that can be summarized in a shorter form. Theodore Christopher (talk) 23:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Now your argument has devolved into what we call dialects and what we call languages; what constitutes a dialect or language is completely subjective to socialogists- your point is making an ad auctoritatem fallacy, and like I stated prior in my earlier rebuttals, you're committing the error of treating this language the same as standard German. For your information, we call this the Pennsylvania Dutch language.

Also, you are selectively ignoring previous points i've made in prior rebuttals, particularly where I explained the historic usage Fraktur orthography in this language, and how it was supplanted between World War 1 and 2. You, however, ignoring that, decided to talk about what people today are speaking or writing in the Palatinate. This is a completely irrelevant argument.

Only 70 years ago, Hebrew was an extinct language. Now it's spoken by 10 million people, and in Greece 50 years ago everybody learned and wrote literary Katharevousa Greek, but this form was abolished during the Greek civil war between the Communist and National government. Times change, and what people speak or write today is irrelevant in this discussion.

Furthermore, your whole argument comes from ignorance of Pennsylvania Dutch culture, and why this form was written in Fraktur; usage of Fraktur in this variety of Pennsylvania Dutch was a concious effort by writers as an antithesis to the "English rule" of the Pennsylvania Dutch at the time, which was to write the language in an English orthography, and contributed to its derision by making it not seem like a legitimate means of literary expresion.

Here is the example of the English rule from Rauch's Pennsylvania Dutch English rule manual, "Rauch's Pennsylvania Dutch hand-book. Rauch's Pennsylvania Deitsch hond-booch", E.H. Rauch, 1879:

De feela daussenda fun Pennsylvania boova un maid os in de Englisha shoola gane un doch sheer nix shwetza derhame un in der nochbershaft os Pennsylvania Deitsh... all de kinner in unserem shtate larna English laisa, un yusht 'n dale fun eena krega enniche sort fun Deitshe larnung. De Englisha rule, dawrum, is by weitam is de besht for des booch.

The many thousands of Pennyslvania boys and girls that go into English schools almost speak nothing other than Pennsylvania Dutch at home or in the neighborhood... all the children in our state learn to read English, and only some get any sort of German learning. The English rule, therefore, is by far the best for this book.

On the other hand, the usage of the Pennsylvania Dutch Fraktur orthography was a concious attempt 1.to uplift the Pennsylvania Dutch language for use in scientific and other high literature, 2.to connect with the international Palatine literary audience, and 3. to protect traditional German education in Pennsylvania.

Your last point is your subjective opinion of Daniel Miller's words about Yankees, and you attribute them to some sort of boastful superiority, and purport, without any evidence, that both communities thought they were better than the other. Your words are based in ignorance, coming and from an outsider to Pennsylvania Dutch culture, not even speaking the language nor knowing our cultural traits. Everything you say comes solely from "your thoughts."

You obviously don't understand what it meant to be Pennsylvania Dutch during this time in American history. This was at a time of high anti-foreigner hatred, racism, and a major push to Americanize the diverse peoples living in the USA. You think Daniel Miller's defense of his native culture, being a marginalized community, is just boasting talk of superiority? That's complete and utter nonsense, and as I said in my previous post: "your thoughts are not worth very much." Aearthrise (talk) 11:58, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The pompous insults are really not necessary -- you're not a tut-tutting, cigar-smoking academic, you are on the internet. If you really thought my opinions were worthless, you wouldn't be writing up these responses.

I'm an outsider from PA Dutch Culture? Sure, but so are you, if your profile is to be believed. I've spent a lot of time in Amish country because part of my family lives there, but that doesn't matter: we are both approaching the subject from the same level of removal.

Wikipedia classifies Palatine German as a dialect. Since this is a Wikipedia article, we will go by Wikipedia classifications. And from the beginning of this conversation, you've explicitly referenced Palatine German, rather than PA Dutch. Regardless, PA Dutch is a variety of Palatine German. So other German dialects remain relevant to this conversation. Palatine German should be treated in the same way that historical examples Saxon, Franconian, Frisian, et c. are treated on Wikipedia, namely without Fraktur.

The usage of Hebrew and Modern Greek are utterly irrelevant to Palatine German, since this is a dialect that has been spoken for centuries and continues to be spoken. There has been no spectacular reorientation or revival of the dialect.

The usage of Fraktur was intentional, of course, not only in Pennsylvania, or in the Palatinate, but across the German-speaking world. Fraktur always distinguished German (whatever dialect it may be in) texts from those written in, say, French. Use of Fraktur as a distinguishing factor for German, or even as a protest, is not unique to Pennsylvania. And yet, you don't see other editors insist that archival sources be written in computer-generated Fraktur.

Lastly, yes, the Professor does claim superiority in this passage... allegedly, their farms are "... the model of the world", they have "the best and newest machines", and they possess some innate goodness not present in those "rascals", the "knavish, tricky (…) Yankees". I'm sure the PA Dutch are good, honest people, and that they had good farms, but neither of us are here to adjudicate 19th-c. ethnic squabbles between two groups of Northern European Germanic peoples. Theodore Christopher (talk) 21:10, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

You have chosen to ignore what I wrote, and continually create nonsense irrelevant arguments.

You speak on that the usage of Hebrew and Greek are irrelevant to Palatine German- this is another statement without a thought. The Hebrew, Modern Greek examples were a rebuttal to your flawed logic where you're wanted ask about how people write Palatinate today. Those examples were to show what people speak and write today doesn't have necessarily have a bearing on how people historically spoke or wrote. Your inablity to comprehend that is telling of your mindset; you ignore sound arguments and prefer to just waffle and blather.

Again, you commit the error of the treating this language the same as Standard German. We are talking about a specific variety of Pennsylvania Dutch and its accurate rendering. We're not talking about a Palatine German publication, and my earlier mentioning the international Palatine language was for you to understand the mindset of this form of Pennsylvania Dutch.

The usage of Fraktur was intentional, of course, not only in Pennsylvania, or in the Palatinate, but across the German-speaking world. Fraktur always distinguished German (whatever dialect it may be in) texts from those written in, say, French. Use of Fraktur as a distinguishing factor for German, or even as a protest, is not unique to Pennsylvania. And yet, you don't see other editors insist that archival sources be written in computer-generated Fraktur.

You wrote this paragraph after I had already explained why Fraktur in this form of Pennsylvania Dutch is unique, and which you're choosing to ignore now. I explained how this was a unique, conscious choice by the authors to render the Pennsylvania Dutch language in a way wholly distinct to the English rule, and I provided a sample text of English rule Dutch. This is similar to Yiddish authors making a conscious choice to write their dialect in Hebrew script.

Lastly, your invented idea of "superiority" in Daniel Miller's quote is completely incorrect, and it shows you lack knowledge of Pennsylvania Dutch culture or basic understanding of the message. Daniel is saying that the Pennsylvania Dutch are a modern people, and that they deserve respect, and that they shouldn't be ashamed of their Dutch language and culture; as for the Yankees, it is a common theme in Pennsylvania Dutch culture that Yankees are a tricky people, in the same way Yankees called the Dutch "Dumb Dutch". As already stated, Daniel Miller's quote is an excellent painting for the section dealing with the prejudice of the Pennsylvania Dutch, and the quote ties the section together.

Your arguments and words are all vapid nonsense, and you keep relying on your misinformed opinions and poor logic, rather than the facts of this culture or of its language.

P.s. I do indeed speak Pennsylvania Dutch, and half of my family is Dutch, so your comment about the two of us coming from the same level of removal is totally incorrect. Aearthrise (talk) 22:06, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Theodore Christopher: was totally correct to remove the Fraktur font from the article, if only for its readability. At this point I'm not sure about the quote as a whole, because it might be incorrect usage of a primary source. That will require further examination at some point. I couldn't change the original Pennsylvania Dutch Fraktur text to regular Latin script; at this point I would not oppose re-adding it on the condition of regular lettering being used, but please do not readd the quote in Fraktur. Vlaemink (talk) 09:59, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Your reasons for removing it is based on readibility? As a speaker of the language, I can read it just fine. Beyond your claims of "readibility" this is not how we treat other languages, like Coptic language, or Coptic Greek, because they naturally use a distinct font typeface of the Greek alphabet: example of Coptic Greek from the Tasbeha Coptic Hymn library: Coptic typface- Ⲕⲉ ⲛⲩⲛ ⲕⲉ ⲁ̀ⲓ̀ ⲕⲉ ⲓⲥ ⲧⲟⲩⲥ ⲉ̀ⲱ̀ⲛⲁⲥ ⲧⲱⲛ ⲉ̀ⲱ̀ⲛⲱⲛ ⲁ̀ⲙⲏⲛ. Greek typeface- Κὲ νῦν κὲ ἀῒ κὲ ἰς τοὺς ἐῶνας τῶν ἐώνων. Ἀμήν.

Theodore's argument was that standard German doesn't use Fraktur anymore, but as I argued, this isn't standard German. It's a separate language, and has different rules, and particularly for this literary variety, it consciously used Fraktur to separate it from the English style based on spoken Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a distinct language:

Pennsylvania “High German”, Ralph Charles Wood, Pennsylvania State College, 2016 pg.299-314

Pennsylvania Germans who know some literary German, have one of two possible pronunciations. The first is the pronunciation of ordinary American school-German, and may be as un-German as any schoolboy's pronunciation, or quite idiomatic, according to the native ability of the speaker, the throroughness of his instruction, and contact with native German. The second is something quite Pennsylvanian, a kind of German that older ministers and laymen understand.

This second form is so uniform that it must have fixed traditions. It must be the German of the Nineteenth Century after the decline of German instruction in the elementary schools, which many ministers, laymen- yes, even German newspaper editors- learned in the home and in Sunday schools through the medium of hymn books, Bibles, and newspapers.

In this study I have established how High German sounded in the mouths of Pennsylvania Germans one hundred years ago, at the time of the unsuccessful attempt to maintain adequate German instruction in Pennsylvania schools. I have also proven that is the same "Pennsylvania High German" still heard, but practically a dead language.

Now, we can say axiomatically that the Pennsylvania Germans came in contact, in school and church in the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries, with a High German such as that spoken and written in their home area, the Palatinate, and adjoining sections of the language area.

Fraktur was definitely a part of the elementary education for Pennsylvania German children, who in the Eighteenth century were raised as miniature adults, and the adult themes expressed in most examples of fraktur, were, therefore, appropriate.

The use of this variety of Pennsylvania Dutch was lost because Fraktur was stigmatized due to anti-German sentiment:

Learn American Calligraphy: The Complete Book of Lettering, History, and Design, Margaret Shepherd, 2024, pg.102:

Outside influences inevitably weakened the roots of Fraktur. Eventually, German Americans began to assimilate and move on from the customs of their immigrant ancestors. The brief popularity of Gothic letters in Nazi Germany during the 1930s stigmatized Germanic letter styles everywhere for a decade.

With your removal, you show that you believe languages like Coptic, Yiddish and Gothic are correct to portray in their natural light, robed in the alphabet they were consciously written in, but say to treat the Fraktur variety of Pennsylvania Dutch (now a dead language) in the same way, is incorrect. This is linguistic hubris, based on personal preference, and not a valid reason for removal. Aearthrise (talk) 13:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I consider all of the arguments listed by @Theodore Christopher: to be valid, both his content-related criticism as well as his remarks on your unnecessarily aggressive and sometimes even insulting way of communicating.

Coptic, Yiddish and Gothic are all languages using different alphabets, not different typefaces. Fraktur is not an alphabet, it's a typeface, just like Arial, Times New Roman or Carolingian minuscule. The quote can be given only in translation; or, with the original text accompanying it but there is no valid reason whatsoever to use Fraktur for the original 1903 quote. The Pennsylvania German language doesn't require Fraktur for its written form and, apart from that, it's simply not done to quote sources in Fraktur in modern publications. The only sources that do so, are certain German sources who are themselves written in Fraktur, i.e. prior to 1941. The notion that 16th century till 1941 German texts should only be quoted using Fraktur as the typeface is, frankly, ludicrous.

I'm starting to suspect a case of WP:OWN here, so I'm going to include the above matter in my RfC as specified in the discussion below. Vlaemink (talk) 17:27, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

You're making an argument from semantics. I gave an example, Coptic Greek is written in Coptic typeface, because it's a unique variant of Greek. Further you say there is no valid reason to use Fraktur, although i've outlined many reasons why- 1.the historical aspect of Fraktur for this specific literary variant of the language itself producing the Fraktur (folk art), 2.that it's the way Fraktur Pennsylvania Dutch was specifically written, and 3.that Pennsylvania Dutch is not standard German. You're attempting to treat Pennsylvania Dutch the same as standard German and you even speak of it like it's standard German by mentioning "prior to 1941 texts."

Your opinion is based on your interpretation of what is correct and incorrect, making Pennsylvania Dutch the same as standard German; I am saying that the rules you're applying are not the same for this variant of Pennsylvania Dutch, and is not related to how we treat standard German. Aearthrise (talk) 18:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

This matter is now in a RfC-phase, I feel I've made my argument quite clear and I feel Theodore Christopher did the same. It's time for others to speak now. Vlaemink (talk) 19:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Vlaemink's addition of confusion about the term "Dutch"

Vlaemink is attempting to introduce confusion into this article about the term "Dutch" in Pennsylvania Dutch. He claimed linguists are divided on the term "Dutch" and added a source "The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church" that says „The term »Pennsylvania Dutch« is a reference to the German-speaking portions of Pennsylvania, »Dutch« being a corruption of Deutsch, the German word for German.“ This isn't a linguistic book, nor is the author a linguist.

Further Vlaemink claims that High Dutch is a calque of hochdeutsch, which is false. We have clearly established evidence in English long before the existence of the Pennsylvania Dutch ethnicity that demonstrates the usage of High Dutch and Low Dutch, being older ways to describe Germanic ethnicities from the Holy Roman Empire area.

This is what linguists have to say about the usage of High Dutch and Low Dutch:

[1]https://amsterdamfox.com/art-culture/what-is-the-difference-between-holland-netherlands-and-dutch/

In old English Dutch meant human community/people. Since the Netherlands and Germany were once part of the Holy Roman Empire, Dutch (and of course Deutsch) was used to describe people from those lands. High Dutch was used for people in the highlands of the empire (modern Germany), while Low Dutch was used to describe people of more flatter places (modern-day Netherlands).

THE HIGH DUTCH AND THE LOW DUTCH IN NEW YORK 1624-1924 on JSTOR, linguist Charles Maar [2]https://www.jstor.org/stable/43564779?seq=2

From first to last the two major elements, known in the old world as "Deutsch" but differentiated as "Hoch Deutsch" and "Nieder Deutsch," mingled here in colonial America most freely, not only on account of common religious sympathies, but also on account of close similarity of languages.

The comparatively few High-Dutch, or Germans as now better known, that drifted to New Netherlands or America during the middle of the 17th century (1625 to 1675) were greatly augmented during the fifty years following (1675 to 1725) owing to the repeated invasion of the Rhinelands by the French marauding armies and the eventual exile of all of the Reformed faith from the Palatinate of the Rhine. It was at this time that the provinces of Elsass and Lothringen were first torn away from the old Empire.

Through the kind offices of Queen Anne's government, many thousands of Palatine families were assisted to the American colonies and found new hopes and homes at Germantown and elsewhere in Pennsylvania- where in the interior their descendants are still known as the "Pennsylvania Dutch"...

[3]https://www.dictionary.com/e/demonym/

Over time, English-speaking people used the word Dutch to describe people from both the Netherlands and Germany, and now just the Netherlands today. (At that point in time, in the early 1500s, the Netherlands and parts of Germany, along with Belgium and Luxembourg, were all part of the Holy Roman Empire.) Specifically the phrase High Dutch referred to people from the mountainous area of what is now southern Germany. Low Dutch referred to people from the flatlands in what is now the Netherlands.

[4]https://aboutthenetherlands.com/why-are-the-netherlands-called-dutch-unraveling-the-etymology/

There was once a period when the English language employed the word 'Dutch' to describe various forms of the Germanic languages and peoples, encompassing today's Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and parts of Belgium and the Netherlands. As the languages and cultural identities in these regions evolved, the term 'Dutch' became more exclusively associated with the people and language of the Netherlands.

[5]https://www.readingeagle.com/2020/11/17/heres-why-the-pennsylvania-dutch-are-called-dutch/

Although the term Pennsylvania Dutch is in common usage, opinions on the subject vary considerably, but the facts are clear and well established – even if not well-known.

...Should they be properly called Pennsylvania Germans, or Pennsylvania Dutch? The former is well-established among academic institutions, while the latter often appears in quotes, or is preceded by the phrase “so-called,” as if to cast doubt upon its validity. Such conventions suggest that perhaps the entire culture has somehow carelessly forgotten their true origins, or erroneously embraced a mispronunciation. These views reinforce negative stereotypes, and not one iota of them is based in fact.

Dr. Don Yoder, father of American Folklife Studies, and co-founder of the Kutztown Folk Festival, tackled this question in 1950 for previous generations: “When they stepped off the boat at Philadelphia, they were called by the English-speaking people ‘Dutch’ and ‘Dutchmen.’ This term was not, as you often erroneously hear, invented in America as a mispronunciation of the German word ‘Deutsch’ which means ‘German.’ No, ‘Dutch’ was in 1750 already an ancient and well-established term. It has been traced by the Oxford English Dictionary as far back as the late Middle Ages.”

So, what does the Oxford actually say? The dictionary entry for the word “Dutch” states: “Of or relating to the people of Germany; German” and “The German language, in any of its forms.” In essence, Pennsylvania is one of the few places where the term still holds its original, historical meaning. Of course, over time, the definition of the term Dutch shifted to specifically denote the people of the Netherlands, but this was not always the case.

Originally, this term included all speakers of Germanic languages, which would have ranged throughout central Europe. The terms “High Dutch” and “Low Dutch” pertained to the variations of the language which corresponded to altitude: “High Dutch” was spoken in the areas closest to the alps of Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria; “Low Dutch” was spoken in the lowlands of what is today Northern Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. These historical terms are synonymous with “High German” and “Low German,” which have nothing to do with social status, but with European geography.

At the time of 18th-century immigration to North America, there was no one unified Germany or German nationality. The blanket terms “Dutch” and “German” were used interchangeably to describe many regions related by language without any semblance of conflict. “Dutch” was widely accepted as an early English word derived from Anglo-Saxon, and “German” being a Latin synonym preferred by scholars.

When Christopher Saur printed the very first full-length Bible in a European language at Germantown in 1743, he advertised it as being “in the High Dutch” language. He wasn’t suggesting that this Bible had anything to do with Holland, but rather, that it was in the German language. Historical sources totally upend the misconception that the English word “Dutch” is a mispronunciation of the German word “Deutsch.” These two words are cognates – linguistic cousins derived from a single early root word in Proto-Germanic “Tedesk,”which originally meant “people.” Aearthrise (talk) 14:18, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Let me just start by making two very basic points:

Firstly, it is not my personal view that linguists are divided on the origin of ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″, but rather that multiple views on the matter can be found among reputable authors and that this article should not ignore any of these views.

Secondly, a lot (if not most) of the text excerpts you've quoted and highlighted come from personal websites or travel blogs rather than reputable sources or professional literature. While this doesn't automatically mean that their information is wrong, it does make them unsuitable for an article on Wikipedia.

In any case, I don't think additional sources are strictly necessary to support the view that ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ comes from an older/earlier broader use of ″Dutch″. The article already has reputable sources supporting this interpretation, in fact, I think I might have added some of them myself at one point. However, the alternative view also has these. Both arguments have strengths and weaknesses. There isn't that much linguistical evidence for the survival of ″Dutch″ in an essentially medieval sense in American English. In fact, the use of ″Dutch″ in Britain always leaned strongly towards the modern Dutch and saw a particular focusing during the 16th century, in other words, well before the Pennsylvania Dutch immigration to America. At the same time, the idea that Americans simply mimicked ″deitsch″ (not ″deutsch″) or shifted to the closest sounding word they knew also has its problems. Then again, people like Dutch Schultz and Dutch Fehring got their nicknames due to being of German(-speaking) heritage; showing that the Deutsch/Dutch corruption does in fact exist in American English. In the end, who knows?

However, wherever you or anyone else personally stands on this matter, it's not up to Wikipedians to decide who is ″right″ or ″wrong″. This article should reflect reputable sources, and if these sources contradict each other or have different views, they can and should be listed. Which, to be perfectly blunt, is what this article did before you removed the other POVs. Vlaemink (talk) 18:09, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

You talk about "reputable sources", but don't even attempt to defend your point beyond giving a personal opinion saying that "multiple views matter." Only truth matters, based on fact and hard evidence; all the evidence clearly shows how the word Dutch was used in the past, and how it pertains to the Pennsylvania Dutch.

We have an abundance of hard evidence: dictionaries, newspapers, books, historic documents, etc. that show how Dutch was a common term in English for continental Germanic peoples, and differentiated them with the adjectives "high" and "low", and that this term continued for centuries:

The Living Age, volume 105, E. Littell & Company, 1870, pg.76:

We may here remark how everywhere on the Continent, except in Holland, the Low-Dutch is a struggling tongue. In one region, as we have seen, it has to struggle against French; but it has a harder struggle to wage against the High-Dutch in all the remaining extent of its territory. The process through which Low-Dutch is vanishing before High-Dutch is a different and a much subtler kind. High-Dutch represents itself to the speakers of Low-Dutch, not as a foreign speech, but as the best, the most polite, the most refined and classical and cultivate form of their own speech. One in short is "good German," the other is "bad."

The oddest case is undoubtedly to be found in the Duchy of Sleswick. That Duchy is the borderland of Low-Dutch and Danish, and the two may fairly fight for the supremacy. But, while they are fighting, a third champion, the High-Dutch, steps in, and under cover of the ambiguous word "German," displaces that one of the two contending elements which it professes to defend. People whose native tongue really comes near to Danish than it does to High-Dutch, are bidden to take up High-Dutch as the ensign of "German" against Danish nationality. The very name of the country has been changed. It used to be "Sleswick," a Low-Dutch form. I doubt whether you would find it written in any other way in any English book or map forty years old. But of later times we have been taught to change the natural name of the country into the High-Dutch "Schleswig."

Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History, Thomas Adam, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2005, pg.287:

It is often said that the use of the word Dutch by English-speaking people to refer to Germans was the result either of a confusion of identities or an attempt to pronounce the German word Deutsch, which, it is assumed, the Germans used to describe themselves. These explanations do not hold up under scrutiny. In the seventeenth century, when German settlers began to arrive in substantial numbers in Britain's North American colonies, the term Dutch still had meanings that have disappeared and are forgotten today.

Prior to the nineteenth century- and even prior to the unification of Germany in 1871- many migrants from the German states were not prone to describe themselves as Deutsch, even to strangers. They were more likely to refer to the territorial state from which they came. The "Pennsylvania Dutch," the German Americans whose ancestors came mainly from the Palatinate and Lower Rhine regions and settled mostly in eastern Pennsylvania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often did not recognize the term Deutsch as applicable to themselves, even after the unification of Germany. With sarcastic wit they referred, in their Germanic dialect, to the new arrivals as Deitschlänner (Deutschländer in standard German); that is, people who were constantly talking about Deutschland, a political entity created long after the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Dutch departed for the New World.

The use of Dutch as a synonym for German antedates British settlement of North America. In the late Middle Ages and early modern period, Dutch included both Germans and Dutch. It referred to people speaking a group of closely related Germanic languages. This usage pertained mainly to inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire and distinguished two kinds of "Dutch" people on the basis of geography, culture, and critically, language: "High Dutch (Hochdeutsch)," or "High German" in today's English usage; and "Low Dutch (Niederdeutsch)," or "Low German" in today's usage. The English language did not distinguish Netherlanders from other speakers of "Low Dutch," except by specifying the province, locality, or region.

The Penn Germania ...: A Popular Journal of German History and Ideals in the United States, volume 11, 1910, pg.745:

The "Dutch" themselves made a distinction. It was by no means that between "Dutch" and "German"... It was a distinction between "Nederdiutsch", meaning the people of North Germany, including Flemings, Hollanders, and those to the eastward, as far as the Baltic provinces of Russia who speak Low-German dialects; and "Hoogdiutsch", referring to all people to the South; who speak High-German dialects, like the Palatine from which "Pennsylvania Dutch" developed.

In England, the term "Germans" has in the meantime become the accepted literary name for all who had formerly been called Dutch, except for the people of the Netherlands, for whom the old word is now exclusively reserved. But in America, the old usage has persisted for a long time. Even Washington Irving still speaks of the settlers in the Mohawk Valley as "High Dutch."

On the other hand, your argument is a folk claim that Americans, in their stupidity, corrupted the word Deutsch; there is no hard evidence for this claim, only anecdote.

You say my sources are unsuitable for Wikipedia; this is your bruised ego speaking. Charles Maar, Dr. Don Yoder, Oxford etc. are unsuitable sources? That's a lie, and deflection so that you don't have to provide evidence to support your case.

You say "in the end who knows?" These are the words of someone who doesn't respect well reasoned arguments based on evidence.

You are misleading people with bad information based on a common folk etymology by claiming that it's a point of confusion for linguists when it isn't. Wikipedia isn't an opinion based platform, it's based on fact. Aearthrise (talk) 20:35, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I think you're grossly and intentionally misrepresenting my argument and getting unnecessarily personal (misleading? bruised ego? American stupidity?). I'd prefer a more adult, respectful and professional approach to the issue at hand, without the unnecessary vitriol.

On to the issue; there are two problems with what you've written above:

You say that Wikipedia is not about professional literature and opinions, but about ″the truth and facts″. I think two of Wikipedias core principles (WP:V & WP:NPOV) are extremely clear on this matter. Sources need to be reputable and valid and all the significant views that have been published by such sources should be included in a topic, preferably without editorial bias.

Just to be clear once more; when I referred to the unsuitability of the majority of the material you provide above, I was referring to the fact that many of these consist of personal blog pages such as https://amsterdamfox.com, https://www.dictionary.com, https://aboutthenetherlands.com, and https://www.readingeagle.com, whereas many of the ones you listed in your second post are far too old (1870, 1910, 1924) to be considered reputable today. I mean, you put forward Charles Maar as an expert on the matter, but he published his journal article a century ago, was neither an historian nor a linguists and doesn't mention the Pennsylvania Dutch.

This doesn't really matter though, as this not the point of contention. As I've said before, the article already has reputable sources for the claim that ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ is a carry over from an earlier meaning specific to the American colonies. In fact, something I also mentioned before, I added some of those sources myself in the past. This is not about me trying to "add confusion to the article" it's about you trying to exclude alternative validly sourced views from the article. I'm not trying to add this information, because it was already in the article for a very long time until you removed it.

That's the heart of the matter and let me be very clear: if a source like Richman states that the ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ comes from ″Deutsch″ then that's a valid and reputable source which deserves to be in this article alongside alternative views which meet Wikipedias standards. You might not agree with the author, you might be convinced that the information is wrong, but this does not matter because in the end you (like myself and many others) are just an anonymous Wikipedian, whereas Richman is a Professor Emeritus of American Studies and History at Penn State. This is how Wikipedia works, these are the basic principles of the project.

If you don't like his work, then the only viable option for you is to prove that other views should be given more weight or specifically mention than some authors dispute the other view; for example by adding the publication of Thomas Adam who specifically does this. That way it could be supported that a majority support A whereas a minority hold view B. Of course, you would need reputable, valid and non-primary or antiquated sources, so the vast majority of the material you listed above is not suitable for this. If you want (and, frankly, if you can be respectful in your demeanor) I can help you with this.

However, what you cannot do (and should not do again) is remove validly sourced material from the article because you do not like its content. I'm going undo your edits again, meaning I'm going to re-add the sourced ″Dutch → Deutsch/Deitsch″ POV again. I urgently advise you not to revert (not just out of constructiveness, but also because of the three revert rule) and instead work on the section itself. Vlaemink (talk) 09:28, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I've asked for additional editors to weigh in on the matter [6] at WP:Third Opinion. If no editors join in, I will make a WP:RFC-request later on. Vlaemink (talk) 09:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Your point does not carry, as your sources are not linguists as you're trying to claim, and you have not provided a single source that indicates it's point of confusion for linguists. I've asked you for evidence twice already, and you still haven't provided it.

All you have is anecdotes of people who spread the folk etymology, not based on hard evidence, and that's why it's misleading. One is from a book about preaching scriptures, and Irwin Richman, being a short sentence on the back cover of an Arcadia publishing advertisement book for the Pennsylvania Dutch Country saying "Taking the name Pennsylvania Dutch from a corruption of their own word for themselves, "Deutsch", the first German settlers arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683."

Arcadia publishing mass produces a lot of niche American culture books, but their is criticism of their quality control; Dr. Paul A. Tenkotte of Northern Kentucky University in his treatise "The Blossoming of Regional History and the Role of Arcadia Publishing" describes Arcadia Publishing's content in the following way:

The Blossoming of Regional History and the Role of Arcadia Publishing, Paul A. Tenkotte, The Filson Historical Society and Cincinnati Museum Center, 2007, pg.85:

"Academic historians may argue that Arcadia Publishing's books vary greatly in accuracy, research, and depth. This is doubtless true. Indeed, some of the books are somewhat superficial and deserving of the denigrating term ' coffee table" volumes."

Again, there is no confusion from linguists because we have hard evidence to prove how Dutch was historically used. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to provide the evidence showing that linguists are confused, instead of inventing an argument based on a couple of misleading anecdotes. Your claim that linguists are confused is unsubstantiated. Further, the claim that High Dutch was just a calque of Hoch Deutsch invented by Americans is false and not found in your sources at all. Aearthrise (talk) 13:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Many authors can be found who espouse the view that ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ is a Anglicization of ″Deutsch″ and it is a commonly held view, as explicitedly noted by Mark Louden, who (eventhough he himself holds a different view) noted in his book ″Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language″ (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, page 2) that:

″(...) Contrary to a widespread belief among both nonscholars and scholars, though, the Dutch in Pennsylvania Dutch is not a historical mistranslation of the native word Deitsch, as originally pointed out by Don Yoder.″

If you want examples of this apart from those already in the article; these would include:

Nicoline van der Sijs in Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops: The Influence of Dutch on the North American Languages. Amsterdam University Press, 2009, page 15:

″(...)No words from Pennsylvania Dutch; a language spoken within Mennonite and Amish communities in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio, have been included. Contrary to what the same suggests, Pennsylvania Dutch is a variety of German, not Dutch, and its speakers call their language Pennsylvania Deitsch or Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch. This Deitsch, a variant of Deutsch, has been anglicized to Dutch, hence the confusing name Pennsylvania Dutch.″

and; Sally McMurry in Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2011, page 2:

″To begin with both “Pennsylvania Dutch” and “Pennsylvania German” came into usage to refer to the group. “Pennsylvania Dutch” probably originated as an anglicized corruption of Deutsch or Deitsch, words denoting the German language or Pennsylvania dialects of it. “Pennsylvania German” was also commonly used from the 19th century onwards. Some Pennsylvania Germans were uncomfortable with the term Dutch, believing that it not only obscured their German heritage but was too easily paired with epithets such as “dumb”.

What these publications and the references previously present in the article prove, is that the view that ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ is a Anglicization of ″Deutsch″ is both present in academia and in various reputable publications. My position is not, nor has it been, that this view is correct, but that this is an etymology found in professional literature and should hence be included in this article as per WP:V and WP:NPOV. It is for this reason that I reverted your removal of the validly sourced alternative.

This article should (as it did before your deletions) represent both the widespread notion that ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ is a Anglicization of ″Deutsch″ and an alternative which (based on Louden) seems to have originated with folkorist Don Yoder (in an 1980, 8 page contribution in an Annual Volume of the Pennsylvania German Society titled ″The Palatine, Hessian, Dutchman: Three Images of the German in America″) which has since gained a certain traction; evidenced, for example, by the fact that Louden (a former student of Yoder, to whom he dedidated his book [7]) copies and promotes this theory.

It is not up to you, to decide what is ″the truth″ and what is not. It is up to you, and every other contributor, to adhere to WP:V and WP:NPOV, which requires ″all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic to be fairly represented within an article, without, as far as possible, editorial bias″. In light of these two Wikipedia principles, the above discussion and, I'm sorry to say, your general attitude in both this and two other recent discussions on this talk page (for example, you wrote about another editor that ″his thoughts were not worth very much″ and that his comments were ″vapid nonsense″ and ″blathering and waffling″), I've decided not to wait for WP:Third Opinion but instead request an official WP:Request for Comment in an attempt to solve this matter both more quickly and in a more binding manner — as I don't see the two of use coming to any meaningful conclusion on our own. Vlaemink (talk) 17:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Your argument is still weak anecdotes not based on hard evidence. Nicoline van der Sijs is not an authority on Pennsylvania Dutch culture and she didn't spend very long to make an explanation of the word Dutch beyond the folk etymology. Your other author, Sally McMurry is also anecdotal evidence, not based on anything saying "probably originated".

You talk about Louden and Don Yoder saying it's an Anglicization of Deutsch, and share links, but none of the links show anything you're claiming. Indeed a previous source I added shows the opposite:

Dr. Don Yoder, father of American Folklife Studies, and co-founder of the Kutztown Folk Festival, tackled this question in 1950 for previous generations: “When they stepped off the boat at Philadelphia, they were called by the English-speaking people ‘Dutch’ and ‘Dutchmen.’ This term was not, as you often erroneously hear, invented in America as a mispronunciation of the German word ‘Deutsch’ which means ‘German.’ No, ‘Dutch’ was in 1750 already an ancient and well-established term. It has been traced by the Oxford English Dictionary as far back as the late Middle Ages.” Aearthrise (talk) 18:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Please do not make blatantly false claims about things I did not claim. Nowhere do I, at any point, claim that either Louden or Yoder support the Anglicization of Deutsch-theory. The sources provided are valid and reliable; with Van der Sijs being the only true linguist involved so far. This matter is now a request for comment, I feel my point has been made; now it's time for other opinions. Vlaemink (talk) 19:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Family of Elon Musk?

The section talking about famous folks of PA Dutch decent says family of Elon Musk. Is this correct? Can this be substantiated with any evidence? If not it should probably be removed. 2600:4040:71CC:1600:483C:2AC2:C28F:1104 (talk) 23:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

It takes a "special" person to ignore the citation that's already present on the article, and a lazy person to not take it upon himself to make quick a google search.

Here's your lazy special:

[8]https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/03/26/at-home-with-elon-musk-the-soon-to-be-bachelor-billionaire/

At 6-foot-1, with broad shoulders and legs that match his first name (Elon is Hebrew for “oak tree,” although Musk’s family comes from Pennsylvania Dutch stock, not Jewish), he fills out the burgundy Tesla Roadster—which he chose over his Audi Q7 and Porsche 911—for the 20-mile drive to the Hawthorne-based headquarters of SpaceX.

[9]https://www.industrytap.com/profile-billionaire-entrepreneur-elon-musk-i-would-like-to-die-on-mars-not-just-on-impact/2618

Born in South Africa in 1971 Elon Musk was raised in Pretoria by a South African engineer father, Errol Musk, and Canadian born Pennsylvania Dutch, nutritionist and author mother, Maye. As he grew up he dreamed of moving to the US where he believed “anything is possible.” His first stop though was Canada where he spent two years at Queens University in Kingston Ontario.

[10]https://forward.com/culture/500869/elon-musk-twitter-jewish-hebrew-name/

As for Musk’s ancestry, a 2012 Forbes profile noted that while Musk’s Christian name means “oak tree” in Hebrew, he is not Jewish, but of Pennsylvania Dutch and British extraction, the scion of a South African engineer-emerald miner father and a model-dietician mother born in Canada.

[11]https://vocal.media/humans/elon-musk-l91j20u7u

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, one of the capital cities of South Africa and was baptized into the Anglican church. Musk has British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother is Maye Musk (née Haldeman), a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer, who was a half-owner of a Zambian emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika. Musk has a younger brother, Kimbal, (born 1972) and a younger sister, Tosca, (born 1974).

[12]https://www.elonmuskforkids.com/know-the-elon-musk-family/

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa. His mother is Maye Musk (née Haldeman), a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, but raised in South Africa. His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer. He has a younger brother, Kimbal (born 1972), and a younger sister, Tosca (born 1974). His maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, was an American-born Canadian. His paternal grandmother had British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. Aearthrise (talk) 16:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

RfC about the quote in the "Fancy Dutch religion and Anglo-American prejudice" section

Should the "Fancy Dutch religion and Anglo-American prejudice" section contain a quote from 1903 in which the Fraktur typeface is used instead of the standard Wikipedia font? Thanks in advance to all those leaving their comments. Vlaemink (talk) 17:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Regular font. Fraktur is not an alphabet, it's a Latin typeface, a font. Fraktur was not and is not exclusively used for the Pennsylvania German language, nor is it common in English (or German) professional literature or English/German/Pennsylvania German Wikipedia to cite primary source material in Fraktur. Vlaemink (talk) 17:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Fraktur font. This is a variant of Pennsylvania Dutch specifically used in Fraktur script, the source of the Fraktur (folk art). This script is culturally significant to the Fraktur Pennsylvania Dutch language ("Pennsylvania High German"), used by the Fancy Dutch. Vlaemink's argument is based on semantics and is trying to treat Pennsylvania Dutch like it is the same as standard German. This is wholly incorrect, and this variant of Pennsylvania Dutch should be treated differently. It's a classical variant of Pennsylvania Dutch specifically written in Fraktur, as opposed to the contemporary form written in an English way and script, known as the "Englisha rule". Aearthrise (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

The quote is from a book published in 1903 when Fraktur was still commonly used in the German language area, the quote does not concern a piece of art or calligraphy.Vlaemink (talk) 21:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

You deleted my response here earlier for discussing here, yet as a hypocrite you started a discussion here yourself.

I will respond to you here in kind: you are still making the mistake of treating the Pennsylvania Dutch language the same as standard German by speaking about "German language area", and further your interjection that this conversation does not concern art or calligraphy didn't need to be said; it's just extra information pertaining to the topic.

Your commentary makes you seem like the type who doesn't like learning, nor wants to learn (the whole purpose of Wikipedia), and is evident based on all of the thin arguments you've proposed. Aearthrise (talk) 23:32, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Regular font, Fraktur is not an alphabet, not by any stretch, this feels like a pretty clear WP:MOS violation. Allan Nonymous (talk) 21:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Note: The previous, unsuccessful, discussion on this matter can be found here. For those unfamiliar with the 16th-1941 script known as Fraktur; 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔦𝔰 𝔴𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔉𝔯𝔞𝔨𝔱𝔲𝔯 𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢. Vlaemink (talk) 17:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: Vlaemink attempted to delete the response I posted above, so I moved it here and left one sentence above:

This is a variant of Pennsylvania Dutch specifically used in Fraktur script, the source of the Fraktur (folk art). This script is culturally significant to the Fraktur Pennsylvania Dutch language ("Pennsylvania High German"), used by the Fancy Dutch. Vlaemink's argument is based on semantics and is trying to treat Pennsylvania Dutch like it is the same as standard German. This is wholly incorrect, and this variant of Pennsylvania Dutch should be treated differently. It's a classical variant of Pennsylvania Dutch specifically written in Fraktur, as opposed to the contemporary form written in an English way and script, known as the "Englisha rule". As Ralph Charles Wood explains this form as a dead language:

Pennsylvania “High German”, Ralph Charles Wood, Pennsylvania State College, 2016 pg.299-314:

Pennsylvania Germans who know some literary German, have one of two possible pronunciations. The first is the pronunciation of ordinary American school-German, and may be as un-German as any schoolboy's pronunciation, or quite idiomatic, according to the native ability of the speaker, the throroughness of his instruction, and contact with native German. The second is something quite Pennsylvanian, a kind of German that older ministers and laymen understand.

This second form is so uniform that it must have fixed traditions. It must be the German of the Nineteenth Century after the decline of German instruction in the elementary schools, which many ministers, laymen- yes, even German newspaper editors- learned in the home and in Sunday schools through the medium of hymn books, Bibles, and newspapers.

In this study I have established how High German sounded in the mouths of Pennsylvania Germans one hundred years ago, at the time of the unsuccessful attempt to maintain adequate German instruction in Pennsylvania schools. I have also proven that is the same "Pennsylvania High German" still heard, but practically a dead language.

Now, we can say axiomatically that the Pennsylvania Germans came in contact, in school and church in the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries, with a High German such as that spoken and written in their home area, the Palatinate, and adjoining sections of the language area.

Fraktur was definitely a part of the elementary education for Pennsylvania German children, who in the Eighteenth century were raised as miniature adults, and the adult themes expressed in most examples of fraktur, were, therefore, appropriate.

Margaret Shepherd indicates that Fraktur was stigmatized and lost due to anti-German sentiment:

Learn American Calligraphy: The Complete Book of Lettering, History, and Design, Margaret Shepherd, 2024, pg.102:

Outside influences inevitably weakened the roots of Fraktur. Eventually, German Americans began to assimilate and move on from the customs of their immigrant ancestors. The brief popularity of Gothic letters in Nazi Germany during the 1930s stigmatized Germanic letter styles everywhere for a decade.

Further Vlaemink wrote "𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖎𝖘 𝖜𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖋𝖗𝖆𝖐𝖙𝖚𝖗 𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖐𝖘 𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊" in English attempting to ridicule its usage, as his whole argument centers on how Fraktur is "ludicrous", but English is not the the language at question of Fraktur writing. Aearthrise (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

For the sake of readability and clarity, I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. No, I did not ″attempt to remove your comment″ [13], and no, I did not add an example of Fraktur to ″ridicule″ it. I ask you once again, to stop making this discussion unnecessarily personal.

For those here to give a comment; the discussion can be found here in its entirety, but the argument presented by myself and Theodore Christopher comes down to the fact that is not only extremely uncommon to use Fraktur when quoting primary sources which use the Fraktur font in either scholarly publication or English, German and Pennsylvania German Wikipedia, it also unnecessarily complicates reading the original quote for the average and modern reader of Wikipedia. Fraktur is a font, it is not a different alphabet and even if it were, which it is definitely not, a quote would typically be romanized when quoted in modern professional literature or in a encyclopedic entry. Using Fraktur for a 245 word quote (longer than the subsection it's in) in Pennsylvania German serves no purpose, it needlessly complicates and obscures this particular quote, the desirability of which is another matter in and of itself, for the reader. I think this a very commonly held and very reasonable view. I know you do not agree, but I would very much like to hear from other editors what they think. Vlaemink (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Your whole desirability is based on what you consider "ludicrous", and you claim to speak on what is "extremely uncommon", but you don't even have the knowledge of the Pennsylvania Dutch language to say what is common, or what is not. Your whole argument revolves around how we treat a separate language, standard German, the same argument Theodore wanted to make. I keep repeating, the Pennsylvania Dutch language is different, and this variety was purposely written in Fraktur, as an opposition to combat the contemporary "Englisha rule", at a time when the Pennsylvania Dutch were trying earnestly to protect their culture.

I mentioned other languages that have similar properties, like Egyptian Greek language variant used in the Coptic Church that uses Coptic typeface to write Greek (Coptic typeface is just Ancient Greek font, used to write Greek, and when writing Coptic language itself only includes 4 extra letters); it's rendered in Coptic font because that's the authentic way it was portrayed.

You claim that Fraktur unnecessarily complicates reading the quote for the average and modern reader of Wikipedia; I tell you again I can read it, and that this the authentic way it was portrayed. There is no English translation, so the source language should be included, the source being Pennsylvania Dutch Fraktur.

You speak about how the average reader of Wikipedia operates, but the average reader doesn't speak Pennsylvania Dutch (neither do you). Modern speakers, mostly Amish and Mennonites don't use Wikipedia, and I doubt they have knowledge classical Fraktur variety used by the Fancy Dutch, those who abandoned their culture due to anti-German sentiment.

You want to talk about what Pennsylvania German Wikipedia does, but this is not the same language. It's written in a separate variety that records the spoken language of the Amish and Mennonites today, using a different orthography invented much later, and has different rules.

Your "very reasonable view" is based on what you claim is ludicrous and what you think is common for standard German language; these are your opinions, which are of someone who doesn't have an intimate knowledge of Pennsylvania Dutch culture, history, language, or customs, and it shows in your arguments treating the Pennsylvania Dutch language and its variants the same as standard German. Aearthrise (talk) 23:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I was unfamiliar with you until the discussion on this page, but I've noticed the above ″tactic″ in multiple discussions on this page since. I hope others will see through these attempts to portray users who disagree with you as unknowledgeable/ignorant and mispresent their words — and stick to the facts. Your aggressive style of communication (for example ″your thoughts are not worth very much″, ″shows you lack knowledge/basic understanding″, ″your words are all vapid nonsense″, ″your words are based in ignorance″ to name but a few on this page) or suddenly being half Pennsylvania Dutch and claiming to speak the language [14] ... it's all not very convincing. Vlaemink (talk) 08:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

You're just repeating the same sentences from before, and not even making an argument about the content being discussed. You do this, because you don't have a true response to any of the points a laid out, and you've done this before earlier where I had to ask you three times to produce evidence. Here again you didn't even attempt to address anything I said above.

This is your problem- you want to operate on ignorance and your emotions rather than from evidence and knowledge, and you've shown that time and time again. Even now, you're showing how your feelings were hurt and trying to use that to win the argument. You have a bruised ego. Aearthrise (talk) 17:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

RfC about the portrayal of multiple views in the "Etymology" section

Should the "Etymology" section also include the (validly sourced) theory that the "Dutch" in "Pennsylvania Dutch" is an Anglicization of "Deutsch" as was previously the case? Thanks in advance to all those leaving their comments. Vlaemink (talk) 17:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Yes. In line with WP:NPOV, ″all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic to be fairly represented within an article″. The view that the "Dutch" in "Pennsylvania Dutch" is an Anglicization is both significant and validly sourced and should hence be included within the section alongside alternative theories, as was previously the case. Vlaemink (talk) 17:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• No, not as an equal explanation as he's trying to purport. Vlaemink's whole argument is based on anecdotes filled with doubts and "probablies" from a folk etymology with no supporting evidence, and is trying to pass it off as an equal argument to the well established consensus of Dutch's historical use. The consensus has an abundance of hard evidence: dictionaries, newspapers, books, historic documents, etc. all show that Dutch was earlier used in English to refer to Germanic speakers, summed up in the sentence "Dutch is an older use of the term, which earlier referred to any speaker of a Germanic language on the European mainland." Aearthrise (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Note: The previous, unsuccessful, discussion on this matter can be found here. Vlaemink (talk) 17:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: Vlaemink attempted to delete the response I posted above, so I moved it here and left one sentence above:

Vlaemink's whole argument is based on anecdotes filled with doubts and "probablies" from a folk etymology with no supporting evidence, and is trying to pass it off as an equal argument to the well established consensus of Dutch's historical use. The consensus has an abundance of hard evidence: dictionaries, newspapers, books, historic documents, etc. all show that Dutch was earlier used in English to refer to Germanic speakers, summed up in the sentence "Dutch is an older use of the term, which earlier referred to any speaker of a Germanic language on the European mainland."

To assign the same weight to the folk etymology anecdote is wrong, as there is no evidence to support the anecdote beyond an appeal to ignorance. Vlaemink claims "that the Dutch in Pennsylvania Dutch is an Anglicization is both significant and validly sourced", but all of his sources are anecdotal.

Vlaemink wants to make it seem like linguists are confused on how Dutch was used historically and ignore all of the evidence; we can clearly see the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 1600's and 1700's were called High Dutch, and Palatine Dutch at the same time as the English world internationally used High Dutch and Low Dutch terms. For example, The oldest German newspaper in Pennsylvania was the High Dutch Pennsylvania Journal in 1743. The first mixed English and German paper, the Pennsylvania Gazette of 1751, described itself as an "English and Dutch gazette," in reference to the High Dutch language spoken in Pennsylvania.

The following is an example of the High Dutch / Low Dutch usage just one year before the first unified Germany:

The Living Age, volume 105, E. Littell & Company, 1870, pg.76:

We may here remark how everywhere on the Continent, except in Holland, the Low-Dutch is a struggling tongue. In one region, as we have seen, it has to struggle against French; but it has a harder struggle to wage against the High-Dutch in all the remaining extent of its territory. The process through which Low-Dutch is vanishing before High-Dutch is a different and a much subtler kind. High-Dutch represents itself to the speakers of Low-Dutch, not as a foreign speech, but as the best, the most polite, the most refined and classical and cultivate form of their own speech. One in short is "good German," the other is "bad."

The oddest case is undoubtedly to be found in the Duchy of Sleswick. That Duchy is the borderland of Low-Dutch and Danish, and the two may fairly fight for the supremacy. But, while they are fighting, a third champion, the High-Dutch, steps in, and under cover of the ambiguous word "German," displaces that one of the two contending elements which it professes to defend. People whose native tongue really comes near to Danish than it does to High-Dutch, are bidden to take up High-Dutch as the ensign of "German" against Danish nationality. The very name of the country has been changed. It used to be "Sleswick," a Low-Dutch form. I doubt whether you would find it written in any other way in any English book or map forty years old. But of later times we have been taught to change the natural name of the country into the High-Dutch "Schleswig." Aearthrise (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

For the sake of readability and clarity, I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. No, I did not ″attempt to remove your comment″ [15].

For those here to give a comment; the discussion can be found here in its entirety, but my argument essentially comes down to this: we, as anonymous editors, do not decide what is ″the truth″ or not. We rely on published materials, preferably by scholars. If a substantial amount of professionals ascribe to a particular theory/hypothesis, then it merits being mentioned in an article here; it's WP:NPOV 101. The facts are clear in this regard Mark Louden (who, mind you, doesn't agree with the Anglicization theory) explicitly notes that eventhough he considers it false, it is nevertheless ″a widespread belief among both nonscholars and scholars″ (Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language″, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, pp 2) to further support the notion that this view is held by scholars, I cited two professors, Nicoline van der Sijs (an etymologist and historical linguist) and Sally McMurry (a cultural and social historian). Their work is cited in full in the earlier discussion for those interested, but in short: they explicitly state that the ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″ is (probably) an Anglicization of ″Deutsch″. My position is not, nor has it been, that this view is correct. Nor is it the goal of this RfC to determine wether it is. The point of this RfC is to ask other editors if this information should be included per WP:NPOV, which clearly states that representing all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic should be included. I think it should be re-included, as it this view has been part of this article for a long time prior to your removal and I think the sources mentioned and the argument made is sound. I know you do not, but I would very much like to hear from other editors what they think. Vlaemink (talk) 21:01, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

For those interested: This is what the German language Wikipedia, which strongly encourages scholarly sources, currently states:

It is not entirely clear why the Pennsylvania Dutch are referred to with the English word “Dutch,” which today usually means “Dutch”. One explanation attributes this fact to the original meaning of the word, which in Middle English (“duche”) still referred to all High German, Low German and Dutch dialects, but from the 16th century onwards was increasingly restricted to the Netherlands. In the 17th century, the word "German" came into use in English for the Germans, while the word "Dutch" now only took on the meaning "Dutch" in English. In American English, however, “Dutch” remained ambiguous for longer than in Europe (e.g. in the opposite pair High Dutch “German” / Low Dutch “Dutch”), especially in colloquial speech. Some linguists are therefore of the opinion that the old meaning has continued in the name “Pennsylvania Dutch”. Other researchers, however, assume that it is a linguistic and economic corruption of the Pennsylvania German self-name “deitsch” (or "deutsch").

This is what the English-language article used to state as well, prior to the removal by Aearthrise, and this is how it should be: providing multiple points of view supported by reliable sources instead of presenting the personal preference of a single user as ″the truth″. Vlaemink (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

This is not at all what the article used to state, until you added it on the 12th of May, and I subsequently reverted it on the 25th of May when I returned to editing Wikipedia; your inclusion added false, unsourced information like "High Dutch was a calque of Hochdeutsch invented by Americans", and also attempted to make the anecdotal folk claim of the term Dutch equal to the explanation that is backed by an abundance of hard evidence. Aearthrise (talk) 22:17, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

The history of this article as well as that of the Pennsylvania German language-article, speaks for itself. That history, goes back further than when you started editing this article less than two years ago and became responsible for over 80% of the edits to this page since.

Also, you keep repeating that there supposedly exists a consensus on this subject — when there really isn't, and the source material clearly states this. Mark Louden (as cited above) unequivocally makes clear that many scholars subscribe to the Anglicization theory, whereas the historian Don Yoders suggestion (first formulated in a 1980 journal article) seems to have primarily gained traction among his acolytes, Louden included. Like I've said many times before now, it's not important which side you consider to be right or wrong, it's about academic representation. There is no consensus and a Wikipedia should represent all scholarly supported views on a matter. Vlaemink (talk) 08:52, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

There is a consensus on how Dutch was used historically; your attempts to rebut them are just two people, a professor of Netherlands Dutch linguistics who included a short sentence about the Pennsylvania Dutch on how she won't include more information about them because they're a German ethnicity, writing in a book about the Netherlands Dutch impact on the United States; at the same time, she goes into great depth on subjects like Jersey Dutch (a Netherlands Dutch language once spoken in the United States); the other is Sally McMurry who in a 2011 article about architecture emphasized that of Pennsylvania German is the only correct name, and waves the Pennsylvania Dutch term away in a quick sentence by saying how it probably originated as a corruption, and further says that Pennsylvania Germans felt insulted by the use of Dutch. Throughout the article she only uses Pennsylania German or Germans of Pennsylvania, and only uses Dutch or Pennsylania Dutch with quotation marks indicating that they're an incorrect usage.

In the 2017 book Pennsylvania Farming: A History in Landscapes, however, McCurry backpedals on this idea, saying "I have used the term "Pennsylvania German" as if it needed no explanation, but actually that assumption is problematic. In the colonial period, we have seen, at least a third of the population had come from German-speaking Europe; they spoke varying dialects and represented many social and religious groups, with "mainstream" German Protestants (not Plain Sects as many assume) dominating in numbers. Over time these "Germans of Pennsylvania" became "Pennsylania Germans." The question is, just how did they become "Pennsylvania German" and just what does the term signify? Today popular notions of the Pennsylania Germans mix together elements from twentieth-century tourist productions (think whoopie pies) with remnants of earlier stereotypes. Class divisions within the group also play a role; some preferred the label "Pennsylvania German" to the supposedly lower-status "Pennsylvania Dutch" tag. To make things even more complicated, modern academic thinkers have questioned the assumptions about ethnicity in general, arguing it is not an inherent social or personal quality but is instead socially constructed and constantly changing."

Further, you're making a bad point about Dr.Louden: Mark Louden, an expert on Pennsylvania Dutch culture clearly says "Contrary to a widespread belief among both nonscholars and scholars, though, the Dutch in Pennsylvania Dutch is not a historical mistranslation of the native word Deitsch, as originally pointed out by Don Yoder.″, demonstrating the falsity of that claim.

Now you're also making a false claim about Don Yoder, another expert on Pennsylvania Dutch culture, by saying his suggestion about the origins of Dutch only was formulated in 1980. This is Dr. Yoder: Dr. Don Yoder, father of American Folklife Studies, and co-founder of the Kutztown Folk Festival, tackled this question in 1950 for previous generations: “When they stepped off the boat at Philadelphia, they were called by the English-speaking people ‘Dutch’ and ‘Dutchmen.’ This term was not, as you often erroneously hear, invented in America as a mispronunciation of the German word ‘Deutsch’ which means ‘German.’ No, ‘Dutch’ was in 1750 already an ancient and well-established term. It has been traced by the Oxford English Dictionary as far back as the late Middle Ages.”.

Further from your claim of 1980, the Pennsylvania German society clearly debunked this in 1910:

The Penn Germania ...: A Popular Journal of German History and Ideals in the United States, volume 11, 1910, pg.745:

The "Dutch" themselves made a distinction. It was by no means that between "Dutch" and "German"... It was a distinction between "Nederdiutsch", meaning the people of North Germany, including Flemings, Hollanders, and those to the eastward, as far as the Baltic provinces of Russia who speak Low-German dialects; and "Hoogdiutsch", referring to all people to the South; who speak High-German dialects, like the Palatine from which "Pennsylvania Dutch" developed.

In England, the term "Germans" has in the meantime become the accepted literary name for all who had formerly been called Dutch, except for the people of the Netherlands, for whom the old word is now exclusively reserved. But in America, the old usage has persisted for a long time. Even Washington Irving still speaks of the settlers in the Mohawk Valley as "High Dutch."

Dr. Thomas Adam, professor of German and transatlantic European history at the University of Texas at Arlington clearly lays out the history of Dutch and speaks about how the word "German" gained a new light after the formation of the first unified Germany in 1871:

Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History, Thomas Adam, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2005, pg.287:

It is often said that the use of the word Dutch by English-speaking people to refer to Germans was the result either of a confusion of identities or an attempt to pronounce the German word Deutsch, which, it is assumed, the Germans used to describe themselves. These explanations do not hold up under scrutiny. In the seventeenth century, when German settlers began to arrive in substantial numbers in Britain's North American colonies, the term Dutch still had meanings that have disappeared and are forgotten today.

Prior to the nineteenth century- and even prior to the unification of Germany in 1871- many migrants from the German states were not prone to describe themselves as Deutsch, even to strangers. They were more likely to refer to the territorial state from which they came. The "Pennsylvania Dutch," the German Americans whose ancestors came mainly from the Palatinate and Lower Rhine regions and settled mostly in eastern Pennsylvania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often did not recognize the term Deutsch as applicable to themselves, even after the unification of Germany. With sarcastic wit they referred, in their Germanic dialect, to the new arrivals as Deitschlänner (Deutschländer in standard German); that is, people who were constantly talking about Deutschland, a political entity created long after the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Dutch departed for the New World.

The use of Dutch as a synonym for German antedates British settlement of North America. In the late Middle Ages and early modern period, Dutch included both Germans and Dutch. It referred to people speaking a group of closely related Germanic languages. This usage pertained mainly to inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire and distinguished two kinds of "Dutch" people on the basis of geography, culture, and critically, language: "High Dutch (Hochdeutsch)," or "High German" in today's English usage; and "Low Dutch (Niederdeutsch)," or "Low German" in today's usage. The English language did not distinguish Netherlanders from other speakers of "Low Dutch," except by specifying the province, locality, or region. Aearthrise (talk) 17:21, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

It is author Mark Louden, not me, who wrote that the idea that the ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania″ was (and I quote) ″originally pointed out by Don Yoder″. The accompanying footnote to this statement (Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language″, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, pp 2) refers to a 1980 publication by Yoder. Its right there in the citation, which has been quoted three times already. And no, Louden doesn't ″demonstrate the falsity of that (that ″Dutch″ is an Anglicization, red.) claim″, he mentions he concurs with Yoders view. That's not why I quoted him though, I quoted him because he explicitly notes that, even though he considers it false, this view is nevertheless ″a widespread belief among both nonscholars and scholars″. WP:NPOV states that representing all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic should be included. By noting its widespread among scholars, Louden shows it's a significant view and the other authors mentioned show it's represented in reliable scholarly publications.

You keep spamming these green copy-pastes from Google-searches trying to prove why you are right, but I fear you're completely missing the point: this RfC isn't about being right, or which view has the most copy-pastes from 100 year old books ... it's about conforming to Wikipedia's principle of verifiability and NPOV. Vlaemink (talk) 17:47, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

You just attempted to delete my arguments again! You are a hypocrite and are playing a game to get your way.

Wikipedia is about proving what is truth, based on hard evidence, reliable sources, historic documents, and that makes the quality of the material in the article good for users. This whole discussion has come about, because you wanted to promote an idea that's not based on hard evidence and say it's a point of confusion for linguists, when it's not. The consensus clearly shows what linguists know of the term "Dutch", and our point of contention was the way you added this information made it equal to the established information about Dutch, which is why I said it's misleading. You also added false, unsubtantiated information at the same time, so you're claim about view points is nothing more than wanting your beliefs validated. Aearthrise (talk) 18:26, 20 June 2024 (UTC)