Some of it but My husband says a little different he learned Northern German he what's to go visit Germany Again

Hi, great video, I'm from Sweden and I have been learning the German language for six years in school, I've also spent a lot of time visiting Germany and Austria for vacation. I understood almost everything without difficulty, the Pennsylvania Dutch was much more difficult for me to understand though.

the soft "dd" like "Städde" instead of "Städte" is also in Franconia common use..and that is in the north of Bavaria which isn´t "the North of Germany" as you as Bavarian know but just so to say "the North of the South" = almost "the Middle of Germany". . Vernell says so often "hamia" instead of "haben wir" and your mentioned "Schul" instead of "Schule" and that are foremost "German southern maybe middle German dialect characteristics"...but the "Burch" instead of "Burg" is a northern middle- till northern German thing...my guess is that different Germans from different German areas and places simply intermingeled in Texas for so many decades and so did their way to speak German over the times as well. Don´t compare it with "Standard Deutsch/ colloquial called "hochdeutsch" but with "dialects" because "Standard Deutsch" just exists since 1905-06 and is a pure "artificial umbrella language"...it was first introduced 1905 at the Deutsche Sprachkonferenz in Berlin (where Austria and Switzerland also participated) based on Konrad Duden´s work who finalised the work of the Brothers Grimm and it was put in place in Germany by law soon after. (Austria + Switzerland took over most of it but kept their "local language peculiarities" foremost in behalf of vocabulary but also in behalf of spelling in some cases and a tiny bit of grammar differences = That´s why today 3 different - "official" - types of "Standard German" are in place in the socalled "German speaking area" which have some few differences amongst each other).. "Standard German" was back then as it was put in place for most Germans in Germany a complete different language to learn - especially in many areas in the North of Germany it was extremely "foreign" back then - in comparision to what they were used to speak back in the days which was "the huge number of completely different local German dialects" divided into just 2 branches = "hochdeutsche Dialekte" (southern + middle German Dialects) + niederdeutsche Dialekte" (northern German Dialects) and because "Standard German" took over by far way more language characteristics from the southern + middle German dialect branch in behalf of vocabulary and spelling and syntax the "colloquial term Hochdeutsch" for "Standard Deutsch" became "colloquial common use" because of that.... Although from the pure linguistic point of view/"Germanistik Ausdruck" the "original term" "Hochdeutsch" doesn´t mean "Standard German" at all it just means "Highland German" and is meant "geographically" and just concludes "all dialects in the South of Germany + Austria + Switzerland" and then there is also "Mittelhochdeutsch (which is geographically in the Middle and has in their dialects linguistic characteristics from both Hoch- + Niederdeutsch but foremost Hochdeutsch characteristcs therefore it counts as part of "Hochdeutsch" )" and "Niederdeutsch" meaning "Lowland German" and those "German Lowland dialects" have way more in common with "today´s Dutch" than with "Hochdeutsch dialects" especially syntax-wise...and those are all marked by certain linguistic peculiarities which are solely to find in the local dialects...besides the differences in syntax there are things like for instance "ch" becomes "k" ( Ich/Ik) or "pf" becomes "pp" (Apfel/Appel) and and things like that.. There are some different linguistic "border lines" trying to express that "geographically" because "the common political geographical borders in place" don´t match precisely linguistic-wise..and the most known ones are the "Benrather Linie" colloquial also called "Machen-Maken Linie" and the "Speyer Linie" colloquial also called "Apfel- Appel Linie" just google it...because I have already written almost an "Essay" ;-D I also want to mention the "Germany´s backthroat R" which was originally "a pure Niederdeutsch thing" (and partly a northern Mitteldeutsch thing) and didn´t exist in "Hochdeutsch dialects for the most part" where the "R" was for the most part "rolled" and still is rolled in their dialects as like for instance the "Bavarian dialect" and in "Schwäbisch/Swabian dialect" or in "Fränkisch/Franconian dialect" which basically covers the whole South of Germany and in almost all "Austrian dialects" BUT although I mentioned before that "Germany´s Standard German" took over way more things from the "Hochdeutsch dialects" it nevertheless became part of "Germany´s Standard German". In Austrian Standard German for instance the backthroat R doesn´t exist (it just exists solely in the Tyrolean dialect but there it is "extreme" sounding like snoring) = just one example of those previous mentioned "kept local language peculiarities" but here in behalf of pronunciation which I didn´t mention before so I did now just for the sake to have all covered.. ...

Interesting topic, great video. For me (from Austria) Texas German was really easy to understand. Understanding Pennsylvania Dutch took more effort.

Ich hab das Gefühl, dass der Dialekt von der älteren Dame dem friesischen Dialekt sehr ähnelt, nur ein wenig verständlicher. Aber ein paar Betonungen waren doch recht ähnlich. Und der ältere Herr, OMG mir kommt der Dialekt sooooo bekannt vor, aber ich weiß grade echt nicht woher... Ansonsten merkt man, wie die englische Sprache mit der deutsche Sprache verbunden wurde... Sound like eine Verbindung der beiden Sprachen, aber was mir auch aufgefallen ist, dass Menschen die Eingewandert sind und nicht als Muttersprache Englisch sprechen, klingen relativ ähnlich und das ist echt erstaunlich und ich finde das Wunderschön und erstaunlich, dass man alle so gut verstehen kann, obwohl sie die deutsche Entwicklung garnicht mitbekommen haben.

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

Wow, love your story. Thank for sharing 😁👍

Love the added perspective! I'm a Texas native who learned German at UT Austin before going to grad school in Germany, and these kinds of personal stories are always to me the most meaningful as well as the most edifying about how dialect came about. Your story about mixing dialects in school is particularly great!

That’s all really interesting! Thanks for sharing. I learned German in college and a bit of schwäbisch. My kids spoke German until 5 or 6 but didn’t get exposed to native German. It was an interesting experiment and experience. They are learning it on Duolingo now.

Thank you very much!

Its german, how funny does it get?

I can speak some Texas German, half of my family are Texas Germans from New Braunfels, Seguin, Schertz, Cibolo, Northeast San Antonio and Boerne

​@@StarshipTrooper32 that's great! I hope you and others continue to preserve it😊

There were still quite a few left in the early 90s. Mostly the WW1 generation, but also some of the WW2. Not so much anymore.

My mom side is from the Shiner area of Texas and came from Germany. I remember in the 90's one of my dads cus who had married a German Girl while in the Army and stationed there before he retired. She was pretty young but she spoke good English. They came and visit a few times and once brought another German couple. I could speak a little German from my grandma so I could talk to the couple, but what was funny is I was taking Latin in HS and as a second language so did my cus wife. We where speaking in Latin behind every one back, while speaking broken German (for me) and mixing English in it during the whole trip/visit.

My grandmother was Texas German, she always talked about the 2 dialects. High German and the low German. My mother was raised with both English and German. My uncle worked as a translator during WWII.

Of course, Feli should be comparing Texas German to the German spoken in the mid 1800s when most of the ancestors left their homeland. The English spoken in Texas today has some differences from the English spoken in Texas in the 1850s

This is very interesting. As Feli referred, the Ladies sounded a bit like people from the North of Germany and this Dialect in German is called 'Plattdeutsch (Pattdüütsch)/Niederdeutsch' which can be translated as 'Flat German/Low German' - maybe this is why this kind of Texas German is still called Low German. (I am German living in Germany)

Some of my German ancestors were from Rostock when it was still Prussia. They spoke German for decades after coming to the United States. It was the 19th century. English was already getting to be required to become a US citizen way before the 20th century. So my family who came over in the early 19th century by the time the mid 1860s showed up. The 1st generation born after 1860 only spoke English while the grandparents were the last to speak mainly German but had already begun to learn English in its entirety and spoke English mainly around the grandkids.

I'm not from Texas and I thought something similar, not sure how I can even tell that.

I know a lot of Tejanos that speak fluent Spanish with a Texan accent. It's super cool to see the unique blending of cultures. I hope Tx German makes a comeback. My Nonna didn't teach her Kids Italian for the same reason.

The Texans from the greatest generation often had parents that didn't have Texas accents but had German accents. My grandmother being one, but of her generation, the WW1 generation almost all spoke English with German accent. There is also Tex-Mex, this is similar but different than Spanglish. Spain Spanish and Mexico Spanish are different. My grandmother's, we called her Grossmutter, generation could speak German, English and Spanish. It was mostly the men as they were the ones involved in trade. It wasn't perfect but the people with Mexican backgrounds and people with British backgrounds all spoke the three languages well enough to easily communicate. It always made me giggle to hear Spanish spoken by my great uncles and friends of that age because German accent speaking Spanish and vice versa with both dropping English or Texan words in is almost a language unto itself.

@@AVToth Heh, Spanglish was my first language, but mine is Colombian Spanglish. Mexican Spanish can be a bit hard to parse, as can all the zillion other varieties-for years here in the US I thought I had forgotten a bunch of my Spanish, until I got to hear Colombians talking again, and understood everything clear as a bell!

@@exstock I'm a retired nurse. I was the charge nurse in a dialysis clinic for a while and we got a new patient. This man and his family were here visiting relatives and arrangements had been made with my clinic so he could continue his dialysis while he was visiting. The problem occurred when the Spanish speakers who worked for me tried to ask the routine questions. They were here from Seville, Spain. I lived in Madrid, as an Air Force brat, for the first almost 5 years of my life. I'm told my Spanish was perfect or as perfect as any Spanish 5 year old. My English was American south from my parents and my Spanish had no foreign accent because I wasn't learning it on top of English but simultaneously. However, after Spain, we went to North Carolina where nobody spoke Spanish and by 2nd or 3rd grade, having spoken no Spanish at all, it was gone. It never occurred to me that the language could be the same so differently. I was told that it's not that the words are so much different but that how it's put together was confusing. It was eventually worked out but I've never actually been able to figure out what it would sound like. I guess I don't know what I don't know.

Spent part of my childhood there. Small world.

My whole family is from Weimar and my whole family dislike Czech German!

You could take DNA test. I'd want to know which native group I came from.

Guess those mean Germans aren’t all that bad . I spoke only German with my mother until her death 40 years ago . She spoke very little english. Miss those days .

My dad’s side of the family is from Weimar, mom’s side from Flatonia. I loved listening to my grandma’s stories, especially when she would start talking in broken bohemian when she wanted to cuss 🤣 We actually have a similar history there…but she wasn’t an orphan, just an illegitimate child…apparently her mom’s second husband used to call her “little Indian bitch”. While I’ve traced her mother’s family back to Czech/Austria/Germany, I’ve hit a hard dead end at her WRT her father. I haven’t been back since she passed in 2020, but I’ve been itching for some Kasper’s sausage lately.

Use this! I also guess so, because some West German dialects have some Words that sound like English.

Yeah, the Texas-Germans honestly just sound like Americans who are being taught German by a a teacher that primarliy speaks Western-German dialects

2 years in HS and 3 semesters at UT Austin and I feel the same way as you. I was able to follow much better than native german speakers

👍👍❤❤

The 2 ladies from Fredericksburg spoke rather slowly. It felt like searching vocabularies while speaking

Born and raised in Bremerhaven, and yeah, that sounded very much like home to me 😁

Right? im from north Germany i thought that too. kinda sounds like low german

The Texas German accent really throws me for a loop. I learned German (as a second language) in Texas (and not in a Texas German community), so I'm used to hearing this kind of accent from kids that just need the language credit and aren't really trying. But these are native speakers speaking with the accent they grew up with, and it creates all sorts of cognitive dissonance. It's also interesting in that I can understand English in a rural Texas accent just fine, and I can understand German just fine, but German in a rural Texas accent is hard for me to follow.

"geh nach hause" is how I was taught ... and yes on the Texas accent.

Amazing... As an American English speaker relearning German ( lived in Germany for 5 years as a child ) I was able to understand her easier than most of the German videos that I look at. Erstaunlich... Da ich amerikanisches Englisch spreche und Deutsch lernte (habe als Kind fünf Jahre in Deutschland gelebt), konnte ich sie leichter verstehen als die meisten deutschen Videos, die ich mir ansehe.

👍👍

I'm wondering if you're from Lindsay or Muenster - two small north Texas German towns where my parents used to live.

❤️❤️❤️❤️ I love Germany and german culture, my home typical german design ………..

@@Asdfhjkl998 Me too, my friend

Keep up the good fight to preserve the language. When I hear about native dialects being lost, it is so sad to me. I think it’s important for parents to pass down the language.

Let her teach u

You should learn it to help keep it alive.

Yes. and there is a Civil War monument in Comfort ("Treue der Union") to thirty-four of them who were massacred/executed after being caught trying to flee Texas .

The same thing happened in Missouri

I know that much of the farmland purchased by German immigrants to Washington County, TX after the civil war was purchased from those who had enslaved people before the war.

Yes, most of the Texas Hill Country where the german immigrants settled was under martial law during the civil war.

The irony of being liberal minded and then settling in Texas of all places in the U.S., the reddest of the red states, was not lost on me. Although back then it was probably different considering that the Republicans used to be the liberal party by our modern standards and then completely swiched sides in the 1920's.

Send a direct message? Didn’t know I could do that on KZfaq lol it’s sad because I’m a gen zer too. Something special, like perhaps news of a new program in Texas designed to teach children the dialect? Thanks for the reply

@@gabriellashdiaz7007 I'm not sure, but I think that was an advertisement. It's made to appear as though it's from someone associated with the video or that is responding to your specific message. I could be wrong but I think that's what it is. I was tricked by one of these once where they even used the name an image of the video creator. Btw, as a ligitamate response to your comment, I'm from a Scandinavian American settlement and community and have had the same idea. Hardly any of the language has been passed down to my generation. My wife is from a German American settlement, so we debated on which language to pass down to our children. The result was each chose their own preference. Did't work to well.

They will prioritize Spanish before anything else instead.

In La Grange, TX, they do teach German classes! In nearby Schulenburg where I work, there are Czech classes taught at the Blinn community college. This area is pretty much a "Czech Belt," but enough Germans settled that their influence was also huge!

@@thedarkenigma3834which is reasonable as spanish is very common in the us especially texas

I absolutely love Fredricksburg!! I go there once a month! It's such a nice little town!

Thats nice to know. I grew up in northern Germany and the pronunciation of Texas German in this Video sounds very similar to pronunciation in "Plattdeutsch". Plattdeutsch is a language used in many parts of northern Germany, with many dialekts, but like Texas German it's mostly used by older people, who grew up with speaking Plattdeutsch.

My mother, also from the Fredericksburg - Doss. Texas area. She learned English when she started school in 1932. She was a Dietmar and in all seriousness was probably related to you.

Small world 😂 for a town of 12k it is weird to find someone else in a random KZfaq comment section

I am of Texas German descent on my maternal grandmothers side, from New Braunfels. Her father died before I was born, but he spoke the Texas-German dialect as his first language. Ich lerne jetzt als meine dritte Sprache Deutsch ❤

Thanks for sharing, my friend ❤❤

Yes! I grew up in New Ulm!

My grandma too. She married a Norwegian. Southwestern MN/northwest IA. She taught me to cook. The German side of my family emigrated in the 1700s and the Norwegian side in 1800.

Don't forget Schell's beer. The second oldest privately owned brewery in the U.S.

Houston has a very big Vietnamese population from when Nam failed and a lot of them came to the states to live. So most places you go you see paper work in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. It's crazy we where one time one of the biggest rice producer (all these homes now built over old rice paddies). And folks wonder why it floods bad some times lol

​@@likeorasgodI read somewhere the climate around Houston and Louisiana is like that of Vietnam, which could explain the concentration there, especially with the opportunities to work in fishing

Is it true you guys are allowed to speak whatever language you want without having problems?

Is that "espaleman"? Many in the US speak "spanglish."

That happens to me all the time. I try to speak Spanish and can only think of the German word...

When I taught ESL, I would forget the Spanish word and use a German word. My students were a little confused.

Many German immigrants came to the northern region of Chihuahua, Mexico over a hundred years ago. Many kept their language due to isolated religious communities but of course, also learned Spanish 🇲🇽

Can you translate that quote? I’m so curious. :)

Bei uns weiter im Norden gibt es diese scheinbar verdrehte Grammatik ebenfalls. Wo kommste wech, aber auch "nache Schule gehen" oder "nach Aldi einkaufen" ist ganz typisch und alltäglich.

​@@katrincarstens5125An der niedersächsischen Grenze zu Ostwestfalen ist ,,Wo kommst du wech?" auch bekannt, aber ,,nach" statt ,,bei" oder ,,zu" wird eher weniger verwendet.

Als Österreicher kann ich da nur sagen, dass uns das Wort „jachten“ auch in den Niederlanden in der Provinz Friesland aufgefallen ist. Da gibt’s auch Jachtbitter - einen Kräuterlikör - zu kaufen.

As someone who lives in the southern US, you are correct

Not just in the south - rural Midwest also.

@@ElonMuskrat1930 well into the midwest as well.

I like the reversion to "Bidde" with exposure to modern english. Because 1000 years prior it was exactly the same in old english. It's so cool to see people breaking with the German consonant shift without y'know... speaking Dutch.

Yes, I grew up in the Midwest, and it's common in rural Midwestern dialect to swap long "e" sounds with short "i", and vice versa. Crick/creek, dish/deesh, etc.

Which town?

I believe that spirits are with us when we talk to them. I experience this that way. When you say "Guten Morgen, Opi!", you surely get a loving smile from heaven. ❤🤗🥰😉

👍👍

❤❤🤗🤗

Well, Texas also had many POW camps during WWII where German prisoners were held but were given the chance to make money in the nearby towns. Many had a surprisingly positive experience, made ties with locals, and either decided to stay or to come back at some point after the war. So between the Texas Germans and the later immigrants it would make sense.

Also the port of Galveston was one of the busiest immigration ports in the USA, more than 10,000 Germans came through there just in the early half of the 1840s

what's the name of the small town near Baden-Baden?

@@1.WhiteTiger Vimbuch, little town next to Bühl.

@@seanwilliams3103 👍nice area, my wife is from Baden-Baden

In Süddeutschland auch, z.B. schwäbisch "Vadder" und "Muoder" statt Vater und Mutter, oder "han i et kennt" ("habe ich nicht gekannt").

Yes, that's true! I think I just didn't associate it with Fränkisch because the rolled R was missing 😅

@@FelifromGermany ...not only Franconian, Palatian, Swabian, and Bavarian have the same word form "kennt" for "gekannt". Die ursprünglichen Einwanderer kamen aus der Gegend um Mainz (lt Wikipedia de: Texasdeutsch; en: "Texas German"..

Same here in Upper Austria: "Des hob i ned kennt" -> "Das habe ich nicht gekannt."

@@PhilipLon7 ja klar, so isses ja im bairischen auch :) aber mit diesem norddeutschen Akzent und mit "ge kennt" kams mir komisch vor haha

The street signs in boerne are in german

What's up neighbor! I grew up in Harper in the 80s. We had teachers in school who would speak German for a more "private" conversation. There were people in my teacher's generation who's first language at home was German.

Most Italians who came to the US didn’t speak standard Italian. They spoke dialects of southern Italian languages like Sicilian and Neapolitan. They’re not really mutually comprehensible with standard Italian (which is basically Tuscan dialect)

@@gregorde yeah, whats interesting is that while Italian immigrants to the us were mostly from southern Italy, Italian immigrants to southern America like Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay were mostly from northern Italy, and some of them still speak the Venetian language :)

Most of the "shortened" words come from the Neapolitan dialect, which tends to do that even in Italy today. The Italian government actually invested in making sure the standard Italian language was learned by Italian-descended people in the US, but of course all of this ended after WWII and both the dialects and the standard language experienced a collapse.

I think a lot of the difference too is that Italians that immigrated to the US typically settled in large, diverse cities. Texas Germans established their own tiny isolated towns. They were mostly in these hills that were difficult to get to and travel between until the 1960s and 70s. Two towns could be 5 miles apart as the crow flies, but be nearly impossible to travel between because of the rocky hills, creeks prone to flash flooding, and caves that can open up from sinkholes. Not to mention the heat in summer. So because these towns were so isolated, the families that first settled in them intermarried for a few generations and the language stayed fairly static unless the US government stepped in during WWI or WWII (the smaller the town, the more likely to avoid this fate) to force the schools to operate in English only and teach a very pro-America, pro-assimilation curriculum. But I grew up in the 90s and there were still towns then where all the older folks spoke German. And in those towns even now it’s common for the restaurants to be German food, or a German influence (along with a Czech influence).

Wondaba , iech spurken Francis, Español, as well as east texas trash too.

Cool!

Are you in Lancaster county? I used to work in the Pennsylvania Dutch country there and there were some Germans who tried to communicate with the Pennsylvania Dutch but really were baffled by each other lol. It was an interesting situation.

@@Xenogears76 I’m in Cumberland Valley, Chambersburg, about 1.5 hours west, but also with a large share of Amish and Mennonites

@@margaretqueenofscots9450 ok that's a really nice area:) I didn't know that the Amish were out that way. I guess you are close to Gettysburg then?

@@Xenogears76 Yes. And it is lovely here! 😊 I’m a transplant from the Midwest so I don’t take it for granted.

Doodmaken of dood gemaakt, gedood is standard Dutch so I guess thats where Afrikaans has it from. Anyway its all connected being Germanic languages ofcourse.

I also heard that phrase before in Germany. But it's rare and very specific. It's used for "pets" when you're not emotionally involved with them. Like a cat that's tolerated on a farm to catch mice. They might feed the cat, but they wouldn't call it their pet or let it inside or so. Instead of einschläfern/put down, they might use totgemacht.

Fritz Haarmann, a mass murderer of the 1920's, was called "Der Totmacher". totmachen was in that time rather to kill, umbringen oder ermorden rather to murder, and it implies missing emotional connection.

Also, there’s a Southern US slang term, “got killed” instead of “died”. It almost reminds me of that.

@@sammyauscux9529 yes, I heard it before too and it feels like it is something you would not say about a human. With the context given in the interview I would assume it was meant to dehumanize the native victims. The racism was felt quite open in that interview.

Real

My great grandmother's parent emigrated to Minnesota and had a farm. Unfortunately, my family are the "strong silent" types and though Ol' Grandma Witte passed at the age of 105, didn't get to learn much about any of her history. What a waste!

Hast du nur Standardhochdeutsch gelernt?

Mich hat der Dialekt, der zugrunde liegt, an die ersten Russlanddeutschen erinnert , die sich ihr altes Deutsch noch erhalten haben. Die kamen ja bekanntlich auch aus Donauschwaben.

Ich bin Banater Schwäbin und "jacht/en" für Jagd/jagen ist in unserem Dorf völlig normal. Es gibt sehr große Unterschiede zwischen den Dörfern! Unser Dialekt hat seine Wurzeln in der Pfalz/Saarland.

totally agree,, watching her react was fun

@@TeemarkConvair yes

I have heard that more Americans trace back to German heritage, even more than English.

@@robertewalt7789 Yeah, I don't have German heritage but a lot of us do. It's the highest nation of ancestry. According to the 2020 Census(I'd link it but outside links are hit or miss on KZfaq), at over 42M Americans, 13.0% of us have German heritage. The next closest is Irish at 9.7% and the English are at 7.7%.

@@HistoryNerd808 My ancestry report on 23andme says I'm mostly German, Engilsh, and Irish. You've made me feel a lot less special.

Yes its definitely more of a northern slang, which makes sense as most of the settlers were from northern Germany. Kind of triggered me that she missed that 🤣

To me, the first lady sounded more Southern German. Sayings like "mir" instead of "wir" are quite common in many places, be it the Rhineland or the Saarland. My grandmother is from Southern Germany and she would say things like "Schul" whereas my own dialect would say it more like "School". The other ones are less clear to me, but I definitely didn't get the typical pronunciations of sp and st that are common in Northern Germany. Maybe Evelyn a bit!

plattdeutsch is manyly very close to englsih. So for anyone who speaks or understand platt its very easy to learn english. And yeah even the first person she sounded bit north german. Especialy when she said Friedrichsburg, she made a ch for the g. Like most people in Hamburg do, we say Hamburch.. every town or coty with burg is burch... thats mostly who you can identify someone from nothern gemany. even if the normaly speak mostly fine accent free german, the g's in some words show where they came from

It would make sense that people from Germany who settled in Texas and named their town Friedrichsburg (later renamed Fredericksburg) in honor of Frederick of Prussia would have come from the more northern parts of Germany. However, I would be careful in overanalyzing certain sounds. Most German settlers in Texas came west central Germany, particularly Nassau, southern Hanover, Brunswick, Hesse, and western Thuringia. John O. Meusebach of the Adelsverein - who chose the location that would become Fredericksburg - was from Dillkreis in Nassau. At the same time, settlers from the Alsace settled in an area west of San Antonio while another important figure at the time - Johann Friedrich Ernst - came from Oldenburg. In other words, they came from everywhere. and were about as diverse a group as there could be. As the Texas State Historical Association puts it: "They included peasant farmers and intellectuals; Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and atheists; Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, and Alsatians; abolitionists and slaveowners; farmers and townsfolk; frugal, honest folk and ax murderers. They differed in dialect, customs, and physical features. A majority had been farmers in Germany, and most came seeking economic opportunities. A few dissident intellectuals fleeing the 1848 revolutions sought political freedom, but few, save perhaps the Wends, came for religious freedom. The German settlements in Texas reflected their diversity. Even in the confined area of the Hill Country, each valley offered a different kind of German. The Llano valley had stern, teetotaling German Methodists, who renounced dancing and fraternal organizations; the Pedernales valley had fun-loving, hardworking Lutherans and Catholics who enjoyed drinking and dancing; and the Guadalupe valley had atheist Germans descended from intellectual political refugees. The scattered German ethnic islands were also diverse. These small enclaves included Lindsay in Cooke County, largely Westphalian Catholic; Waka in Ochiltree County, Midwestern Mennonite; Hurnville in Clay County, Russian German Baptist; and Lockett in Wilbarger County, Wendish Lutheran. Because of their diversity, Texas Germans had a varied impact in achievements and influence in the state." So north German dialects definitely had their impact on Texas German, but it wasn't the only one. In the same sense, I'm from Cologne and I say Hamburch and so do friends who come from Korschenbroich, unless we truly focus on speaking High German. Slacking on the pronunciation of the g at the end of syllables is quite common throughout all German accents and dialects.

@@demonicbeethoven You are right, my grandparents are from brunswick and they always said "Braunschweich" instead of "Braunschweig"

Mexico was also rueled by a german emperor twice. The first and second mexican empires. Under Maximilian, the first and Maximilian the second

@@justacentrist4147 Maximilian of 1864-1867 was largely Austro-Germanic as to ancestry, with a little Spanish thrown in. He was sent to Mexico basically as puppet of the French. When they didn't back him after a couple of years he was easily defeated and killed off. His wife Carlota then went crazy in despair. Modern Mexicans regard Maximiliano as French rather than anything else, and care only that he was invader who was defeated. His men wore fancy lacy French shirts called gabachos, and so today in Mexico is it a rich insult to foreigners to call them gabachos in the sense of being foreign lazy stupid people who are destined to fail. But the German accordion music they relate to Germany and not Maximilian, and so are happy to use it for traditional music.

@jackie ow thats cool man thanks for the history lesson. My knowledge of mexicos history is pretty basic

I am from around old Braunfels here in Germany, haha.

I think you mean traditional Tejano music. Mariachi music doesn’t use accordions. There are some videos that explain the connection of Tejano music and polka.

Es sind damals viele aus dem heutigen Hessen und Baden-Würtenberg in die neue Welt gezogen. Viele davon hatten militärischen Hintergrund oder zumindest eine Kampfausbildung und sind dann einfach geblieben, nachdem sie ihre Pflichten dort vollbracht hatten. Einige wurden direkt von ihren Fürsten dorthin entsand und andere sind einfach so als Söldner rüber. In der neuen Welt wurde damals viel Blut vergossen.

Irgendwo Osten, "Preußen", Schlesien, war auch meine Idee.

Guter Gedanke. Ich glaube auch das der Mix zustande kommt, wenn verschiedenste Regionen plötzlich an einem Ort wohnen und z.B. untereinander heiraten. Eine Friesin einen Hessen oder Schlesier? Oder der Deutschlehrer kommt aus Bayern...

Nur wenige aus Schlesien haben nach Fredericksburg und New Braunfels ausgewandert. New Braunfels war bei Westerwalder gegründet und die meisten frühen Siedler kamen von dort. Fredericksburg hatte mehr Siedler aus Hannover und Hünsrück. Meine Schwiegermutter stammt aus New Braunfels. Die meisten ihrer Vorfahren stammten aus dem Westerwald, aber sie hatte eine Familie aus Bayern und eine Familie aus Vorpommern und eine Familie aus Schlesien. Aber das war selten der Fall. Mein Schwiegervater wurde in Hondo, Texas, geboren. Er stammt aus einer kleinen Ostfriesländersiedlung Mein Schwiegervater wurde in Hondo, Texas, geboren. Er stammt aus einer kleinen Ostfriesländersiedlung Mein Schwiegervater wurde in Hondo, Texas, geboren. Er stammt aus einer kleinen Ostfriesländersiedlung Sie heißt Quihi, Texas. Er hat noch Ostfriesen Dialekt gesprochen. Ich war in Fredericksburg in 1943 gebornen. Ich habe Vorfahren aus dem Hunsrück, aus Hannover, aus dem Raum Düsseldorf und aus Thüringen. Die meisten waren Christen. einige waren Juden, wurden aber Christen. Ich verstehe nochJiddisch. Ich habe 50 Jahre zurück viele Geschäfte mit Juden gemacht, aber die Sprache geht verloren. Ich spreche immer noch lieber Fredericksburg-Deutsch als wie Englisch, aber auch das geht verloren.

so faszinierend, man hört teilweise klar norddeutschen Dialekt, dann aber auch wieder Teile aus komplett anderen Regionen

In Dutch we have a similiar word called "gezellig", I would translate it to good/pleasant vibes. Gemütlich makes me think of "gemoedelijk", which is another word for gezellig mostly used in the south. Gemoed, and I guess Gemüt, meaning a state of being like in the word gemoedstoestand, which means precisly that.

Flying tractor sounds epic lol

Flugmachin is the correct term. It means flying machine. In German it is written FLUGMASCHINE . This is the old way of talking about an airplane from the early days of aviation from about the year 1900.

Shreveport mention in the wild! That’s my hometown lol.

Goose isn't my favorite (not bad though), but are you implying that you wouldn't eat it if you knew that or that it is just what she always said? Peace, Love!!

​@@kylesummers1565what the Grandmother said was "fresh fried Gooseshit" and the kids would happily answer "our favorite". She found out way later, what her Oma said in reality.. It was a joke 😁

Mexicans are noted to be huge Germanophiles.

Swedes, Poles, Czechs all had significant immigrant numbers from 1830 into the 20th Century.

He hears "zydeco" music on his radio in Deutschland, and travels to Louisiana to discover more about this infectious hybrid music, which heavily features the accordion and a fast rhythm.

I found your comment intriguing! And a bit curious. In my young adult years I worked in nursing homes and hospitals, and occasionally took care of someone who HAD been a native speaker of some non-english language possibly for the majority of their growing up years but had lived and worked in The States for all of their adult lives. The interesting thing to me was that quite often, in their last years, they reverted to the language of their youth. One woman, whose mother was following this path, became saddened to the point of depression, as she could no longer understand what her mother was saying during these episodes. I wonder, too, how Mr Buttigieg keeps all the various languages he knows straight in his mind!?!

I could catch a lot of it too but even she didn't catch everything which makes me feel better I guess.

Well, the Texas German is a bit difficult to understand but nevertheless, it's close to nowadays' German. However I myself did not understand everything at first hear ... But it's much much more intelligible than the Amish German ... which is almost incomprehensible and which has taken on many unusual words, or altered their original meaning ..

Same here David. There aren’t many German speakers for me to practice with, so now I only know small greetings or individual words. Now that I have more time, I hope to re-learn what I’ve lost over the past few years.

Our younger daughter took German in school & had the pleasure of being taught in her senior yr by a young woman from Germany while her American teacher went to Germany to teach English. At a parent-teacher night, another of her teachers asked who our daughter was talking to. It was her German teacher so I explained. This teacher said "no wonder she seemed confused by some of our conversation." But, as you say, not using the language makes one forget.

Me too - I had German for 2 years in high school - always enjoyed trying to translate German where ever I encountered the language

i agree, half of my family is from the unterfranken area, and the other half is from Baden Wuerttemberg, to me the texas germans sound like relatives who moved to the US a long time ago. easy to understand. I think with a few hours of practice and a couple of beers i could mimick texas german pretty good :)

I definetly noticed That texas accent too. It's the tone of voice and dipthongs.

You able to share any of those words they find humorous when you use them?

You're kidding! What!? Ok, we definitely need to see that! I didn't know Germans even lived in Brazil 🤣🤣🤣

@@EinDeutscherPatriot620 brazil has the second largest German population outside Germany

@@gabrielleite8029 what!? How!? I mean that's awesome but jeez! 🤣🤣🤣 How many Germans live in Brazil!? We have 43 million in the US last I checked

@@EinDeutscherPatriot620 How? Nazis fled to Argentina and Brazil. That is why.

@@Verhoeven1980 Ahh, makes sense.

Allmechdd 😀

Ich auch, komm aus Nuernberg und hab jedes wort verstanden.

@@frankwonderly6569 Grüße aus der Regierungshauptstadt Mfr.

In former Austrian- and German-occupied parts of Eastern Europe you can still meet a lost of people speaking German / Yiddish.

That's true, the first German-speaking university was founded in Prague in 1348

Very great, my friend ❤❤

I'm from the north of Germany and without the background of the video I would have put Vernell, the lady from the first clip, somewhere in between North Germany and the Netherlands. Definitely had some Dutch vibes, too. Especially with the conjugation of verbs. Correct me if I am wrong, but many of those she used, felt closer to Dutch for me.

This is interesting to me. My surname is from ancestors who came from Velsen, near Amsterdam in the 1870s. A g-grandfather born there married a woman who came from a rural area of Prussia SE of what was then Stettin. I've wondered about language overlap between them. I have German ancestors on both sides from Prussian areas now in Poland. Other ancestors were from Bohemia near the border with Bavaria. The area is now in the Czech Republic. The written church records from there are some non-standard German dialect from my understanding. A research contact has some very old dictionary type book with this dialect in it as many words are not found elsewhere so I am told.