Texas German

Infobox Language
name=Texas German
states=Texas
region=Texas Hill Country
speakers=~3,000, declining
familycolor=Indo-European
fam2=Germanic
fam3=West Germanic
fam4=High German
notice=nonotice

Texas German is a dialect of the German language that is spoken by descendants of German immigrants who settled in the Texas Hill Country region in the mid-19th century. These immigrants founded the towns of New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Boerne, Schulenburg, Weimar, and Comfort. Most German Texans continued to speak German in their homes and communities, but were required to learn English when Texas education rules mandated English-only instruction during and after World War I. Due to the growth of these communities and cultural bias during World War I and World War II, Texas German speakers drifted towards English, and few passed the language to their descendants.

The dialect is near extinction, as it is now only spoken by a few elderly German Texans. Currently, Dr. Hans Boas at the University of Texas is recording and studying the dialect, building on research originally performed by Glenn Gilbert in the 1960s.

Current distribution and population

Some 1,035 people report speaking German at home in Fredericksburg [http://www.mla.org/map_data_results&state_id=48&place_id=27348&cty_id=] , the town with the largest community of Texas German speakers, where they constitute 12.48% of the total population, 840 in New Braunfels [http://www.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results] , 150 in Schulenburg [http://www.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results] , 85 in Stonewall [http://www.mla.org/map_data_results&state_id=48&place_id=70460&cty_id=] 70 in Boerne [http://www.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results] , 65 in Harper [http://www.mla.org/map_data_results&state_id=48&place_id=32456&cty_id=] , 45 in Comfort [http://www.mla.org/map_data_results&state_id=48&place_id=16228&cty_id=] and 19 in Weimar [http://www.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results] , all of which lie in the traditional Texas German heartland of the Hill Country. Gillespie County, with the communities of Fredericksburg, Harper, Stonewall and Luckenbach, has a German-speaking population of 2,270, 11.51% of the county's total population. Almost all of these speakers are in either the 18-64 or the +65 age groups. 82,100 German-speakers reside in the State of Texas [http://www.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results] , but most of those are probably not Texas German speakers.

Comparisons with German and English

Texas German is intelligible to anyone with an understanding of continental German, though it adapted to U.S. measurement and legal terminologies. German words were invented or English was "Germanicized" for words not present in 19th century German.

Refer to the table below for some examples of differences:

ee also

*Pennsylvania German
*Plautdietsch
*Hutterite German

External links

* [http://www.tgdp.org/ Texas German Dialect Project]
* [http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/wunderbar/0,1518,546960,00.html Article about Texas German - Spiegel Online (german)]