300 years ago German settlers came across the Atlantic to Pennsylvania. Their language and their culture to the descendants until today, as DW correspondent Oliver Themed witnessed.
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Kutztown Folk Festival – German roots on the trail
If Norman Sunday sitting in front of his barn, he will sometimes wistfully. The 82-year-old farmer from Pennsylvania knows that a decades-old family history to an end. Previously, he has bred here cattle, now he is retired and probably his children won’t take over the yard.
Sunday is like many in Berk’s County, a descendant of German immigrants in the 18th century. Century from the Palatinate came to find a new home here. They were believed farmers who worked hard in God – and their German culture used. Norman Sunday was never in Germany, but his parents talked with him, Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch, a dialect spoken in 300 years of the country’s population, and up to today, come alive. “I’m blabbering’s ned gud, but I understand,” says Sunday.
Fast-growing language
Patrick Donmoyer of the University of Pennsylvania wants to preserve the German heritage for future generations. At the “German Cultural Heritage Center” in
Kutztown he taught Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch in a former German school from the year 1870, which now serves as a Museum. On the old Slate deitsche Sprichwadde”, such as “Schpaar the money” and “good halwer gmeht is gwetzt are “”.
Museum in Kutztown is reminiscent of German emigrants from the Palatinate
The language was not threatened even with extinction, says Donmoyer. A total of 40,000 people speak the dialect in Pennsylvania, 400,000 in the whole of America – and the trend is rising. The reason for this is the many faith communities of the Amish and Mennonites speak Pennsylvania German as their native language and to bring the traditionally, many of the children of the world to be.
30 percent of the Pennsylvanier have German ancestors, and many of the descendants speak the dialect today still at home. Donmoyer says that he had developed in the 300 years to a own language. “Me henn, many neie Wodde in our uttered: Guckbox for Television and weider,” he says, and that they were, in spite of the German language proper “American control”.
Barn star as a form of art
Typical of the area, the Pennsylvania famous barn stars, which are called also “Hex Signs” or “Barn Stars” are. The colorful painting with eight to twelve rays on the barns from afar. They, too, were brought from the Palatinate immigrants across the Atlantic and have developed into an art form of its own.
Barn star survived as a cultural heritage of the 300-year-old settlement history
On the “Kutztown Folk Festival” shows Patrick Donmoyer, how to paint them. By contrasting colors such as Yellow and Black of the impression that the star would rotate, emerging Donmoyer says. With witch characters, the stars have nothing to do: For the peasant peoples of the sun, moon, and stars would have always played an important role. You had drawn, therefore, simply what was important to them, says Donmoyer.
Old customs are alive
130,000 visitors come each year to the Kutztown Folk Festival and much here is reminiscent of the German immigrants, the shape of the Berks County today. In the “sausage house” there is a real Pennsylvanian sausages with Sauerkraut and a brass band plays music that would actually fit well to Bayern.
Bratwurst on the Kutztown Folk Festival
Trumpeter Leon Moll has not yet spoken as a child on a regular basis with the parents Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch. Since their death, he comes only rarely and his children “do it nid more enough,” says Moll. For many here, there are only nine days in the year in which the old customs are alive again.