Ivan didn’t have a list of requirements when he went looking for a wife, but he did hope for a person who could speak Pennsylvania Dutch, since that is really his first language, the language batted back and forth with brothers and passed with laughter across the table at Kinsinger family birthday parties.
In my growing up years, Dad always talked Pennsylvania Dutch to his mom on the phone, but sadly, I was mostly noncomprehending and noncaring of this heritage. Dutch was boring, a relic of buggies and covering strings—two things I was just as happy not to have in my world. When I chose to study a foreign language, I chose Spanish and French, not German or the Pennsylvania version of it.
Now, I am trying. We want Annalise to know the language, not just so she doesn’t miss out on cousin conversations, but because the language is part of her heritage and because it’s good for all children to know a second one.
For a person in love with words, languages are surprising difficult for me. Not the learning to read part, or the grammar—both of which I find easy enough—but learning to speak it. I am cautious and a perfectionist, two qualities not helpful in gaining fluency, where one must be willing to stumble and bumble and make mistakes in front of other people.
Added to this drawback is the fact that Pennsylvania Dutch is a spoken rather than a written language, and when I ask my dear husband questions like, “Why do you say it this way and not this way?” and “What is the method for changing verbs into past tense?” he has no idea. He learned English grammar, not Pennsylvania Dutch grammar, in school, and anyway, attributed about as much importance to grammar as I once attributed to Dutch. His speaking is instinctual. To add to the ambiguity, there are about as many dialects of PA Dutch as there are segments of Anabaptists. Ivan’s Dutch, the Oakland version, is slightly different than my sister-in-law’s, who speaks the Ohio version.
Thankfully, I did find several books which are exceedingly helpful: One a PA Deitsh New Testament, available from TGS Publications. Most mornings at the breakfast table, I read a few verses out loud, and even though it hasn’t helped me to become fluent (it will take real conversational practice for that), it has helped me become familiar with more words. The other helpful book is called Pennsylvania German: Vitt Du Deitsh Shvetza? and is available on Amazon. This book was able to give me the correct method for conjugating verbs to past tense (which is that the conjugations vary, and I just have to memorize them, lol).
Both books use a similar pronunciation guide, which is explained in the front of each book, and both follow the dialect spoken by the Amish in Holmes County, Ohio. Spellings are basically phonetic, NOT those confusing High German spellings which look nothing like the PA Dutch of anyone ever.
One of my next writing ventures? Writing a Dutch children’s book. Ivan suggested it, back when we were dating, and someday we’ll manage his dream. I’ve got one drafted in a folder, actually, imagined as a board book for a child Annalise’s age, which is about the only age level of Dutch I can manage at this stage. One of these days, the Lord and a publisher willing, I will finish it.
As I learn the language better, I’d like to write more children’s books. Dutch seems to me a graphic and earthy language, and I’d especially like to capture some of that visuality. As an example of what I mean, the Dutch don’t say “adulterer,” they say “marriage breaker.” They call a curious child a “wonder nose” and potatoes “crooked berries.” In the story of Mary and Joseph that I read recently, the inn was a “sleep-house,” shepherds were “sheep-herders” and Mary wasn’t just pregnant or expecting, but “in a family way,” which is vague and picturesque and literal all at the same time.
I am especially interested in learning Dutch sayings and idioms. “Can you think of a Dutch idiom?” I asked Ivan this morning. And he said, “I know what an idiot is, but not an idiom.”
So for those of you who do not know, idiom is picturesque speech, something we commonly say that we don’t mean literally, like light as a feather or raining cats and dogs or six of one and half a dozen of another (Ivan’s personal favorite). Referring to a curious child as a vunnah-naus (wonder nose) is a good example of an idiom.
What PA Dutch idioms do you know? It’s okay if we use it in English too, as long as it’s something a Dutch person would be likely to say.
OR do you know any fun PA Dutch sayings or rhymes? Like the one Ivan often says after a meal: “I’m fet, foal, and fadich.” (I’m fat, full, and finished.)
Please comment your Dutch idioms, sayings and rhymes below! You will be endlessly appreciated. Phonetic spelling allowed.
One day I may weave them into a story.
Someone can finetune this tongue-twister, 100 rabbits coughing or sneezing behind Henry’s haystack, ….
Ich hyah un hunnoht hausa hooshta hinnich duh Henry Hoovah sei hickory hols hohfah. Vowel followed by h is short
I’ve heard it like this: ‘Un hoonat hawsa hoka hinnih da Henna Hoshtetler sa hoha hickodih hols hoffa.’ 100 rabbits sit behind Henry Hostetler’s high hickory wood pile. :) Maybe there’s a version that includes coughing which would be ‘hooshta’.
This is so interesting… as a child I also learned this rhyme but differently than any of the above.
” Halve hunnat hausa hera hooshta hinnich duh Henry Hochshtetla sie hoha hecka hoffa.”
Half a hundred rabbits hear coughing behind Henry Hochstetler’s high branch or brush pile or stack.
the one I know is “Ich hab en Hunnert hattheeriche Haase ghatt huuschde hinnich dem Henner Hoschdler sei hoocher Holshaufe”
A saying I heard from an elderly lady: “Vell dess macht die bupp kenn hussa, un ess flickt net die ones sie veat” 😂 I tell myself that when I’m putting something off.. like dishes.. 😏
On PA Dutch I find it interesting how dialects vary from different backgrounds or areas, I guess the same as English 😄
This is interesting! I’m not good at spelling in PA Dutch…Here’s a rhyme, that only rhymes in PA Dutch.
Bischst bass, Slecht uh vanich case
Baptz in de hoot, Bish morra gatz gut!
Are you angry? Lick a little cheese, Stick it in a hat, And by tomorrow it’ll go good.”
I applaud you for trying to learn Dutch! My husband and I both grew up with it as our first language, and our daughters understand it well, but struggle with speaking it. :-/ sadly, it’s being lost in our community.
I love to hear you’re writing a book in Dutch, I look forward to seeing it!
Phrases:
“Your eyes were bigger than your stomach” is a rhyme in Dutch, ( dah awwa wadda grasoh is dah mawwa) one I heard often during my growing up years.
And I have no idea how to spell in Dutch, i just try to make it phonetic.
I’ll try and think of more. :)
Vans maisley sat is, is meel bittah {no idea how to write it}
When the mouse is full, the flour is bitter..
Douglas Madenford from Pennsylvania is on You Tube, he is an English teacher and also teaches PA Dutch.
I’m just like some others, no idea about spelling or divisions. When someone gave us something we might not have exactly liked or wanted, my mom said, “Un shenktal gahl gook mul nat uns mahl.” (Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.)
Not sure what i did, but my comment went under someone else’s name. 🙂
Mayt es pyfah un hinkel es grayah,
Denna sett ma duh halls fa-drayah.
A rhyme about learning to be a lady. 😂
Girls that whistle and hens that crow
These you should wring the necks.
Now, a sweeter rhyme:
Shlofe, buppli, shlofe,
Duh Dawdy heet de shofe,
Die Mommy huckt in hulloh shtuck,
Un macht es buppli un unnahruck.
Sleep, baby, sleep
Daddy keeps the sheep
Momma sits in elderberry plant
And makes for baby an underdress.
A finger play :
Dess is duh dommoh(this is the thumb)
Dyah hett gah-un blauma(this one wants plums) pointer finger.
Dyah froagt voo grigt mah seh( this one asks where to get them) tall finger.
Dyah saugt shtayla ( this one says steal) ring finger.
Dyah saugt wauht, wauht ich saugt duh Dawdy! This one says wait, wait,, I’ll tell Daddy! Pinkie finger
Thanks for the “Sleep baby, sleep” rhyme. I’d thought of it. Interesting that your version is a little different than mine! (And you know how to spell!:)
Thee 1st 2 lines are like I learned it, but the next two are like this…
Die Mommy gate fot and melched de rode kee
Und cumt net hame bis marya free
Momma goes away and milks the red cows
And doesn’t come home until tomorrow morning.
Aww memories!
Sorry, Rachel, but my two comments posted as yours. I’m Denise. I don’t understand what’s going on.
Meh Glickman uss fahshtaant
I’m Russian baptist but grew up with Mennonites. We had a Christian school with Mennonite teachers and one saying they’d often say is, uf ash tendi, I think that’s how it wass. What does it mean? They’d often be upset or surprised when they said it. 😆
I wonder if you’re thinking about un-fu-shten-dih with an h sound on the end.
This post was very interesting! One that my grandfather used to say and then my parents repeated to us; die morgen stund hat gold im mund. I guess that’s more German that Pa Dutch. It means the morning hour has gold in its mouth.
That’s sounds right, so what does it mean? 😁
Some Pa Dutch words just don’t have a good translation. We Dutch people sometimes say, “You just can’t say that right in English”. 😂 It is an exclamation of surprise or similar to “unbelievable!”
I’ve always understood unfushtendih to be (roughly) the negation of fushteh (to understand), so literally un-understandable
or incomprehensible.
See hen rum gedeitst, un rum gedeitst, biss free un shpoot fubah waduh, un duh letcht hunt kanga wah.
(They messed around, and messed around, until early and late were past, and the last dog was hung.)
Biss di kee hame cumma!
(Till the cows come home)
These are a few of our family favorites.
Won mer der hund dreft, bloft er.
If you hit a dog, he will bark.
Zub on deiner egna naws.
Pull your own nose.
While PA Dutch is mostly spoken, there are a few written materials that might be helpful.
There is something called the “Buffington-Barba” (B-B) system of sounds and spelling, which shows English equivalents for PA Dutch sounds.
Another of these is “Introduction to Pennsylvania German”. When I purchased it in 2006, (as I had also grown up without speaking it), it came as a 70-page spiral-bound booklet and a few CDs to improve pronunciation. Originally by Elizabeth Wengerd, and now edited and printed by C. Richard Beam.
The 3rd edition is by Alice Spayd and K. Varden Leasa.
I purchased it from the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society. You’ll now find them online at mennonitelife.org. It gives you grammar such as verb tenses as well as how to spell our nouns. It even has lessons so you can learn to translate between PA Dutch to/from English.
It wasn’t too pricey, but that was 16 years ago.
For example, you can learn verbs in past tense, as well as present tense.
Koche (to cook)
ich hab gekocht (I have cooked)
du hoscht gekocht (you have cooked)
er hot gekocht (he has cooked)
mir hen gekocht (we have cooked)
dihr (either “hett” or “hend”) gekocht (you plural have cooked)
sie hen gekocht (they have cooked)
You can also get “Quaint Idioms and Expressions of the Pennsylvania Germans (Classic Reprint)” on Amazon for about $14 as a 42-page paperback. It’s a bit pricey for such a small booklet, but it’s a re-printing of an otherwise lost book, so perhaps it might suit?
Geb acht,
When you find a person that is really Pa Dutch you may say they are “Se sin so deiitch os sovah glaat.” ( sp?) The English translation is : they are as dutch as sour kraut.” It doesn’t make sense to an Englisher but it does to a Dutchman.
Ich geb nix strum is an idiom
I give nothing around – means i do not care or either way is fine with me
Ich hap gedenkt – I have thought – means I was just thinking
Es Kann gut sei – means it is possible that it could be true
Berks Co. Pa
I grew up in Ontario, Canada with my paternal grandparents in the grossdaudy part of the house. My parents spoke only PA Dutch to them. (Why it was called PA Dutch in Canada is beyond me.) I learned some by osmosis. In 1974 I married a man from PA and relocated to southeastern PA. I can communicate a bit with those who speak PA Dutch here, but my accent is different. An idiom I know is: Wass zwediss, (sorry, I can’t even get the phonetic word here), dritzich. What happens twice will probably happen the third time.
Another one: Canst du micha fanga? (Can you catch flies?) Ya, wan zie hugga blivah! (Yes, when they stay sitting!)
Congrats on the goal to write a children’s book in Dutch!
Sorry Rachel, my comment was noted as yours.
I’m Ruth.
I am dutch and have always been proud of it. I speak dutchified and don’t care. lol. I have an uncle who learned it in adult life , and you never know he didn’t speak it as a kid. Good luck !
Gut fa dich. (Good for you). 😊. It can be done. I know a hand full of people that learned it as an adult.
We have a Belize born lady in our congregation that married a local guy that speaks the Dutch. Their children learned both English and Dutch as soon as they started talking.
I have a Dutch New Testament. I love reading in it. Possibly because it’s my first language.
Several years ago my husband and I were in Israel. We met a lady from the Black Forest area of Germany. We could converse together in Dutch. It was so much fun! True there were some words that we stumbled over. She informed us it is actually called Platte Deutsch. It is a German dialect and still spoken in parts of Germany.
Keep teaching her the Dutch! I always think it’s sad when parents don’t pass on a language that they are fluent in. Trust me, the younger children are the faster they pick up on languages!😊
And by the way keep trying! Being a perfectionist isn’t necessarily all bad when learning a language because when we talk fluently, we tend talk from habit, so at least for me, while I was learning Spanish, I tried my hardest to get the pronunciation and grammar correct and at first they laughed (still do sometimes though normally they say that I talk clearly) but now I’m talking mostly by habit and fairly fluently, so I feel that all the time a headache that I put in to trying to say it correctly the first time is more paying off. Don’t worry about messing up, nobody will think anything less about you when you’ve tried your best. Best wishes!
This brought back a lot of memories! One thing my mom used to say when we had hurt ourselves a little bit, was hailey hailey beepli dreck,mya free ist all aveck. (Heal,heal,chicky dirt,tomorrow morning it will all be gone!)
Love this! I would definitely buy your Dutch childrens book!
“Ah! pity de Lyddie de catz hut an kitty!”😂 (sorry, no idea on the spelling just typed it the way it sounds.)
Oh pity Lydia the cat has a kitty! In dutch it rhymes..
My Mother used to say: ” un folla asul thwawcht sich doout” meaning a lazy mule will carry himself to death! (rather than take more trips with the load)
Here’s a child’s bedtime prayer Elam learned as a child & we prayed it with our boys…
“Mede bin iche,
Gea tzu rue,
Shlesi mieni awwa tzu
Fodder less di angeline ,
Ivaah miene beddi seign.” Amen.
I will translate…knowing it doesn’t sound quite right but…
I am tired,
I’m going to rest
Lock my eyes shut
Father let the angels
Be over my bed….(or stay over my bed)
Another saying,
“Sei awwa sin graisa us die mawa”
Meaning, ” your eyes are bigger than your stomach” said when you put more food on your plate than your stomach can handle.
Have fun learning 😊
Wow thank you all for these! You have blessed me above and beyond what I expected. Sorry for those who had trouble with names…thought I had fixed that but I will have to keep working.
John Schmidt made some CDs where he and some others sing Pa dutch songs with accompaniment. I think Enos Stutzman has one, too. Also if you look up Dorcas Smucker on you tube she has some dutch videos, recounting memories. A Dutch children’s book would be fun😃
My Grandpa Warye used to give us a ride on his foot while he said a rhyme in PA Dutch about riding a horse. At the end the “horse” tipped us off. It starts, “Ride uh, ride uh guiley.”
Does anyone know that rhyme?
The rhyme I grew up with (spoken to a child sitting on your lap,and bouncing up and down until the end,tipping the child over until his/her head gently bumps the floor) was “dresse dresse dril,
duh(name of child)ride duh Bill,
Duh Bill shpringt op,
un duh(name of child again) falt op!” I know my spelling is incorrect, I don’t know how to spell it,but would love to learn.
I don’t know how to translate all the words to English,but Bill was the name of the horse and when he runs off or away, the child falls off. Maybe someone else knows what the other words translate to.
That looks like a fun and similar rhyme to ours.
Raidey, raidey, gailie
Haivah stunt da mailie
Ivvah hivvel nunna
Boppeli geht nunna.
This is what we were always told. (not sure if my spelling is correct, but the way I wrote “ai” in “raidey” is the long i sound as in line.
Thank you!
I have been wanting to learn PA Dutch to surprise my boyfriend (who speaks it fluently), but there is really no way of learning it outside of knowing people who know it and speaking it around them. I think I just need to find someone who would be willing to do video calls with me or something. I love hearing that you, too, have been venturing into this!
Good for you, Jess. I wish you best of luck on your endeavor! I want to try talking with my sister-in-law more. I hope you also find someone.
I, too, am noticing that the comment box is storing the name and e-mail of the previous commenter…. let me see if I can clear mine out….
“Hivvel uph an hivvel unna –
Um do echha rumm”
(Hill up and hill down –
around the corners)??!
I do NOT know how to read or spell in PA Dutch! I learned the language from listening to my uncles and aunts when they visited my grandma who lived in a small house attached to our house. We shared the evening meal, and I’d often call “Kumm Essa!” My parents also spoke Dutch to each other, especially when they didn’t want us children to understand!
“Bren aisel” (?!) was one word no one was ever able to translate to English. They knew it meant “Burn weed”, but they had no actual plant name for it. Can you help me out?
We used to talk about fireweed in English, but when I look up photos online, I think what we called fireweed was actually “nettles” or “stinging nettles.” Maybe you could try looking up both fireweed and nettles and seeing if the plant you remember was one of those two.
I asked my father in law about that and he says it’s actually hazel. ‘Bren hazel’ Alot of folks pronounce it without the h or treat it as a silent h.As Lucinda mentioned, I believe it’s stinging nettles in English.
That comment was not from me.
When my daughter was born, I had a working knowledge of Spanish, but that was it. Her daddy was born and raised in Peru, where that side of the family still lives. Like you, I wanted her to be able to connect with relatives and with her heritage, so I tried my best – for her first two or three years – to use the phrases I knew and to read books to her in Spanish. There came a time, though, when I realized that if I didn’t switch to English, her speech would suffer because my Spanish wasn’t complex enough to express certain things. So I stopped and felt sad that it had all been for nothing.
Years passed. At about sixteen, our ‘baby’ enrolled in high school Spanish and the weirdest thing happened. Although, in theory, she knew no Spanish, she had heard it spoken all her life, and those early years must have settled in her psyche, because she’d come home from class each day wondering why they were learning things that ‘everyone’ already knew. Learning the language came so naturally and so easily to her! This has been my consolation – all these years later – balm on that parental regret I felt for not ‘giving’ her that free second language parents give their children when both speak an alternate language in the home.
All that to say, do what you can, and it will make a difference!
Thanks Holly. That is encouraging!
Anyone know what a Frei villic-hau funga sprisza uff aun hoopsa schrova! is?
Pennsylvania Dutch: Ich hap ma aura fafraura voh mia uhm fuara warra vo miah falorra worra. English I froze my ears while we were driving when we were lost. The Holmes County people would roll the R’s (and there are many in this sentence) and the Lancaster County people wouldn’t. Either way sounds very strange to those who aren’t used to that version. I’m not sure where the Oakland version comes in.
If you practice speaking Dutch with children who are fluent, it’s not as intimidating as with adults. But if you do the best you know (even with adults) it’s OK to make mistakes like using the wrong verb form. I know a little Spanish and it’s humiliating to say it and know I’m saying it wrong but I don’t know how to say it right. But for me, that helps me more than waiting till I know I’m saying everything right.
One thing that could really help you with vocabulary is to have two people record an audio with lists of numbers, colors, days of the week, verbs, foods, and other categories. with one person saying the English word, another person the Pennsylvania Dutch word and then the first person saying the English word again. The Dutch word is flanked by the English translation, so the listener does not get mixed up as to which word belongs to which translation. This is best if the voices are contrasting, like a man and a woman recording. This could be done with phrases or sentences too.
The German word for German is Duetsch, so that is probably why the Pennsylvania German people call it Dutch. I suppose the reason it’s called Pennsylvania Dutch is to identify it as different than the Dutch spoken in Holland.
And if Ivan and his mom and others consistently talk Dutch to your daughter, she will almost certainly be able to pronounce words correctly as an adult even if she would never learn now to speak it. My sister is married to a Japanese man. Their sons heard enough when they were little that they can pronounce it well now, even though they never learned much vocabulary.
–Linda Rose
Bets stat fo chadi lat,
Onrah lat geh som ontry stat..
I’m guessing at this spelling!! In English it says:
Bed time for chite people.
Other people go some other time.
My dad would very often say this in the evening at bedtime. And now I say it to my children even tho they don’t understand Dutch.
Brutz net epp di Katz un Oi legt (Don’t cry before the cat lays an egg)
Mark Louden is a professor of German at the University of Wisconsin. When I was in college, I wrote a paper comparing the accents and word usage between Pennsylvania PA Dutch speakers, and Midwestern PA Dutch speakers. I referred to his book, Pennsylvania Dutch, the Story of an American Language, for the background of my paper. I bought the book and was glad I did. I would consider him an expert in the PA Dutch language. He gives a really interesting look at where the language came from in the first place– a conglomeration of German dialects mixed together in PA. Many non-Mennonites also spoke the language, but that changed. It’s also fascinating to me that Yiddish shares similarities with PA Dutch since both originated in Germanic Europe.
https://books.google.com/books?id=WqcQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false Here is a link to the book on Google books. There are a few chapters available to read for free.
John Schmidt also has some songs in PA Dutch that are available on YouTube. I used to think they were a bit, umm, maybe just silly and “nitz-nutzz” but after I moved overseas and terribly missed my mother tongue, I found them comforting to listen to, and eventually was also able to appreciate them culturally.
If you would be interested, I would be happy to share my paper with you that I wrote. It might be a more condensed version than that of Mark Louden’s book.
I didn’t know PA Dutch was related to Yiddish! Very interesting. Yes, I would be interested in seeing your paper… You can send to my email address listed in my contact info. Thank you!