Welcome to the homepage for the Pennsylvania Dutch Dialects Project. Mir sin so froh, as du do bischt! We are a research group at Michigan State University that focuses on all things Pennsylvania Dutch. We want to make it easier to learn about Pennsylvania Dutch and come up with new and fun ways for speakers, researchers, and language enthusiasts more broadly to engage with the language.
The Pennsylvania Dutch Dialects Project has a variety of goals. Here are some of the most important ones:
- Spread the word about how beautiful, interesting, and diverse the Pennsylvania Dutch language is. We wish to celebrate it and help people understand that it is a legitimate language (with many dialects!) and not just a broken form of English. Pennsylvania Dutch has been influenced by English as any language is when it is in close contact with another language, but it is fundamentally a German variety that, unlike most other German varieties, is uniquely situated in North America.
- Document the different kinds of Pennsylvania Dutch and its speakers. According to the counts from the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, there are Amish people in 32 American states, 3 Canadian provinces, and Bolivia (https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/population-2025/). This means that the language is spoken all over North America. But it’s not just the Amish that speak Pennsylvania Dutch. There are also Mennonites and other groups that speak it. As anyone who speaks the language will tell you, people in different places and groups do not all speak the same. We want to begin documenting the similarities and differences between all these different groups and areas and the way they speak.
- Make Pennsylvania Dutch audio recordings, transcriptions, and translations available to be used for linguistic research, teaching the language, or teaching people about the language.
We are still working on developing the transcriptions and translations (a very time-consuming process!) for publication. This website will serve as an access point for this database when it is finished.
If you or someone you know is a Pennsylvania Dutch speaker who is interested in contributing their voice or thoughts to this project, please contact us here. We are also looking for research assistants who can speak Pennsylvania Dutch and would be interested in contributing to the transcription/translation effort. That just means helping us write down in Pennsylvania Dutch (and translating into English) what people in an audio recording are saying. This is a great opportunity to learn how to write in the language! Please reach out to us and let us know if you’re interested. This is a paid opportunity. (link to contact form)
Undergraduate and graduate students and other interested parties with or without experience with Pennsylvania Dutch and/or German are also encouraged to reach out and express interest in participating in this project.
Many people who speak Pennsylvania Dutch call it an unwritten language because, as far as they know, it never it is written. One of the goals of this project is to show that isn’t true. In fact, there are two official writing systems for Pennsylvania Dutch:
- a German-based system that was created by Albert F. Buffington, Preston Albert Barba, and C. Richard Beam (the BBB system), and
- an English-based system that was created by Hank and Ruth Hershberger when they translated the Bible into Pennsylvania Dutch (Di Heilich Shrift).
Even though the German-based one might be a little harder to learn for people who are used to writing in English, we think it’s worth the effort to learn the German one because it shows the close relationship between German and Pennsylvania Dutch better and it also makes it easier to understand German texts. For these reasons, we use the German-based (BBB) system when we write in Pennsylvania Dutch.
Here’s a little example of written Pennsylvania Dutch that was translated into English by Mark Louden and was taken from his website (https://padutch.net/schwetz-deitsch/):
“Schwetz Deitsch” (Talk Dutch)
Ernest G. Gehman
Saag, kannscht du Deitsch schwetze?
Un kannscht du’s verschteh?
Dutt’s Englisch dich petze?
Macht’s Deitsch dir Heemweh?
Es Deitsch geht zu Schadde,
Un sell iss doch schaad!
Die Eldre hen’s ghadde
Vum Kindsbett zu Laad.
Mer sott’s net verliere,
Sell daerf yuscht net sei!
Was naus geht mit Eldre
Kummt gaar nimmi rei.
Dann schwetz Deitsch, du Amischer!
Du Luddrischer, du Gedolischer, du Dunker,
Schwetz Deitsch, du Mennischt!
Schwetz Deitsch, du wer-, wie-, wu-,
Was-ewwer du bischt!
Say, can you speak PA Dutch?
And can you understand it?
Does English “pinch” you?
Doe PA Dutch make you homesick?
PA Dutch is fading,
And that is too bad!
The parents had it
From the cradle to the coffin.
It shouldn’t be lost,
That just may not be!
What goes out with parents
Will never return.
The talk Dutch, you Amishman!
You Lutheran, you Catholic, you Dunkard,
Talk Dutch, you Mennonite!
Talk Dutch, you who-, how-, where-,
Whatever you are!
There are many such examples of written Pennsylvania Dutch if you know where to look for them. However, it is still true that Pennsylvania Dutch in Amish and Mennonite communities is usually spoken and only very rarely written. That is why this project is designed to deal primarily with spoken language.