Indigenous languages · in preparation

Deitsch — the Pennsylvania German Language

The language of the Pennsylvania Germans — the living home tongue of the Plain Anabaptist communities, and the heritage tongue of the Pennsylvania German people.

In preparation — in partnership with Deitsch's own speakers, teachers, and publishers. The goal is the whole collection in Deitsch: every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until its own people have guided and reviewed it.

The language

Deitsch has no single sovereign nation, and this doorway will not pretend otherwise. Its speakers are two worlds, never blurred: the Plain Anabaptist communities — Old Order Amish and conservative Mennonites — for whom Deitsch is the home language and who largely live apart from the internet; and the non-Plain, heritage Pennsylvania Germans, whose teachers, scholars, and publishers are the public face of the language online. Some 300,000 speakers are counted (the count is Hiwwe wie Driwwe's), and Deitsch is that rare thing among the languages in preparation here: a speaker base that is growing.

The writing is the Latin letters. No single spelling stands settled over all its communities; the standards live with its teachers, its dictionaries, and its publishers — and the spelling of every text, like every question of the language, is its own people's to settle.

Its Bible, stated plainly

The whole Bible in Deitsch exists — Di Heilich Shrift, published in 2013 (the New Testament, Es Nei Teshtament, first stood in 1993, in a second edition in 2002). It is a modern, copyrighted work: honoured here, and never copied. No public-domain Deitsch scripture was verified in this programme's search. The one public-domain witness verified is a language witness, not scripture: Edward H. Rauch's Pennsylvania Dutch Hand-Book of 1879, a dictionary and handbook that closes with Bible-verse excerpts in Deitsch — read it at the Internet Archive. The old Saur Bibles, the Ausbund, and the 1786 hymnal are High German, not Deitsch, and are never claimed as Deitsch here.

Their own teachers and doors

Douglas J. Madenford, a heritage-speaker teacher publishing in his own name since 2014 — the PA Dutch 101 lessons, and co-author of the textbook Schwetz mol Deitsch! — is the language's public teacher online. Prof. Mark L. Louden of the University of Wisconsin–Madison carries its scholarship, and the Max Kade Institute keeps its great archive. For the community itself, Masthof Press & Bookstore of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, is the principal publisher — its Deitsch children's books come with companion recordings of the stories read in Deitsch, sold with the books, and named here without a shop door, as these doorways carry none. Pathway Publishers of Aylmer, Ontario — the Old Order Amish publisher, print-only in everything verifiable — is the partnership road for the Plain communities: by post, in writing, and in person.

Hear Deitsch today

These voices are Deitsch's own, published by their own teachers and houses. The link takes you to their house; nothing of their voice is copied here.

padutch.net — Prof. Mark L. Louden's companion to Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language: texts and recordings in Deitsch, a pronunciation section, and interviews with speakers — including the Deitsch of Ontario's Wilmot–Tavistock–Milverton country
Learn Pennsylvania Dutch — a small Daviess County, Indiana, learning community: a words list with a growing audio pronunciation feature, free to hear
The North American German Dialect Archive — the Max Kade Institute's thousands of hours of recorded immigrant dialects, Pennsylvania Dutch a named core of it: sample clips free to hear, the full archive a research collection
PA Dutch 101 — Douglas J. Madenford's lessons in his own name, free on his channels and podcast; his own copyright, linked from his own houses

No Plain community publishes its own spoken Deitsch online, and there is no Deitsch machine voice — a German machine voice reading Deitsch would mispronounce it and misrepresent the language. Deitsch audio must come from its own teachers, publishers, and speakers.

An open invitation

This door stands open by invitation. If you are a speaker, teacher, or publisher of Deitsch, this programme asks to work with you — to be guided, corrected, and reviewed by the people whose language this is. In this collection the holy names are never invented: what the Creator is called in a language is for its own speakers to give, and the spelling of every text is theirs to settle. Write to the publisher at [email protected]. Approaches to the Plain communities are made in writing and in person, never assuming an internet answer speaks for a community that lives apart from it.

To hear it

When Deitsch opens here, it will be heard as well as read — in its own voice, spoken and recorded by Deitsch speakers. Until then this door is silent in Deitsch on purpose: the first voice heard in it should be the people's own.

The other doors

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