Language
The Germans from Russia originally spoke German or Mennonite Low German (Plautdietsch) at home. Since the villages in Russia often were populated by settlers from a particular region and were isolated from Germany, they maintained their regional dialects long after Germany standardized the language. Depending on their specific origin, Germans from Russia had difficulty understanding Standard German. It was only after emigrating from Russia to the Americas that the Germans lost their German dialects, generally within a few generations in their new countries. In the 1950s it was still common for the children in the Dakotas to speak in English and the parents and grandparents to use German. Songs in church would be sung in two languages simultaneously. Probably the person best known for having a "German from Russia accent" in English (a result of having learned English as a second language) was Lawrence Welk.
Read more about this topic: Germans From Russia
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints—the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk—we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we’re its slavish agents.”
—Harry Mathews (b. 1930)