European Origins
The ancestors of Pennsylvania German speakers came from various parts of the southwest corner of the German-speaking region of Europe, including the Electorate of the Palatinate, the Duchy of Baden (Badenland), Swabia, Württemberg, Alsace (German Elsass), and Switzerland. Many spoke West Middle German dialects and Alemannic dialects, and in the first generations after the settlers arrived it is believed that these dialects merged.
Read more about this topic: Pennsylvania German Language
Famous quotes containing the words european and/or origins:
“No European spring had shown him the same intermixture of delicate grace and passionate depravity that marked the Maryland May.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)