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Influences of English and Spanish on Mennonite Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas

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Influences of English and Spanish on Mennonite Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies Volume 8 Issue 1 Article 4 2020 Plautdietsch in Contact: Influences of English and Spanish on Mennonite Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas Fallon Hovland Follow this and additional works at: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/amishstudies Part of the Linguistics Commons Please take a moment to share how this work helps you through this survey. Your feedback will be important as we plan further development of our repository. Recommended Citation Hovland, Fallon. 2020. "Plautdietsch in Contact: Influences of English and Spanish on Mennonite Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas." Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 8(1):43-58. This Original Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by IdeaExchange@UAkron, the institutional repository of The University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, USA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies by an authorized administrator of IdeaExchange@UAkron. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Plautdietsch in Contact: Influences of English and Spanish on Mennonite Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas FALLON HOVLAND Graduate Student Department of Linguistics University of Colorado-Boulder Abstract: Plautdietsch is a Germanic language mostly spoken in the Americas. With a long history of migration, it has been influenced by a variety of linguistics contact situations. This paper provides qualitative analysis of Mennonite Plautdietsch-speakers in Seminole Texas. The dialect of Plautdietsch spoken shows influence from its contact with English (Texas and Canada) and Spanish (Mexico). This influence appears in borrowings and sound changes. The degree of linguistic influence correlates with the identity of the Mennonite community. Historically insular, the community in Seminole, which stems from an Old Colony Mennonite settlement in Mexico, practices a more progressive and modern lifestyle. In addition to Plautdietsch being genetically more similar to English than Spanish, the progressive identity of the community, since being in Seminole, has expedited the process of English influencing Plautdietsch. Conversely, said progressive identity is the same means by which Plautdietsch is gaining institutional support and maintenance. [Abstract by author] Keywords: Mennonite Plautdietsch; Seminole, Texas; contact linguistics; language maintenance Acknowledgements: I am indebted to my thesis advisor, Professor Hannah Haynie, without whose instruction and encouragement this paper would not have been possible. I would also like to pay special regards to Professor Berit Jany for her support and mentoring, as well as Professor Andrew Cowell, who guided me through preparing to collect data in the field. I wish to thank my participants and the Mennonite community of Seminole, Texas. Address correspondence to: Farron Hovland; [email protected] Recommended citation: Hovland, Fallon. 2020. “Plautdietsch in Contact: Influences of English and Spanish on Mennonite Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas.” Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 8(1):43-58. Publication type: Original research article, open access (may be freely distributed). JAPAS is published by the Amish & Plain Anabaptist Studies Association (www.amishstudies.org) and the University of Akron. 44 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2020 INTRODUCTION There are three allophonic variants according to Cox et al. (2013): alveolar trills [r]; alveolar What happens to a language when it becomes taps [ ]; retroflex approximants [ ]. The speakers separated from its region of origin and is intro- in Seminole rarely produce trills and are described duced to new contact situations? Such is the case in thisɾ paper as producing bunchedɹ /r/s rather than for Plautdietsch, the language spoken by many retroflex approximants. Because the degree of Mennonites throughout the Americas. These com- retroflexion in this allophone is unclear, I refer to munities have been separated from their place this allophone as bunched /r/. In addition to the of origin, Northwestern Europe, for hundreds of allophones listed by Cox et al. (2013), this paper years. Though they have had extensive contact posits the vowel [ ] as a rhotic allophone because with Russian (in what is today the Ukraine), it is found in free variation with [ ] in the Seminole English (in Canada and the United States) and data. ɐ Spanish (in Latin America), they have maintained Due to its history of migration,ɹ the lan- their mother tongue through it all, but not without guage is spoken in many countries throughout consequence. the Americas, including Mexico, USA, Uruguay, Plautdietsch has many alternative names, Belize, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Brazil, Canada, some of which are Mennonite Low German, Platt- Bolivia, and Argentina. It is also still spoken deutsch, and Neuniederdeutsch. It is a Germanic in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, and Germany language, stemming from West Germanic. West (Multitree 2014). Though it is spoken in so many Germanic diverged into what we know (more or places, it is designated an endangered language less) as High German, English, Dutch, and Low due to children no longer learning Plautdietsch as German. For this reason, many cognates are found their mother tongue (Moseley 2010). The most re- among these four languages. Additionally, the cent estimated number of speakers is only 394,900. vowel inventory for Plautdietsch is rich. There It is estimated that 80,000 of these speakers are are 10 phonemic monophthongs and 11 phonemic in Canada, and 40,000 are in Mexico (Lewis et diphthongs. There are also 6 purported triphthongs al. 2015, Moseley 2007 as cited in Burns 2017). (Cox et al. 2013). Table 1 shows the 29 phonemic In Latin America, large populations are found in consonants that are found in Canadian Old Colony Paraguay (9,000) and Bolivia (50,000) (Kaufmann Mennonite Plautdietsch. The Canadian dialect is 2015). Approximately 6,000 are in western Texas referenced as it is closely related to the Seminole, (Burns 2017), the focus region of this research. Texas dialect. TABLE 1: CANADIAN OLD COLONY MENNONITE PLAUTDIETSCH CONSONANT INVENTORY Bilabial Labio- Alveolar Palato- Palatal Velar Glottal dental alveolar Plosive p b t d Nasal m n kʲ gʲ k g ʔ Affricate ts ɲ ŋ Fricative f v s z tʃ ç h Trill r ʃ ʒ x ɣ Approximant j Lateral approximant l lʲ Table reproduced from Cox et al. (2013), 222 Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas—Hovland 45 FIGURE 1: MENNONITE MIGRATION Source: Burns (2017), 19 The migratory history of Mennonite com- tion and an evolving appetite for a less restrictive munities molded their spoken Plautdietsch along lifestyle. the way. The first migration from an origin in the Throughout their history, these Mennonite Netherlands was to Prussia in the 16th century. communities have constantly been in a diglos- Figure 1 shows the migration history of major mi- sic situation with High and Low German. High gration movements since leaving Prussia. German (or Huagdietsch) has been used in church This research focuses on the settlement in services and in schools, while Plautdietsch, a form Seminole, Texas. As shown in Figure 1, after leav- of Low German, has been used for everyday mat- ing Prussia, the groups that moved to Chortitza ters. Additionally, Old Colony Mennonite commu- (present-day Ukraine) in Eastern Europe stayed nities have been in multiple triglossic situations there for almost 100 years before moving to as well. Each of the communities experienced Canada. About half of this group then moved to contact with the languages spoken by the greater Chihuahua, Mexico in 1922, 48 years later. Like community in which they settled. They needed to previous migrations, the migration from Canada communicate with the governments for legal pur- was characterized by the group’s aversion to gov- poses and with locals for commerce. Due to these ernment interference in their insular, pacifistic contact situations, lexical items were commonly community. The Canadian government instructed borrowed into Plautdietsch from Russian, English, them to learn English and enlist in the draft, both and Spanish (Cox 2015). Figure 2 shows the tri- of which were at odds with their belief system glossia of each stage of migration, from Prussia to (Friesen 1996). Fifty-six years after the migra- Latin America. tion to Mexico, in 1978, about 100 families of the High German is slowly being replaced by group in Chihuahua moved to Seminole, TX. This Plautdietsch as the language in which church move was motivated by lack of land for the grow- services are conducted (Steffen and Altenhofen ing population in Mexico, as well as the want for a 2014). This shift was apparent during recent field- different lifestyle than the Old Colony Mennonites work experience at a church service in Seminole, allowed (Burns 2017). Those who did not move to Texas. The service was posted as being in German Seminole mostly stayed in Chihuahua. and the bulletin was written in High German with Migrations from Prussia to the Ukraine to one short verse written in Plautdietsch. The first Canada and to Mexico were all motivated by con- speaker, who addressed the congregation about flict with the respective governments. The move news from the past week and upcoming events, from Mexico to Seminole, TX was motivated by spoke in Plautdietsch with a sprinkling of English conflict within their own community. There was (for example, instead of saying “Chorprobe”, as a lack of sufficient land for the growing popula- it was written in the bulletin, he said “choir prac- tice”). The pastor did not use English borrowings, 46 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2020 FIGURE 2: PLAUTDIETSCH TRIGLOSSIA Dutch Polish, Huagdietsch Russian, Plautdietsch German Plautdietsch Ukranian ca. 1650-1789 1789-1874 Huagdietsch Huagdietsch English Spanish, Plautdietsch Plautdietsch English 1874-1922 1922-present Figure reproduced from Cox (2015), 53 nor did he speak in High German, but gave the tion that Plautdietsch has been affected by contact whole message in Plautdietsch.
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