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. This shift away with English and Spanish in its recent history. In from regular use of High German in institutions theory, as Plautdietsch receives more institutional could potentially slow the rate of linguistic change reinforcement in Seminole, it could become less experienced by Plautdietsch. susceptible to change. However, changing socio- As described by Kelly Hedges (1996): cultural attitudes seem to be affecting both the institutional support of Plautdietsch as well as the [...] the key to explaining language maintenance community’s linguistic ideology. among certain Anabaptist groups and certainly This research focuses on the contact induced among the Old Colony Mennonites of Chihuahua has little to do with a certain degree of ‘conser- change experienced by Plautdietsch since having vatism’ or ‘traditionalism’ as an independent fac- been in the Americas, and how it has changed as a tor. Nor can language maintenance be viewed as result of being in contact with Spanish and English. a natural artifact of Mennonite theology. Instead, This particular relationship, Plautdietsch in con- the maintenance of the two varieties and of the tact with Spanish and English, is understudied. linguistic ideology which dictates their norms Due to its status as endangered, it is es- of use must be viewed as the result of specific sential that Spanish contact induced change in processes of maintenance efforts situated in a Plautdietsch be studied further and documented specific social, economic, and political context. throughout its Latin American speech islands. This Like any cultural artifact, the dominant uses of research contributes to the work of documenting and attitudes about certain language varieties a small part of the historical path of Plautdietsch continue not through the weight of their own in its language contact induced evolution. The inertia or because they are bogged down by ‘tra- dition’, but through the workings of institutions, community in Seminole has had 100+ years of individuals, and factions. (pp. 335-36) contact with Spanish in Mexico and English in Canada and Texas. Borrowed lexicon from each of This suggests that the institutional support these languages is also expected to surface in the that High German has in church and school is Plautdietsch of Seminole, Texas. Data collected largely responsible for the relative lack of linguis- from three members of this community are ana- tic change in High German among Old Colony lyzed here. First, the methods of data collection Mennonites. It also suggests that the lack of in- and analysis are discussed. Then the results about stitutional support for Plautdietsch, the everyday how contact with English and Spanish have influ- language spoken outside of church and school, is enced the Plautdietsch spoken in Seminole, Texas the reason that Plautdietsch is more susceptible are presented. and open to change (Cox, Driedger, and Tucker 2013). These observations reinforce the expecta- Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas—Hovland 47
METHODS AND RESEARCH 4. What are some typical jobs people do in PARTICIPANTS Seminole?
The design of the data collection plan reflects Additional questions were developed during the challenge of finding willing participants in a the course of interviews in response to how the traditionally insular community. This influenced participants answered these prompts. The semi- the decision to design a flexible plan for data col- structured format of these interviews allowed for lection. Furthermore, logistical considerations, additional questions about topics where partici- such as time and difficulty locating participants pants provided answers that were rich with sought for the study limited the quantity of data available after data. However, this same aspect of the design for this study. This resulted in a data collection was also a disadvantage. If a participant’s initial plan designed primarily to look for typical lexi- answer did not provide the expected information, con changes influenced by contact situations. To it was difficult to ask follow-up questions on that conduct this study, data was collected by means of same topic. This resulted in some of the interviews interviews. Furthermore, the interview questions being shorter than intended, not to mention that were originally designed to elicit lexical borrow- the level of detail given in the answers varied from ings from Spanish specifically. participant to participant. Speakers of a language are generally unaware During the field work, three male partici- of their own speaking patterns or anomalies. The pants for this study were found. Some Mennonite resulting plan was to collect data by way of inter- women were asked in English and High German viewing Plautdietsch speakers individually. This about participating in interviews, but they did not strategy allowed tailoring of the interviews to each understand English or High German. participant based on the participants preferred lan- Due to the restriction on data quantity, this guage for the interview questions. It also allowed study takes a qualitative approach to analyzing for questions to be relatively open, yet tailored to multiple patterns displayed by all three partici- each participant. Additionally, in an attempt to find pants, rather than one pattern displayed by a mul- influence from Spanish on their Plautdietsch, data titude of participants. In addition to the limited was only collected from people who had grown number of participants, a quantitative approach up in Mexico and learned to speak Spanish there. for the research overall would be disadvantageous Lexical borrowings from Spanish were ex- for analyzing borrowed lexicon in this data set. pected to be found in semantic areas associated Conversely, a quantitative approach to analyzing with agriculture, local flora and fauna, technology, the consonant sound changes is advantageous in food, and Mexican culture. Essentially, the elicita- describing the patterns that are found. It is impor- tion strategy focused on semantic domains includ- tant to bear in mind that while some of the data ing items that might have been introduced to this will be presented in a quantitative manner later in population since moving from Canada in the early this paper, this research is qualitative. 1920s. The interview questions were based on The three participants were all men over these expectations. The compiled list of questions the age of 50. Each had grown up in Mexico, in was designed to elicit responses that contain lexi- campos outside of Cuauhtémoc, in the state of con from these categories. The following is a short Chihuahua, not far south of the Texas border. All list of general questions each of the participants three participants left Mexico for Texas roughly was asked to prompt them to speak about these between the ages of 15-25. They learned to speak categories in a general manner (rather than look- Spanish while growing up in Mexico. Original ing for specific answers). data collection plans involved interviews conduct- 1. What do you remember from growing ed in Spanish, but two of the participants preferred up in Mexico? to respond to English interview questions because 2. Are there any foods or practices that they felt more comfortable with English. These you adopted from Mexican culture? two participants are leaders in the religious com- 3. What were some typical jobs people did munity and as such, they have more exposure to in Mexico? High German than the average community mem- ber. Even so, much of their day to day work is con- 48 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2020 ducted in Plautdietsch and in English. The other well as, among /v/s and /w/s. The lexemes that participant works with automobiles and conducts contain these sounds were also flagged for further much of his work in Plautdietsch and seemingly analysis. equal amounts in English and Spanish. He also seemed to have been in contact with Spanish more Data Limitations intensely for more of his youth than the other two participants. It seems that oral alveolar taps [ ] are in free Each interview had a different duration. variation with alveolar approximants [ ] in addi- Interview one lasted 19 minutes; interview two tion to acting as allophones of /d/. Clearɾ examples lasted 12 minutes, 30 seconds; interview three of this in Zeida and Canada as well as inɹ Bura and lasted 18 minutes, 45 seconds; and interview four berät are seen. Out of 169 instances of taps, I was lasted 10 minutes, 39 seconds. Though there were only able to find two clear cases of taps represent- only three participants, there are four recordings. ing and underlying /d/. The gross majority of taps The first interview was interrupted and later re- appear to be rhotics underlyingly. The occasional sumed. The second recording is the second half of occurrence of a tap that is underlyingly /d/, does that interview. not appear to affect this data. After collecting the data, the application Praat (Boersma and Weenink 2020) was utilized to lis- CONTACT INFLUENCE ON CONSONANTS ten to the recordings and read the spectrogram while transcribing. Only the sections of the inter- views that were in Plautdietsch were transcribed. Rhotics Neither the questions / prompts nor the sections of dialogue that were the participants explaining According to Wiese (2003, 41), “the phoneme what they said in English or Spanish were tran- /r/ in German and many other languages is a cha- scribed. However, the use of borrowed words or meleon in terms of segmental features, which phrases that were not obviously conscientious mo- change frequently and quickly, and which seem ments of code-switching were noted. Decisions largely irrelevant with respect to phonological about whether code-switching was conscientious regularities”. He also states that rhotics do not or not were based on unnaturally long breaks (or have a tendency to change in a particular direc- lack thereof) directly before the word in ques- tion. In other words, one cannot anticipate how tion. Whether a pause was unnaturally long was the rhotics in language will change (as opposed determined by impressionistic means rather than to other consonants where tendencies for lenition measurement. If the speaker paused in a way that or fortition can be anticipated). The case of rhot- broke the flow of their speech pattern before utter- ics for Plautdietsch in Seminole, TX follows these ing a word or phrase in English or Spanish, it was claims. deemed code-switching rather than a borrowing. The alveolar approximant rhotic in During the transcription process, focus was Plautdietsch, which is quite similar to the English directed towards lexical items borrowed from rhotic, is attested to existing in northern Poland in English and Spanish. I relied on my pre-existing the late 1700s (cf. Moelleken, 1966, 1993; Brandt knowledge of English, Spanish, and High German 1992, 37, as cited in Cox 2015). This means that when deciphering whether lexical items were bor- the bunched /r/ was not borrowed as a result of con- rowed or not. When a word appeared to possibly tact with English in Canada or Texas. The use of a be an English borrowing, a Dutch-English and a bunched /r/ in the pronunciation of the word Darp German-English dictionary were consulted to de- (“village”) supports this attestation (neverthe- cide whether the term was actually borrowed or less, contact with English could contribute to the simply a pre-existing cognate. One such word that maintenance of this rhotic variety). Additionally, was initially suspected of being an English bor- the word village is a high frequency token and ap- rowing was Buddel (‘bottle’); a word which also pears to be endemic to Plautdietsch, rather than a has a cognate in German, Buddel (‘bottle’). borrowed term. Neither English nor Spanish have Additionally, a pattern emerged showing un- cognates for this word. There is a shared cognate expected variation among rhotic allophones, as with German though, the word Dorf (village). Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas—Hovland 49
Table 2: Free Variation between Vocalic and Bunched Rhotics
Table 3: Free Variation between Vocalic and Bunched Rhotics
Rhotics Simple onset Complex onset Intervocalic Complex coda Simple coda Total / /Bunched 6 29 17 40 58 150 / /Vocalic 0 0 1 108 129 238 ɹ / /Tap 22 64 70 4 9 169 ɐ /r/Trill 5 0 1 0 0 6 ɾ / /Velar 0 2 0 0 0 2
ʁ However, the rhotic for the German cognate is a and “hier”. Table 2 shows a comparison of these vocalic /r/, a sound which exists in Plautdietsch free variation uses. but is not used in this circumstance. In fact, if any Interestingly enough, the lexical items in rhotic sounds were borrowed, it could be argued Table 2 were produced by the same speakers. that vocalic rhotics were borrowed from contact Furthermore, they both produced both versions of with High German in churches and schools. the words in one, uninterrupted segment of their According to the research done by Cox, respective interviews. In other words, Participant Driedger, and Tucker (2013) on the Plautdietsch 1 produced both versions of hia in consecutive spoken in Canada, the underlying rhotic phoneme sentences. Likewise, Speaker 3 produced both is an alveolar trill. They list the allophonic vari- versions of veschieden in close proximity. This ants as an alveolar trill [r], an alveolar tap [ ], indicates that the speakers do not have indi- and a retroflex tap [ ]. They also state that trill vidual preferences for which allophone they use. and the tap are in free variation while the retroɾ - Additionally, it demonstrates that the use of either flex allophone surfacesɻ in non-intervocalic codas. allophone is not influenced by the interview ques- Moelleken (1966, 1993 as cited in Cox et al. 2013) tions, as Speaker 1 was interviewed in English and first provided this description about the rhotics Speaker 3 was interviewed in Spanish. used by Mennonite speakers of Plautdietsch in As seen in Table 3, there are 5 varieties of Mexico. The data collected in Seminole shows a rhotics that are attested in my data. It is interest- few differences. It does not provide many instanc- ing to note the presence of the velar fricative and es of a trill /r/. The bunched /r/ is not confined the alveolar trill. Their presence suggests that to non-intervocalic coda positions. Vocalic /r/s, there could be five allophonic varieties of rhotics. which are not mentioned in Cox’s (2015) work, However, due to their rare usage in this data, I will appear to only occur in non-intervocalic coda po- not address them further. The other three varieties, sitions. This does not mean that rhotic trills and which I will refer to as ‘bunched’, ‘vocalic’, and taps cannot also appear in this position. In fact, ‘tap’, are used regularly throughout this data set. this data provides examples of the vocalic /r/ and According to Cox et al. (2013), a vocalic rhotic bunched /r/ occurring in free variation in the words is not listed as a rhotic allophone in Canadian veschieden (“different”) and hia (“here”); words Plautdietsch. I have listed it here for two reasons. which in High German are spelled “verschieden” One, there are vocalic rhotics in High German, a language this community is familiar with hear- 50 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2020
Table 4: Rhotics in Borrowed Words
English Spanish Unclear / / Bunched 15 0 1 / / Tap 0 11 12 ɹ ɾ
Table 5: Allophonic Variation among Borrowed Lexicon (Tap Is ‘T’. Bunched Is ‘B’.) Onset Intervocalic Coda English 0T 7B 0T 1B 0T 8B Spanish 1T 0B 8T 0B 2T 0B
ing though few besides religious leaders speak stop or fricative. Speaker 1 produces the consonant it or understand it. Two, we see examples of free cluster /kr/ twice, but he alternates between the tap variation between these two allophones in words and bunched rhotic allophones in his productions. like ‘hier’ (6 vocalic, 2 bunched), ‘wir’ (22 vo- Likewise, the trill rhotic is used nearly as in- calic, 5 bunched), and ‘verschieden’(3 vocalic, 1 frequently as the velar rhotic. Two out of the four bunched), words which all have direct cognates in instances were words borrowed from or address- High German. ing Spanish (ranchero) and Russian (Russlaunt), languages both of which have trilled rhotics in Discussion their consonant inventories. The reasoning for the other two instances is unclear, but both occur at Wiese’s (2003) paper on variation of rhotics in the word onset, which correlates with the other German demonstrates examples of rhotics chang- instances of trilled rhotics (save the Spanish code- ing quickly in relatively little time. This could ac- switch /buro/ ‘donkey’). count for the seemingly lax phonological rules for Table 4 displays the total number of rhotics rhotics in Plautdietsch. Apart from vocalic rhotics among words borrowed from English and Spanish. only occurring syllable- or word-finally, bunched Referring back to Table 3, we see that even though and tap rhotics can occur in any position: as the instances of these rhotics are found at both syllable onset, intervocalically or as the coda. onsets as well as codas, the numbers demonstrate It seems that the two outliers of the /r/ inven- that taps have a higher tendency of appearing as an tory [r] (trill) and [ ] (velar) are direct results of onset or intervocalically. Contrarily, the bunched language contact. The velar rhotic only appears rhotics have a higher tendency to surface as codas. twice, directly afterʁ the velar fricative /x/; a com- These tendencies correlate with the locations of bination which is common in High German. For rhotics in the borrowed words. The words which I instance, one of the velar rhotics appears in the labeled “unclear” could come from either English word [x aft], which, according to Koehler and or Northern Mexico (where it is common for Koehler (2013), should be pronounced [k uft]. English words to be borrowed into Spanish). None Participantʁ 2, who produced both of the velar rhot- of the vocalic rhotic instances occurred in words ics, is a pastor who speaks High German. Theɾɔ High that were borrowings from English or Spanish. German cognate for this word is ‘kraft’ [k aft]. It Table 5 shows the distribution of rhotics is likely that this participant, having velar rhotics among lexical items borrowed from English and in his repertoire, produces a velar rhotic ʁin con- Spanish. It demonstrates a tendency for rhotics to sonant clusters, directly following another velar appear in certain locations in borrowed terms de- consonant. There are no other instances where this pending on the term’s source language. This could speaker produces a consonant cluster with a velar provide useful support when determining through Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas—Hovland 51
Table 6: Number and place of [v], [w], and [ ] tokens
Tokens Onset Complex Onset Intervocalicʋ Total [v] 324 1 27 352 (71%) [w] 119 5 1 125 (25%) [ ] 18 0 3 21 (4%) ʋ
Table 7: Number and place of [v], [w], and [ ] tokens
Plautdietsch [v] [w] [ ] ʋ Total
which language a word entered Plautdietsch. This hood and number of tokens borrowed is much will be explored more in a later discussion about greater. This also seems to be the case for borrow- the source of the Plautdietsch word Restaraunt. ing of sounds, especially the sounds [v], [w], and Additionally, it must be noted that some of the [ ] in Plautdietsch tap tokens may actually be allophonic with alveo- The transcription process revealed an un- lar stops. We can see this in words like ‘Canada’ expectedʋ number of labio-velar approximants, and ‘soda’, where taps are used in lieu of stops. In or /w/s. This seemed odd due to the lack of this counting tap tokens, underlying phonemes are not sound in German and Plautdietsch according to distinguished. Apart from ‘Canada’ and ‘soda’, no Cox (2015). The instances of /w/ as well as /v/, the other taps were found that appeared to be underly- phoneme expected in place of /w/, were flagged ingly /d/s. It is possible that there are more, but and discovered to be in allophonic variation with further analysis is beyond the scope of this work. /v/. There were also a few allophonic occurrences of a voiced labiodental approximant ([ ]). Table Vs and Ws 6 charts the number of occurrences of each sound ([v], [w], and [ ]). This table shows that theʋ major- “Psycholinguistics experiments indicate that ity of these tokens surfaced as simple onsets and bilingual speakers store close together words from that the majorityʋ were [v], which is the underlying the two languages which they speak if those words phoneme. What is surprising is the percentage of are similar in form or meaning” (Dijkstra 2003, [w]s. A quarter of all of the tokens is a sound that 2008; Smits et al. 2006, 2009 as cited in Versloot was not expected to be found in Plautdietsch at and Hoekstra 2016, 1223). Versloot and Hoekstra all. This illustrates that the consonant inventory elaborate on this by asserting that items that “are of Plautdietsch has been influenced by prolonged similar in form and meaning are stored even closer contact with English. together,…”(2016, 1224) and that when the lan- Table 7 explores three words which surfaced guages involved are genetic relatives, the likeli- with each of the allophones. It presents data on 52 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2020 three cognate pairs in Plautdietsch and English. Lexical Borrowings from These cognate pairs (wie/we; waut/what; wuat/ English and Spanish word) contrast by their initial sounds ([v], [w] and [ ]). Orthographic representations for Plautdietsch A variety of lexical borrowings are found are provided in Table 7 to show their similarities. throughout the data collected in Seminole, Texas Asʋ seen in this table, the majority of the lexical on Plautdietsch. Data collection procedures were items for “we” and “word” are produced with a designed to find lexical items that had been bor- labiodental fricative [v]. Even though both items rowed as a result of adaptation to new surround- have close cognates in English, they belong to ings. Words in categories such as agriculture, food, lexical categories which are not easily borrowed. and culture (of the new communities with which Pronouns are high frequency tokens and are rarely they came into contact) were expected. Contrary borrowed. Likewise, “word” is a common, rela- to these expectations, many of the lexical items tively high frequency token. It is more likely to be borrowed from English turned out to be discourse borrowed than a pronoun, but is still unlikely to markers. be borrowed. The fact that “what” is a discourse Goss and Salmons (2000) discuss a possible marker, and, as previously addressed, is from a reasoning for the ease of pragmatic detachability category from which Plautdietsch regularly bor- of discourse markers: rows English terms, could explain why there is a higher percentage of this word surfacing with [w] At the same time, they are high-frequency items than with [v]. These words do not appear to be in natural discourse and they occur in particu- larly salient positions, motivating possible bor- borrowed, but rather it appears that the phoneme rowing on social grounds alone. This puts them of the English cognate counterpart is used in free at a natural seam between mundane lexical variation with the phoneme of the Plautdietsch borrowing (loaning of content morphemes) and cognate counterpart. It is notable, however, that less common structural interference (loaning of the sound /w/ also appears in other words which system morphemes) (p. 482). have English cognate counterparts, but that are not minimal pairs like those in Table 7. According According to Matras (1998, as cited in Fuller to my data, the [w] allophone is never used for 2001), the pragmatic detachability hierarchy es- words that have no English counterpart. Even a sentially claims that operational/non-lexical items word which I transcribed as [ watə a] is likely are higher on the hierarchy and therefore easier to the word Wotarua which means “water pipe” or borrow than lexical/content-oriented items. Matras “water hose”. In other words, ˈ it is ɾ still similar also claims that “the donor language is pragmati- to an English word in form and meaning, that is cally dominant, and that this brings about the bor- “water”. rowing of the entire discourse-marking system…” Furthermore, one of the speakers demonstrated (Matras 1998, as cited in Fuller 2001, 352). Fuller that he knows that these two sounds (/v/ and /w/) (2001) attests: are phonemically distinct in English by produc- ing “He was going very fast” and “that means that The German-origin DMs [discourse markers] he was very fast”. This speaker, however, regu- that persist in these PG [Pennsylvania German] data are vestiges of a former discourse-marking larly uses these sounds in free allophonic variation system. They are all low on the pragmatic- when speaking Plautdietsch. This suggests that detachability scale, indicating that not only does prolonged contact with English could be resulting pragmatic detachability lead to early borrowing, in the addition of [w] and [ ] as allophones of /v/. but it also may lead to early loss of a DM from It remains to be seen whether this variation will the recipient language in a language-contact situ- spread to other words in Plautdietschʋ which are ation (p. 367). not borrowed from English. The data collected in Seminole seems to cor- relate with this observation about Pennsylvania German. The English discourse markers that appeared were much more varied than the ones in Plautdietsch (English 15, Plautdietsch 8). Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas—Hovland 53
However, the number of Plautdietsch tokens total While these trends do appear in the data outweighed the number of English tokens (English from Seminole, I question whether it can be said 23, Plautdietsch 32). for certain that these words entered Plautdietsch Boas and Weilbacher (2007) discuss the func- through English. It is very common for words to tion of “you know” in Texas German as a discourse be borrowed from English into Spanish. Jet, he- marker. There were no instances of “you know” licopter, truck and trailer all have close cognate found in the Seminole data set. Alternatively, the pairs in Spanish and are all items that these speak- English word “see” is used as a discourse marker ing groups encountered after leaving Canada in of a similar nature to “you know” in the Seminole the 1920s. (The terms buggy and box were cer- data. It is used to mark the start of a clarification, tainly items that they encountered before leaving as well as, to mark introspection, qualities which Canada.) Terms that seem to be from English, that Boas and Weilbacher (2007) claim make the dis- are used for technologies that emerged after the course marking use of “you know” pragmatically 1920s, could actually be borrowed via Spanish. detachable. The words jet and helicopter are both attested Lexical items are not only borrowed from in Spanish as early as 1946 (Real Academia one category, though. Some Mennonites colo- Española n.d.). A closer look at such words used nies in Bolivia that descended from the colonies in a variety of speech islands in this archipelago in Mexico obtain most of the borrowed Spanish would be needed to determine whether these terms inventory from the following lexical categories: are borrowed directly from English, or if they are Civil society and goods; Natural environment; borrowed through Spanish. Discourse; Other (Cox 2015). In the Seminole data, the main category from which Spanish words Results are borrowed is food. There are very few tokens from other categories. This difference seems to The borrowed lexicon that was found in the correlate with the community in Seminole having collected data is consistent with the historical been in contact with Spanish for a shorter period migration path of this group of speakers. Though of time. Cox (2015) comments that the borrow- finding Spanish borrowings was the initial goal ings from Spanish are relatively scarce when of this research, the majority of the borrowings compared to how long the groups in Bolivia have turned out to be from English, the language with been in contact with Spanish; almost 100 years which they have had a longer, combined amount at the time the article was published. In contrast, of contact (in Canada and Texas). Table 8 shows the items borrowed from English, for these same the lexical categories of borrowed words from groups of speakers, come from a wider variety of English and Spanish. lexical categories: food and drink; Civil society The lexicon borrowed from English pertains to and goods; Tools and technologies; Vehicles and a bigger variety of lexical categories: agriculture, transportation; Electricity; Other (Cox 2015). machinery, careers, food, and discourse mark- ers. The majority of the lexicon borrowed from With transportation, linguistic influence extends Spanish pertain to the lexical category, food. In as much to technologies outside of the traditional both English and Spanish there are many lexical order of Old Colony society (jet “jet”, airplane, Helikopta “helicopter”) as to accepted agricultur- items borrowed for types of food. These borrow- al implements (Trakta “tractor”. Trock “truck”, ings were expected due to the nature of introduc- Träla “trailer”, and even preferred modes of tion to new foods with movement from region local transportation (Bogge “buggy”, Top “top, to region. Other borrowed lexical items, though cover (of a buggy)”, Baks “box (of a buggy)”). fewer, also came from categories associated with With electricity, by comparison, a technology adjusting to new cultures and environments, such whose accepted patterns of use remain a mat- as agriculture and societal norms. Unexpectedly, ter of contention in some Bolivian Old Colony many of the borrowings from English were dis- settlements, English borrowings cover a range course markers. Due to the lack of naturalization of associated technologies and actions… (Cox into Plautdietsch, it would seem that many of the 2015, p. 62) adoptions of discourse markers from English are relatively new. This suggests that said discourse 54 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2020
Table 8: Lexical Categories of Borrowings from English and Spanish
English Spanish Lexical Category # Lexical Category # Discourse markers 21 Discourse markers 2 Food 17 Food 16 Agriculture 7 Fauna 4 Man-made products 7 Miscellaneous 4 Careers 5 Comparative adjectives 3 Miscellaneous 6 markers were borrowed more recently, since being likely that the source language for “restaraunt” is in contact with English in Texas rather than in English. Comparing etymological timelines, pho- Canada. netic differences and lexical stress has been useful There are a few borrowed lexical items whose to solving the mystery of the borrowing origins for source languages were more difficult to identify. many of these items. It is common for English lexical items to be bor- The majority of the borrowed lexicon from rowed into Spanish in Northern Mexico, where Spanish is food-related, while English has lexicon this community was located before moving to from a bigger variety of lexical categories. When Seminole, Texas. By comparing the phonetic this community was in Mexico, they maintained transcriptions of these tokens from my data with their previous way of living. Therefore, they did the pronunciation of the words in Spanish and not need to borrow many new lexical terms from English, I postulate the source languages for the the Spanish-speaking community. In fact, it is pos- tokens in Table 9. sible that the majority of the words borrowed from For lexical items that have cognates in High Spanish were in fact borrowed since the commu- German, English and/or Spanish, I investigated nity’s relocation to Texas. Mexican food is very their etymological timelines to decipher from common in Texas and during recent field research, which language they are borrowed. For example, multiple Mennonite families were observed dining ‘restaurant’ did not exist as a German word until in a Mexican restaurant. The community that relo- this community was already in Canada and about cated to Texas and the community that remains in to move to Mexico (Pfeifer et al. 1993). This meth- Canada are more progressive in their lifestyles and od was also used for words like ‘truck’, ‘plastic’, therefore borrow English terms that help describe ‘soda’ and ‘bakery’. that lifestyle. Eating Mexican dishes is part of that The decision to postulate that English is the lifestyle in Texas. This does not necessarily mean, source language for “restaraunt” (‘restaurant’) in however, that food terms were borrowed from Table 9 is based on the presence of a schwa rather Spanish through English. The aforementioned than a diphthong in [ æstə nt z p] and drop- Mexican restaurant had a Spanish-speaking staff, ping of that same syllable in the second token (as and according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2018), is common in many Americanˈɾ ˌɾɔ dialects)ʊ suggests 47% of the population of Seminole is Hispanic or English as the source language. Table 5 supports Latino. the theory that the word for “restaurant” was bor- rowed from Spanish, as out of the four instances of Discussion rhotics, all, onsets and intervocalic, were produced as taps ([ stə nt ]/[ æstə nt]). Depending on When comparing the data collected from the speaker, however, the lexical stress correlates members of the Mexican-descended Mennonite with English,ˈɾɛ andˌɾɔ theʰ wordˈɾ cameˌɾɔ into the English community in Seminole with that of data from the language when this community’s’ forefathers Mexican descended-Mennonites in Bolivia, one were still in Canada. Therefore, it seems most clear difference appears. Cox (2015) lists the lexi- Plautdietsch Speakers in Seminole, Texas—Hovland 55
Table 9: Source Languages for Borrowed Tokens in Plautdietsch
Speaker Plautdietsch English Spanish SL 2 Spanish
1, 2 [ˈlontʃes] /lʌntʃ/ /ˈlontʃes/ English
Steffen, Joachim, and Cléo Altenhofen. 2014. “Spracharchipele des Deutschen in Lateinamerika: Dynamik der Sprachvernet- zungen im mehrsprachigen Raum.” Zeitschrift fur Dialektologie und Linguistik 81:34-60. U.S. Census Bureau. 2018. “Seminole City, Texas. V2018.” Accessed April 10, 2020 (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/ seminolecitytexas/RHI725218). Versloot, Arjen, and Eric Hoekstra. 2016. “Attraction between Words as a Function of Frequency and Representational Distance: Words in the Bilingual Brain.” Linguistics 54(6): 1223-40 Wiese, Richard. 2003. “The Unity and Variation of (German) /r/.” Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 70:25-43.