70 - 1 4 ,1 1 6 WENGER, Marion Roy, 1932- A SWISS-GERMAN DIALECT STUDY: THREE LIN­ GUISTIC ISLANDS IN MIDWESTERN U .S.A . [Sampler Tape Recording not included with microfilm. Available for ct-nsultation at The Ohio State University Library!]. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 Language and Literatui?e, linguistics University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIIŒD A SWISS-GERMAN DIALECT STUDY: THREE LINGUISTIC ISLANDS IN MIDWESTERN U.S.A. DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for. the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Marion Roy Wenger, B. A ., M. A. » The Ohio State University 1969 Approved by m/j A dviser Departmène of German ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Two men are primarily responsible for the stimulation which led to this dissertation: Professor Wolfgang Fleischhauer and Professor Dieter Cunz. As a "Doktorvater", Professor Fleischhauer has been all things to me: first, the conscientious and enthusiastic teacher guiding my first steps in research, subsequently, the openhanded elder scholar sharing his own discoveries with me and, most importantly, a warm friend in­ spiring me and others with his "menschliche W krm eFrom him, with him, through him, I came to an appreciation of dialect research as an eminently humane study beyond the austerity of linguistic inquiry, the formal analysis of symbols and the description of their configuration. This tribute also commemorates Professor Cunz, who found time to take a personal interest in my own historical heritage and urged me to work that cultural lode. Throughout this protracted research pro­ ject, he remained constant in his kindly, but firm encouragement, the "benevolent despot" beyond compare, whom we now miss keenly. 11 Also deserving of recognition are three archivist-librarians who made historical documents available to me: Nelson Springer, of the Mennonite Historical Library, Delbert Gratz, of the Bluff ton College Library and James O. Lehman, of the Eastern Mennonite College Li­ b ra ry . For research grant funds and for time freed to pursue this project, I am further endebted to my employer, Goshen College. Finally, my very special thanks, a warm [daijkxoSce:]] goes to all of my erstwhile informants, since become my friends, in the three linguistic islands visited and studied. Ill VITA March 25, 1932 Born - Elkhart, Indiana 1958 ..................... B. A. , Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana 1958-1959 . German Government Scholar, Ruprecht- Karl University, Heidelberg, Germany 1 9 6 1 . M. A. , The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1961-1962 . Instructor, Department of Foreign Languages, Bethel College, Newton, Kansas 1963-1970 . Associate Professor, German Department, Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Germanisties Studies in Germanic Linguistics. Professors Wolfgang Fleischhauer, Gerhard Eis, Peter Wapnewski Studies in Germanic Literature. Professors Oskar Seidlin, Friedrich Sengle, Bert Nagel Studies in Anthropological Linguistics. Professor Leonard Newmark IV TABLE OF CONTENTS P age ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................ii VITA ..................................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ............................ vi INTRODUCTION. .............................................................................................. 1 C hapter I. THE HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING OF SWDTA................................................................................4 II. THE COLLECTION OF THE DATA ..............................................20 III. PHONOLOGY ............................................................... 44 IV. FORM CLASSES .......................................................................................7 6 V. WORD FORMATION .........................................................................135 VI. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CLAUSE STRUCTURE . 199 APPENDIXES ................................................................................................................225 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 252 LIST OF TABLES T able Page 1. Consonants ......................................................................................................47 2. Consonantal Allophones: Obstruents ..................................................50 3. Vowels, Semi-Vowels and Diphthong Glides ..... 54 4. High c.nd M id Vowels L e n g th ...................................................................56 5. Allophones of High Vowels and Semi-Vowels ...............................60 6. Personal Pronouns.................................................................................... 92 7. Modal Auxiliaries ........................................................................................112 8. Monosyllabic Verbs .............................................................................115 9. Spatial Adverbs and Prepositions .....................................................124 VI INTRODUCTION At the outset, a word of clarification is in order. A definition of the scope of the present work will help to explain its title. Just as it was a matter of immediate practical concern for the writer to set the limits of a feasible research project, so the reader will be served by a delimitation of the topic. Attention is directed, then, not to Swiss- German dialects in America at large, nor even more narrowly, to such as may be found in Ohio and Indiana; the focus here is on the descrip­ tion of one Swiss-German dialect as it is spoken in three com­ munities in these two states. This dialect of Swiss-German, whose geographical and historical location is detailed below, is commonly called ’’Schwyzerdüütsch" by its native speakers, but in order to avoid a possible confusion with a group of dialects in the Swiss homeland currently referred to in the collective sense by the same name, the particular American variety treated here will be identified by the abbreviation Sw d t A . In this presentation, the description of the grammatical structure of SwdtA. is supplemented by selected representative texts which have been transcribed from the spoken language and a vocabulary which is 1 based on these and similar transcriptions undertaken by the author in the course of this research. But grammar and vocabulary have not been arranged according to the logic of a manual for the language- learner, for which purpose additional prescriptive rules of usage would be required. The aim of this work has been rather to provide a,n accurate and comprehensive description of the dialect as it is spoken and primarily in terms of its own inherent patterns and structure, although not to the exclusion of references to related dia­ lects, past and present, at points which invite comparison. The main body of linguistic material is prefaced by an historical sketch of the social matrix of SwdtA. and a discussion of methods used in gathering the data which constitute the corpus upon which the description has been based. Living language is, by definition, changing language. And the present state of SwdtA. is not only a product of the past it is the present aspect of continuing change. Thus, to lift out one arbitrarily chosen moment in the sweep of change and to hold that one moment in artificial suspension for more deliberate examination will, of necess­ ity , result in a time-bound document. In a larger perspective, how­ ever, the meaning of this descriptive work will reach beyond the purely momentary to the extent that it faithfully records that moment. The larger frame of reference is the historically self-conscious tradition of which SwdtA. is but one facet. At best, this study of SwdtA. will 3 reflect something of that sense of history as it contributes to the doc­ umentation of one immigrant sub-culture and of immigrant languages in America in general. CHAPTER I THE HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING OF SWDTA. I, 0 The geographical location of the target communities 1, 1 The rationale for selecting the communities 1,2 The communities as "linguistic islands" 1. 3 The founding of the communities 1.4 Religious conservatism and dialect retention 1, 5 Linguistic unity and religious plurality 1, 6 The impact of English on the communities 1.0 It is not coincidental that of the three communities studied, Kidron, Ohio, a rural center located in Wayne County, is at once the easternmost and the earliest settlement in the group. A second area of concentration of speakers of SwdtA. embraces parts of Putnam County and Allen County in northwestern Ohio, in the Pandora-Bluff ton area. The third and newest settlement is located in and around the town of Berne, Indiana, in Adams County. All three are bound by a common ethnic and religious heritage which can be traced back to the Canton of Berne, Switzerland; and since the migration to America in the nineteenth century, interchange and intermarriage between these communities have strengthened the ties. To be sure, differences in speech can be observed from one geographical group to another, from one family to another and indeed from one generation to another. But these differences are slight in comparison with the overwhelming sim­ ilarities and they are best understood as variants of one uniform dia­ lect, SwdtA., which is common to all three