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New World Mennonite Low German: an Investigating of Changes in Progress

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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title New World Mennonite Low German: An Investigating of Changes in Progress Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2jm9f41f Author Burns, Roslyn Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California New World Mennonite Low German An Investigating of Changes in Progress By Roslyn Cherie Burns A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate in Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Gary B. Holland Keith Johnson Thomas F. Shannon Spring 2016 1 Abstract This dissertation explores dialect diversification in the long-distance New World Plautdietsch speech community. Plautdietsch dialects are traditionally classified as belonging to one of two types: either Chortitza or Molotschna. The traditional dialect classification has recently come under scrutiny because speakers rarely use features exclusive to either type. I propose that variation in vowel production is an alternative way of classifying dialect affiliation. In this project, I analyze both the production of vowels and the production of traditional dialect features used by native Plautdietsch speakers living in North America. This work finds that both the traditional dialect features and the innovations in the vowel system are linked to information about a community's migration history, but the two systems represent different aspects of a community's history. i Table of Contents Chapter 1: Problem and Definition 1 1.1 Plautdietsch Background 2 1.1.1 The History of Low German 2 Plautdietsch as a Written Language 10 1.1.2 Plautdietsch Speaking Populations in North America 11 1.2 Defining Mennonites 13 1.2.1 Prussian Mennonites 14 1.3 North America Data Collection Sites 20 1.3.1 Campeche, Mexico 20 1.3.2 Wichita, Kansas, USA 22 1.3.3 Fresno, California, USA 23 1.3.4 Seminole, Texas, USA 23 1.4 Social Variation in North America 25 1.4.1 Physical Community Structure 26 1.4.2 Gender Community Structure 26 1.4.3 Technology in the Community 28 1.4.4 Bible Study 29 1.4.5 Education System 29 1.4.6 Language Use 30 1.5 Linguistic Change in Long-Distance Speech Communities 31 1.6 Summary 36 Chapter 2: Vowel Shift Methodology 38 2.1 Traditional Plautdietsch Dialectology 38 2.2 Comparative Vowel Inventories 42 2.2.1 Long Vowels and Closing Diphthongs 43 2.2.2 Opening Diphthongs 46 2.2.3 Short Stressed Monophthongs 49 2.2.4 Summary 51 2.3 Theory of Vowel Shifts 51 2.3.1 Vowel Shift Typology 52 Principles of Chain Shifts 52 Patterns of Vowel Shifts 53 Other Changes 55 2.3.2 Formalization of Vowel Shifts: The Mechanisms of Perception and Production 55 Vowel Perception and Perceptual Distance 56 Auditory Perceptability Feeds Raising 56 Raising Production and Fronting as Raising 57 Dissimilation 58 2.3.3 History of the Plautdietsch Vowel Shift 59 Long Vowels and Closing Diphthongs 59 Opening Diphthongs 60 Short Vowels 63 2.4 Contextual Changes 64 Dorsal Obstruents 64 ii Dialect OA class Off-glide 64 Non-Initial Plosives 65 2.5 Summary 66 Chapter 3: Experimental Methodology 67 3.1 Data Elicitation 67 3.2 Participant Sampling 68 3.2.1 Population Gender Sample 70 3.2.2 Population Age Sample 71 3.2.3 Population Region Sample 72 3.2.4 Population Dialect Sample 74 3.2.5 Correlations in the Sample Population 75 3.3 Data Processing 76 3.4 Data Analysis 79 3.4.1 Normalization 79 Dialect Features 79 Vowel Data 80 3.4.2 Statistical Tests 81 Chapter 4: Individual Findings 83 4.1 Summer Elicitation 2012, 2013 (Southern Mexico) 83 4.1.1 ES01 83 4.1.2 Herman Rempel 85 4.1.3 HPC01 88 4.1.4 HPC02 91 4.1.5 HPC03 92 4.1.6 MT01 95 4.1.7 NE01 97 4.1.8 NE02 99 4.1.9 SF01 101 4.1.10 SF03 103 4.1.11 SF04 105 4.1.12 TMP01 107 4.2 Winter, Spring Elicitation 2014 (Southern Mexico) 110 4.2.1 HPC04 110 4.2.2 SF05 112 4.2.3 SF06 114 4.2.4 SF07 116 4.2.5 SF08 118 4.2.6 SF09 120 4.2.7 SF10 122 4.2.8 SF11 124 4.2.9 SF12 126 4.2.10 SF13 128 4.2.11 SF14 130 4.2.12 SF15 132 4.3 Summer Elicitation 2014 (Kansas) 134 iii 4.3.1 KS01 134 4.3.2 KS02 137 4.3.3 KS03 139 4.3.4 KS04 142 4.3.5 KS05 144 4.3.6 KS06 146 4.3.7 KS07 148 4.3.8 KS08 151 4.3.9 KS09 153 4.3.10 KS10 155 4.3.11 KS11 157 4.3.12 KS12 160 4.3.13 KS13 161 4.4 Summer Elicitation 2015 (California and Texas) 164 4.4.1 CA01 164 4.4.2 CA02 167 4.4.3 TX01 170 4.4.4 TX02 173 4.4.5 TX03 175 4.4.6 TX04 177 4.4.7 TX05 179 4.4.8 TX06 181 4.4.9 TX07 183 4.4.10 TX08 186 4.4.11 TX09 188 4.4.12 TX10 190 4.4.13 TX11 193 4.5 Individual Findings Summary 196 Chapter 5: Group Results 198 5.1 Group Vowel Analysis 198 5.5.1 Vowel Summary Statistics 198 5.1.2 Hierarchical Clustering of Vowel Categories: All Speakers 203 5.1.3 Hierarchical Clustering of Vowel Categories: All Vowel Classes 207 5.1.4 Summary of Vowel Clustering 210 5.2 Traditional Dialect Features 210 5.2.1 Traditional Dialect Features Summary Statistics 210 5.2.2 Traditional Dialect Feature Clustering 211 5.3 Group Result Summary 215 Chapter 6: Conclusion 217 6.1 Quantifying Linguistic Variation in Plautdietsch 217 6.2 Linguistic Change Across Speech Islands 218 6.3 Actuation of Linguistic Innovation 219 6.4 Closing 220 References 222 iv Appendix A: Migration Chart 233 Appendix B: Vowel Correspondence Chart 236 Appendix C: Word List Elicitation Material 254 1 Chapter 1 Problem and Definitions Plautdietsch, also known as Mennonite Low German, is a West Germanic (WGmc) language spoken by Mennonites who fled the Netherlands in the the 16th century during the Protestant Reformation. Members of the speech community are now spread across four continents, but in spite of the distance, they view themselves as a global speech community. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze linguistic variation in the pronunciation of Plautdietsch across different Mennonite speech islands in North America in order to define three aspects of its linguistic development: (1) The nature of phonetic variation in Plautdietsch-speaking communities (2) The role of distance in the diffusion of innovations though the long-distance speech community (3) The factors that mediate the development of linguistic innovation in the long-distance speech community The Plautdietsch community is known for its frequent migrations and has been called “trans-statal” by Cañas-Botos 2008 and “semi-nomadic” by its own members. Currently, Plautdietsch is spoken in over 10 countries spread across Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. By the time Plautdietsch was first documented in 1928, there was a two-way dialect division between the Russian Chortitza and Molotschna Mennonite settlements (Quiring 1928). Table 1.1 presents the features of the traditional dialect divide associated with these settlements (Epp 1993, Rempel 1995, and Tolksdorf 1985). Feature Chortitza Molotschna 1. Long /u/ Very front like Not as far forward. Standard German <ü> Sometimes modified to English <oo> 2. WGmc *aaw <eiw> <au>, sometimes <eiw> 3. <oa> Diphthong1 Front Back 4. Palatal Oral Stops <kj>, <gj> <tj>, <dj> 5. Verbal infinitives, Plural Suffix End in –n End in –e Table 1.1 Traditional Plautdietsch Dialect Variants A two-way dialect distinction has been maintained in many communities, but there is considerable variation with respect to which features are used by which group within present-day Mennonite communities (Brandt 1992, Moelleken 1987). Variation studies on Plautdietsch have mostly focused on syntactic variation (Kaufman 2007, 2011). These studies indicate that syntactic variation is not related to region and can differ considerably from village to village within a region. There has been considerably less focus on the role of phonetic variation within Mennonite communities. Many different documentary records of Plautdietsch indicate that there is, in fact, phonetic variation, but few scholars have attempted to systematically analyze the geographical and social distribution of the phonetic variation aside from Burns (2016).2 Currently, there are three main views of the dialect variation in Plautdietsch: 1 The front – back variation is only found in words which developed <oa> before Middle Low German velars. It is not found in words where the <oa> diphthong developed from Middle Low German er. 2 Asian groups have mostly gone undocumented. 2 (A) Variation is dependent on membership in one of two traditional dialect groups (B) Variation is only linked to low-level individual interactions and cannot be linked to traditional group membership or region (Moelleken 1987, Kaufmann 2007) (C) Variation may be linked to broader social categories such as region (Burns 2016) This present work provides evidence that while some phonetic variation in Plautdietsch communities is associated with traditional dialect categories, other variation is independent of membership in traditional categories. The variation that is not grounded in traditional dialect affiliation tends to be linked to regionally defined linguistic norms. I provide evidence that through the history of Mennonite settlement, distance has played an important role in the development of regional norms, and that social distance more than geographical distance has a profound role in the development and maintenance of regional norms.
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