Pennsylvania Dutch: The German Who Are Not Dutch

You will hear the phrase Pennsylvania Dutch all over this county, and it puzzles newcomers, because these families are not from the Netherlands at all. They are German. The word Dutch here is not a mistake so much as an old usage.

Centuries ago, the English word Dutch covered all speakers of the Germanic tongues, from the Rhine Valley south to Switzerland, and it was the ordinary eighteenth century term for these Rhineland immigrants. It echoes the German word Deutsch, which simply means German. Only later did Dutch narrow to mean the people of Holland, leaving Pennsylvania Dutch sounding like a riddle.

Most of these settlers came from the Palatinate, a region along the Rhine, with others from Baden, Hesse, the Rhineland, Switzerland, and the Alsace region of France. They brought with them a language that survives to this day. Pennsylvania Dutch, sometimes called Pennsylvania German, is a real spoken dialect rooted in the German of the Palatinate, seasoned over three centuries with English words.

Amish and Old Order Mennonite children still grow up speaking it at home, learning English only when they start school. So when you hear neighbors chatting in what sounds like German at a farm stand, you are hearing a living dialect that crossed the Atlantic before the American Revolution and never fell silent.