Cole Callen and Valérie Keppenne
Have you ever thought about what happens when two languages or dialects come into contact with one another? This happens more than you might think, and when it does happen, a lot of interesting things can take place. A great example of this sort of “language contact” can be found right here in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Dutch has been spoken in Pennsylvania for more than 300 years, and its presence has even affected some dialects of English in The Commonwealth. You may have heard people use words that have been “borrowed” from Pennsylvania Dutch, and you might even use some of these words yourself!
Take the quiz to test your knowledge of Pennsylvania Dutch expressions that were borrowed into English. You may be surprised at how many of them you actually know!
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- Can you stop rutching, please? I’m trying to focus here.
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The verb rutch is from PA Dutch “rutsche”, and as you may have guessed, it means something like ‘slide’ or ‘wiggle’. It can even be used with English verb endings, as in “the little girl was rutching during class”.
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- My boss was a little angry with me today. I just had a really dopplich day.
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The adjective dopplich comes from PA Dutch, and as you probably guessed from the context, it is used to describe a clumsy person. It is probably related to the German word “dabbelig”, which sounds quite similar to dopplich.
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- I thought we went to the store yesterday. Then I saw that the bread is all.
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Contrary to what you may think, this doesn’t mean that there is bread everywhere. This expression, found also in PA Dutch “alle sei”, means something like ‘all gone’ or ‘nothing left’. Looks like someone forgot to buy bread!
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- When you get a chance, can you make the lights out?
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Rest assured, no one is asking you to give the lights a kiss! When used in this way, the phrase make out is a word-for-word translation from the PA Dutch verb “ausmache”, meaning ‘to turn/switch off’.
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- I used to really like her, but nowadays, she’s always being so big-feeling.
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The adjective big-feeling means ‘being a show off’ or ‘being arrogant’. As is sometimes the case in language research, the origins of this expression are somewhat mysterious: It can be found both in PA Dutch as well as older varieties of English that were spoken in PA in the 18th century.
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- What type of natural phenomenon is the sentence below referring to?
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The verb make down comes from PA Dutch “runnermache”, and as you may have guessed, it means ‘rain heavily’. This is another example of a word-for-word translation.
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- This is the first time I have ever seen a red squirrel since I am here!
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In PA Dutch, it’s perfectly normal to use the present tense to refer to events that have begun in the past. Some English dialects in PA have adopted this way of speaking, and they may use it instead of the more common form ‘since I’ve been here’. Another example is “I am studying for three years.” Can you guess what another way of saying this would be?
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- Read the following conversation between John and Alicia in their kitchen, and notice the underlined part.
Alicia: I’m having a hard time opening this jar. The lid is really stuck. 
John: If you leave me, I can try to open it.
Alicia: Okay!
Do you think John is alone in the kitchen now?
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No, John and Alicia are still in the same room! Some PA English dialects use leave and let interchangeably. This is not surprising, as leave and let have one common translation in PA Dutch, “losse”.
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- Which of these two images do you think best represents the sentence below?
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You probably chose the image on the left, since it’s unlikely that a person would be tossed over a dishtowel. Some dialects of English in PA have adopted sentence structures similar to what we find in PA Dutch. In this case, the sentence “She tossed me over a dishtowel” just means “She tossed me a dishtowel.”
After having taken the quiz, hopefully you can really see how Pennsylvania Dutch has influenced English in Pennsylvania in very interesting ways! This is just one example of what can happen when languages collide, but there are lots of other possibilities too. You can learn about them in the article “Immigrant Languages in the United States – Disappearing or Enduring?” in this issue of our newsletter. And for more on Pennsylvania Dutch, you may want to check out the interview with Dr. Mike Putnam, and explore the links below.
Links:
- What is Pennsylvania Dutch?
- Dutchified English (Pennsylvania Dutch English)
- Pennsylvania Dutch: Popular Expressions
- Pennsylvania Dutch dialect is still alive in the region
- Interview on Pennsylvania Dutch with Professor Mark Louden
Special thanks to Rose Fisher, a native speaker of Pennsylvania Dutch, who verified that the examples in the questions above are representative of real language use!