Was German Almost the Language of America?

05 May 2005

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The official language of America was almost -- German? A few months ago I heard a businessman say that to a group of language teachers, and it's not the first time I've heard it. It's not true, but the myth about it never seems to die. According to the legend, German would have become our official language in 1795, except for a single vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. Frederick Muhlenberg, Representative from Pennsylvania and Speaker of the House, has been credited with failing to cast that fateful vote. It's true that a group of German-speaking farmers from Virginia petitioned for a German translation of some American laws. And, yes, Muhlenberg argued staunchly that German immigrants should assimilate and learn English. But the cliffhanger vote that saved English? It never happened. So if anyone ever tells you that story, tell them the Five-Minute Linguist told you it's just plain fiction.

But where did the fear that German might supersede English as America's language come from? It's not quite as far-fetched as it might seem. Germans began immigrating to the U.S. as early as 1683, and from then until the First World War, German was the most prevalent language in Pennsylvania after English. Not everybody was happy about that. Listen to what one senior statesman from the Revolutionary period had to say about the Germans: "Why," he asks, "should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and [who] will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion?"

It might surprise you that these disturbingly racist words came from the pen of none other than Benjamin Franklin.

Anti-foreign feelings like those expressed by Franklin persisted through the nineteenth century, but German continued to flourish in America. Waves of English-only attacks, aimed at wiping German from the American landscape, were countered by public displays of German identity. In social clubs and societies all over the country, German-Americans celebrated their heritage. All of which ended with the First World War. Although it was ruled unconstitutional in 1923, during the war most states eliminated German from their schools. In some states, it was illegal to speak anything but English in public. Even German foods came under attack. Sauerkraut wasn't outlawed, but it was renamed "Liberty Cabbage".

American anti-German reactions during the Second World War weren't nearly so harsh. And yet for decades Hollywood has used German accents as a kind of shorthand to represent evil. Ever since the 1940s, in scores of films, from Casablanca to Raiders of the Lost Ark to Saving Private Ryan, it's always the bad guys who pronounce their W's like V's. There are, of course, a lot of exceptions to that stereotype. After all, Marlene Dietrich's sultry songs derived much of their sexy appeal from her German accent. And Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian tones have become part of the American cultural landscape.

It's really astonishing how many people of German heritage there are in America. Most of us could probably identify the Pennsylvania Dutch as a linguistic island in the US. Those folks aren't Dutch, by the way; "Deutsch" (which sounds like Dutch) is the German word for "German." There are so many people of German ancestry in the U.S. heartland that the states from Ohio to Missouri and from Michigan to Nebraska are sometimes known as the German belt. In 1990, the so-called "Texas Deutsch" emerged as the third largest ethnic group in the state. And there are pockets of German speakers in the Shenandoah Valley referred to as the "Valley Dutch." In fact, according to the 1990 Census, more Americans of European ancestry claim German descent than Irish, English, or Italian.

And German has given us marvelous terms -- from Autobahns to Zeppelins, from Frankfurters to Fahrenheit, from Wienerschnitzel to Wanderlust. And even though German never seriously challenged English as the primary language of the U.S., the ties between the two languages are long and deep. So I have to wonder, in the year of languages, shouldn't we be paying more attention to German?

That's the linguistic thought for today, which comes from my colleague Dr. Nancy Nenno, Professor of German at the College of Charleston. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. If you'd like to ask a question about language, go to our website at www.cofc.edu/linguist. If we use your question on the air, we'll send you a membership in the Museum of Language. In the meantime, keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.

Comments

Posted by: Robert L. Bishop at March 16, 2006 09:19 AM