5 ms·
A curious side note - hardly a language or even dialect, really - is the effect that having a large number of immigrants from one country can have on a region's
by jmadsen 10y ago
A curious side note - hardly a language or even dialect, really - is the effect that having a large number of immigrants from one country can have on a region's language.
For example, in my own eastern Wisconsin, a large part of "Wisconsin-ese" is nothing more than German translated directly into English. So many people settled Eastern Wisconsin from Germany at the same time that their efforts to learn English all had the same mistakes, and became our local "pidgen".
For example -
- to soften an imperative in German, add "mal" - short for "einmal" (once)
- there is only one word for borrow or lend - "leihen".
And so "Leih mir ein dollar mal" is "Could you lend me a dollar?" in English, but,
"Borrow me a dollar once"
in Wisconsin "accent". Many other small examples of this.
- rmc 10y agoHiberno-English (the English dialect in Ireland) is similar. Lots of grammatical influence from Irish. e.g. plural you, additional tense ("do be"), verb repedition instead of yes/no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English
- empath75 10y agoThat's called a calque, I believe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque
- ekianjo 10y agoThe exact same thing is observed in Belgian French (wallonian) where they use "une fois" (same thing as "once") because of the dutch speaking influence locally.
- ksenzee 10y ago"Une fois" means "once" in standard French ("il y avait une fois..."). Is there a specific context you're thinking of where it's used in a non-standard way?
- adrianratnapala 10y agoBut is it used to soften an imperative? "Once" is is not used that way in English, except aparently in Wisconsin. Though I find it ironic, that in this context "mal" translates to "once". Since "mal" actually means "multiple times".
- taejo 10y ago"Mal" means "time" (singular)
- ksenzee 10y agoOh, you mean like "Donne-moi une fois quelques minutes" - the exact same construction as the parent was pointing out exists in Wisconsin. Fascinating. Thanks for clarifying.
- jmadsen 10y ago"mal" means time(s), but used that way in German is a shortened form of "einmal" (once)
- thaumasiotes 10y agoAlso in standard mandarin, where you can soften an imperative (I am told that the intuition is that the duration of such a modified verb is short) by adding 一下 "one time". As far as I know (not authoritative), the construction is native.
- sk5t 10y agoSounds like Penna Dutch... Sag mal -> say now (would cha have any ring bologna?)
- tremon 10y agoWould like to add that Pennsylvania Dutch actually refers to Deutsch (i.e. German), not the language spoken in The Netherlands. The Dutch phrase for "sag mal" is "zeg eens".
- tome 10y ago> our local "pidgen" "pidgin"?
- mattschmulen 10y agoSimilar to Texa-duetche https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German ... Contributed words like skunk to English.
- mattschmulen 10y agoSimilar to Texa-duetche https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German ... Contributed words like skunk to English.
- hnal943 10y agoyep, another example of this is when Wisconsinites talk about visiting someone. "Let's go to Jeremy's house" becomes "Let's go by Jeremy", which is correct in German.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago> "Let's go by Jeremy" Non-native English speaker living in California. I've heard that construct in CA quite a bit.
- ghaff 10y agoThough "Let's swing by Jeremy's" would be AFAIK pretty common across the US--although I suppose in that case there's a [house/place] implied by the possessive.
- abritinthebay 10y agoMake it possessive ("lets go by Jeremy's") and it would be perfectly normal English in my native south-east of England too. I think it's just a more just an archaic usage in American English.
- ema 10y agoTo which correct German sentence does "Let's go by Jeremy" correspond? Closest I can come up with is "Lass uns bei Jeremy vorbeischauen". Though in this case 'bei' has more of the meaning of 'at' and 'vorbeischauen' is an integral part of the sentence.
- lawpoop 10y agoGrowing up in Ohio, we always said "Gesundheit" in my house when someone sneezed. When I was a kid, I asked my mom, "What does it mean? Is it another language or something?" She said, "It's just something you say when someone sneezes."
- khedoros 10y agoI have similar experience. My father's German-descended family lives in St. Louis, and they still say it. I asked my mother as a child, and she had a similar answer to your mom.
- jhbadger 10y agoAlso, the use of "by" in "Wisconsinese" seems inspired by German "bei" (at) -- as in "I'll meet you by the club tonight" meaning at the club, not nearby as the sentence would suggest.
- binarray2000 10y agoNitpick: Position of "mal" in the German sentence is wrong. "Leih mir mal ein Dollar" is the right one.