Description
Forgotten Books Folklore of the Pennsylvania Germans by Stoudt John Baer
Excerpt from The Folklore of the Pennsylvania Germans: A Paper Read Before the Pennsylvania-German Society at the Annual Meeting, York, Pennsylvania, October 14th, 1910
The early German settlers in Pennsylvania came chiefly from the Palatinate, Baden, Swabia and Switzerland. They spoke the German dialects peculiar to the sections from which they came. From these several German dia lects there developed in the course of a few generations the Pennsylvania German, in which these several dialects are blended but in which the forceful, direct and already mixed speech of the Palatinate predominates. In the same manner the folklore of these various localities was fused, and frequently given new settings, producing in a sense a new product. But the accidents of rhyme, meter and alliterations have tended to preserve the original forms. However, rhymes, ballads, proverbs from different sec tions were frequently united, and under new conditions, and amid new surroundings were given new settings and applications.