Re: American Dutch dialects

--- On Wed, 3/4/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> From: tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
> Subject: [tied] Re: American Dutch dialects
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 5:32 AM
> > > They might have been home-spun, but they were
> refined elsewhere. A
> > > Midwest professional would never be more that a
> couple of steps
> > > (and down the ladder) away from his colleagues on
> the East
> > > Coast. They had conferences then too.
> >
> > I don't think so. Except for immigration, the
> itinerate (i.e. the
> > homeless such as loggers, field hands and miners) and
> the military,
> > only the wealthy traveled.
>
> That's right. Doctors did. At least once in their
> lives. From the city where they studied, and possibly to it
> before that. And school marm were about the minimum level
> for a doctor to marry if he didn't want to spend his
> life getting bored stiff.

They would have studied in the capital BUT there were no real doctors where my family lived. You had to go to the capital by car or train.

>
> > A trip to the state capital took all day for
> grandfather in his
> > Model A. It now takes 20 minutes for my uncle.
>
> But I'm talking about you great-grandfather on the
> train.

The train arrived in the 1870s or so. My great-great grandfather was a major land owner. He made his money as a piano teacher but AFAIK the farthest he ever went was capital

>
> > Except for WWI in France and Germany, my
> grandfather's only trip
> > outside the state was to visit us in Ohio.
>
> What was his profession?

He started out as a logger, then a logging crew supervisor, then a mine superintendent. After the mines played out, he became the local school master.

>
> > There were no conferences for schoolmarms that I ever
> heard of.
>
> I didn't claim there were. Their husbands, that was
> another matter.

From what my grandfather told me, even the local rich were too poor to travel. That would have included him. His lifestyle was basically that of the Waltons, a 70s TV show based on the 1930s, except they had no electricity until the 1940s.

>
> > Until WWII, if people had a farm or a stable
> profession, they
> > stayed put.
>
> After they acquired the requisite education, and that, if
> it was sufficiently important, they would have been done
> elsewhere.

This may have been true of professionals in the cities but not in the countryside.

>
> > My grandfather lived in a relatively cashless society
> > and only bought things that couldn't grown on his
> farm.
> >
> > >
> > > > > > > And since the Sinter Klaas
> -> Santa Claus plays a large
> > > > > > > role in the American pantheon
> (just kidding), the channel
> > > > > > > which brought that deity from
> the Dutch would be
> > > > > > > conducive to language
> peculiarities too.
> > > > > > > Remember that similar
> religions imply cultural influence.
>
> > It may, or it may have seeped down from Canada
> --Andrew would know
> > about it.
> > >
> > > OK, so that's a local custom, but Santa is as
> Generally
> > > American as the language we were discussing.
> >
> > But Santa hit the scene thanks to the Saturday Evening
> Post and
> > other such New York based magazines --not through oral
> culture. It
> > seems to have spread through the US around the time of
> the Civil
> > War, c. 1860. Before that, he was called Father
> Christmas.
>
> You are now in the unenviable position of having to defend
> the proposition that central cultural features of the
> Midwest came from New York, but no linguistic features did.
> That is difficult.

Santa Claus probably spread during the Civil War. It was a literary phenomenon, much like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

>
> > We also use the term Chris/Kris Kringle, from German
>
> German Christkindl.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus
>
> The story of the Da. nisse or Sw. tomte needs some
> clarification: the nisse or tomte was originally a house
> spirit, a leprechaun-like small imp to whom you should set
> out food or he would sour the cows' milk, burn down the
> farm or whatever mischief he could think of. Andersen has
> one story about a nisse at Christmas. You used to by cut-out
> cardboard nisser (kravlenisser) to put on top of paintings
> or mirrors or wherever you might stick them at Christmas
> time.
>
>
> Torsten
>
>
>
> Torsten