Off topic: Most commonly spoken languages in the US after English and Spanish Thread poster: Melanie Meyer
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Melanie Meyer 
United States
Local time: 02:35
Member (2010)
English to German
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| | Very interesting | May 17, 2014 |
Thank you for posting it, Melanie.
| | | | Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 08:35
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Lakota (Dakota is a "dialect") and Dine (Navajo) are on the rise, the latter in the 4-Corners-region, and Lakota is increasing also in North Dakota.
Indeed, German is spread across North America far and white.
Thank you, Melanie, for this interesting link.
| | | | Melanie Meyer
United States
Local time: 02:35
Member (2010)
English to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Ahhhh, yes indeed, the actual language is called Lakota (I should have remembered that from my all-time favorite movie 'Dances With Wolves'.)
That's an interesting and encouraging fact that Lakota and Dine are on the rise, an indicator that those rich cultures and languages are staying alive.
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | | I am surprised | May 22, 2014 |
I am Dutch and live in Holland, so what do I know, but when you had asked me about the "third language" in the United States, I would have said "Italian", probably because I have seen too many episodes of the Godfather.
(Sorry, I don know anything about the native languages)
[Edited at 2014-05-22 20:07 GMT]
| | | | | Not so common | May 23, 2014 |
German in any form is certainly not a commonly spoken language in the US.
Even the Amish, and they are a relatively small group in the US who still use old German during Sunday mass, actually speak a mix of German and English that would not be intelligible to a German- or English-only speaker.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_language
Pennsylvania German (Deitsch, Pennsylvania Deitsch, Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch, usually called Pennsylvania Dutch) is a variety of West Central German spoken by possibly more than 250,000 people in North America.
Much of Pennsylvania German's difference from Standard German can be summarized as consisting of a simplified grammatical structure, several vowel and consonant shifts that occur with a fair degree of regularity, as well as a variety of lexical differences. The influence of American English upon grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation is also significant. ...
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There are certainly people here who emigrated from German-speaking countries within the last 40 years or who work here for German companies, but again, these are very small groups.
Don't expect to visit the "German" regions of this map and think you can or that the people commonly converse in modern-day German. Foreign languages usually have a hard time over here, colleges and universities have been cutting back programs and languages such as German, French, Italian, Japanese, etc. are definitely affected.
As far as the languages of the indigenous people of the Americas are concerned, yes, their languages are still spoken, but again, the groups are relatively small:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Languages#North_America
North America
Pre-contact distribution of North American language families north of Mexico
There are approximately 296 spoken (or formerly spoken) indigenous languages north of Mexico, 269 of which are grouped into 29 families (the remaining 27 languages are either isolates or unclassified). The Na-Dené, Algic, and Uto-Aztecan families are the largest in terms of number of languages. Uto-Aztecan has the most speakers (1.95 million) if the languages in Mexico are considered (mostly due to 1.5 million speakers of Nahuatl); Na-Dene comes in second with approximately 200,000 speakers (nearly 180,000 of these are speakers of Navajo), and Algic in third with about 180,000 speakers (mainly Cree and Ojibwe). ...
[Edited at 2014-05-23 13:28 GMT]
| | | | Melanie Meyer
United States
Local time: 02:35
Member (2010)
English to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | German in the Midwest | May 23, 2014 |
I agree, Bernhard, you certainly cannot visit the “German” regions of this map and expect to converse in modern-day German. As far as my own experience is concerned, the ancestors of my in-laws and their extended families arrived in Missouri in the early 1800s. Several generations later, my father-in-law’s parents still spoke German at home (possibly an Americanized version...), but the children stopped using it as soon as they started going to school. They can still understand some fragme... See more I agree, Bernhard, you certainly cannot visit the “German” regions of this map and expect to converse in modern-day German. As far as my own experience is concerned, the ancestors of my in-laws and their extended families arrived in Missouri in the early 1800s. Several generations later, my father-in-law’s parents still spoke German at home (possibly an Americanized version...), but the children stopped using it as soon as they started going to school. They can still understand some fragments of it, but have hardly ever used it after the age of five.
I might be wrong, but I assume that this might be the case in many Midwestern States.
Also, thanks for the interesting facts on the languages of the indigenous people of the Americas. ▲ Collapse
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