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Samenvatting
- Mennonites say “once” because of German grammar, not theology. German uses mal — shortened eens — as a softener, and “come here once” is “komm mal her” in English words.
- Pennsylvania Dutch is a German dialect, chiefly Palatine, brought to Pennsylvania from the 1680s. The structure carried across when those communities began speaking English.
- The same substrate gives “still” and “yet” from noch, “redd up”, “outen the light” and “the butter is all”.
- The label is wrong: the speech belongs to Pennsylvania Dutch speakers generally, including Lutheran and Reformed families, and most Mennonites worldwide do not speak this way.
- “Dutch” is a corruption of Deitsch, the dialect’s own name, which is the same word as German.
Bibliografie (Klik om te tonen)
Sources: standard works on Pennsylvania Dutch and Pennsylvania Dutch English for the German substrate behind “once”, “still”, “redd up”, “outen” and “the butter is all”, and for “Dutch” as a rendering of Deitsch. The dialect’s Palatine German origin and immigration from the 1680s are historical record, as is Menno Simons joining the Anabaptist movement in 1536. Scripture quotations from the NIV via BibleGateway (Matthew 5:9, 34, 44).
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