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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

Anglicization, English borrowings, Pennsylvania German, lexicon

College

Humanities

Department

German and Russian

Abstract

My research began as I came across contradicting theories concerning the Anglicization of Pennsylvania German while writing a paper for an advanced modern German course. While researching for that preliminary paper, I found scholars suggesting that English has completely taken over the PA German language. Such scholars stated that the rate of English borrowings was increasing at a record rate and that the language was not an actual language at all, but rather a messy conglomeration of English and Standard German. On the other hand, a handful of scholars argued that such research against PA German individuality had been highly exaggerated and that the rate of English borrowings remained much less frequent than such previous scholars had suggested. This contradiction sent me on a journey to gain some sense of closure to this still wide open argument. Basically, I sought out to find an answer to the core question: “How has the rate of English borrowings changed—increased or decreased—over the past ca. 100 years?”

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