American history records the Pennsylvania Dutch
Historians trace this Rhineland immigration to as early as 1683, when the first waves of Rhenish immigrants speaking the Germanic Dialect arrived in Pennsylvania. One Historian, R. Webster records: “Although the immigrants that made up the 1683 Germantown settlement in the city of Philadelphia were Germanspeaking Dutch, German, and Swiss immigrants, most of them were Dutch.” Germantown was the Colonial printing center for German language Bibles and religious imprints for the entire Pennsylvania Dutch community for many decades, and to distinguish themselves from these early Rhineland immigrants, later German-Americans who do not speak the local PA Dutch dialect often politely explained that their modern German language is not the same.
For local folklorists Doctors Shoemaker and Yoder, instead of making the rounds speaking at “Grundsau lodges,” as did other professors and historians on the subject matter, they converted hundreds of thousands of Americans to understand and appreciate the Pennsylvania Dutch culture by reading their (The) Dutch- man newspaper.
These accurate depictions and accounts naturally developed into a magazine, and later, became Pennsylvania Folklife. This in addition to dozens and dozens into hundreds of other articles, booklets, and publications the pair wrote. Despite the academic world’s propaganda past and present to replace the term Dutch with “German,” and this coming from a Pennsylvania Dutchman through German roots (mostly); almost all natives do and will continue to call themselves Pennsylvania Dutch, and proudly! Besides the longtime endorsement by many of linguist, Dr. Alfred L. Shoemaker, and late University of Pennsylvania professor, Dr. Don Yoder, continued to use of the Americanism: Pennsylvania Dutch. However, they both backed the common sense reasoning of Swarthmore English professor, Frederic Klees in his celebrated 1950 book: The Pennsylvania Dutch why the term PA German was not widely accepted.
Realizing that English Colonists of Pennsylvania used the correct frontier term Dutch for the newer term German for two centuries in Pennsylvania, Klees believed this Americanism to be officially sanctioned. “Dutch definitely is the proper euphe- mism for “Deitsch,” which was the term used by these PA German speaking natives rather than the later term “Deutsch!” But the most logical point Klees (from Reading) made was that “Pennsylvania German” is not a term freely used in speech, as it comes unnaturally to men’s lips, though it may be more nearly exact than PA Dutch. In addition to the local English Quakers referring to natives of Berks, Lehigh, and Lancaster Counties, etc., as Pennsylvania Dutch, New Englanders who stopped overnight here on their way to meetings of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia used the same euphemisms. Even when Patriot John Adams who stopped over at Kutztown, PA remarked in his diary that he was pleasantly impressed with the cooking and lodging among these local Pennsylvania Dutch at Kemp’s Tavern on his return trip to Massachusetts.
Whether the true Dutch of New York state were confused by the English with Pennsylvania being at one time under Dutch Colonial rule along the Schuylkill River, we cannot say. But English visitors who were given directions through the Pennsylvania Dutch Country easily latched on to this Americanism, and every huge barn they passed had noticeable Dutch stable doors, along with pioneer homes. The fact that the English of Philadelphia knew both terms, Dutch and German, is verified in the fact that they used the term Germantown to designate the ethnic character of that early section of citizens in their city.