German Language In The United States
Although over 50 million Americans claim German ancestry, which makes them the largest single ethnic group in the country, only around 1.38 million people speak German in the United States. It is the second most spoken language in the Dakotas.
Since the mass emigration of Germans to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, all through the 1800s, and into the early 20th century, German was the second most widely spoken language in the United States after English. It was spoken by millions of immigrants from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, and their descendants. Many newspapers, churches and schools operated in German as did many businesses. The use of the language was strongly suppressed by social and legal means during World War I, and German declined as a result, limiting the widespread use of the language mainly to Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities.
Read more about German Language In The United States: History, Dialects and Geographic Distribution, German As The Official US Language Myth, German-American Tradition in Literature, Use in Education
Famous quotes containing the words united states, german, language, united and/or states:
“In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“I don’t want to shoot any Englishmen. I never saw one ‘til I came up here. But I suppose most of them never saw a German ‘til they came up here.”
—Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)
“There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth.”
—Elias Canetti (b. 1905)
“Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband’s dinners.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)