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HomeMy WebLinkAbout818"Article copied from Der Bote, Geb., 1998; 2 page published article; 21.7 x 28 cm; written by Joe Nighswander. ******** Status and Use of PA German/Dutch in the Markham District of the Region of York, Ontario, Canada by J. M. Nighswander I. From the early 1800s during the settlement and ongoing development of the area of Ontario now known as the Region of York, it appears that at least three distinct groups emigrated into Ontario from Pennsylvania and brought with them a language now generally known as the Pennsylvania German or “Dutch” dialect (referred to as “P.G.” henceforth). These three groups were the Mennonites, the Tunkers (Brethren in Christ), and the Lutherans of German ancestry. It is fairly certain individuals and possibly other smaller groups of German ancestry also came to Ontario bringing along with them various forms of the dialect. The following is an effort to describe very briefly the three groups I have mentioned and their past and current use (or non-use) of the dialect. The Mennonites Mennonite families moved into what is now the Region of York directly from Pennsylvania, beginning immediately after the turn of the century. For example, it is well documented that Christian Reesor with his family of four married children came into the area in 1804. One of his sons-in-law was Abrahan Stouffer, after whom the town of Stouffville (7 miles N.E. of Markham) was named. Other families including the Widemans, the Barkeys, the Hoovers, the Lehmans, the Neighswanders, the Groves, and the Kreiders came to the York Region within the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Other Mennonite families moved into the York Region area from the Niagara Peninsula (Jordan and the “Twenty”) over a period of time during the 1800s. These families, with names including Kulp, Wismer, Shirk, Moyer, Albright, Fretz, Rittenhouse, and Hoch (High), began settling in the Niagara Peninsula as early as 1786 when three families emigrated to this area from Berks County, Pennsylvania. In 1799 eight other families came, with seventeen additional families moving into the same area (now Vineland, Beamsville, and Lincoln County) in 1800. Quite a number of others came later. Over the years some of these families moved to the Markham district. In the book, “A Brief History of Mennonites in Ontario,” by L.J. Burkholder (1935), it is noted that in 1863 German lessons from the New Testament were a part of the Sunday School at the Vineland Church. One can conclude an effort was being made to preserve the Germanic dialect which was almost certainly used in the Mennonite homes in those early days, but is now almost extinct. It is interesting to note that the dialect spoken by the Niagara peninsula people was different in some respects from the Pennsylvania Dutch spoken by the York Region people. Some differences may well date back to the European Palatinate. I can distinctly remember my wife’s grandmother, a Rittenhouse from Jordam and married to a Reesor from the pioneer Reesors of Markham, use “Dutch” words which were quite unfamiliar to me. My ancestors came from the Pennsylvania/Maryland border near Hagerstown, Maryland, and the differences are probably due to slight differences in the 1700s between the Berks County dialect and Lancaster district dialect. To most of the Mennonites of the Markham district, Pennsylvania Dutch was the “mother tongue,” spoken in the homes, if not in the community, surrounded as they were by “English” neighbours. In the Markham area Mennonite churches, however, a different German was used in worship services. I can well remember Thomas Reesor, a minister in the more conservative (Wisler) branch of the church which I attended at that time pace back and forth across the long pulpit, preaching fluently in a German dialect which I could barely understand, even though I could then speak and understand the PG of the area. To the best of my knowledge, he was the last preacher in the district to use German in the worship exercises. His last sermon in German was in 1941. It is interesting to note that in the Wisler churches in the Markham district, a German hymn book is the “Liedersammlung” published in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario in 1849. Generally speaking, PG was used in the Markham area longer and to a greater degree by families of the conservative branch (Wisler) than by the more liberal (Funk) branch. This was undoubtedly due in part to the fact that the conservative people associated less with the predominantly English speaking community than did the more liberal branch. Also, very few of the conservative branch young people attended high schools. It is assumed by this writer that it is not necessary in this paper to describe in detail the division in 1889 when the “Wisler” and the “Funk” people went their separate ways in terms of church life in the York Region. Also, details need not be given of the later (1930s) division in Waterloo County among the Old Older (horse and buggy) people which resulted in a number of families forming a relationship with the Markham-Wisler group, which in turn because the “Markham Waterloo Mennonite Conference”, or the “Markhamer” people. The ownership and use if cars, telephones, modern farm machinery, and household appliances were basic issues for the Waterloo people. The use of English in the worship services was also an issue at Waterloo, but not with the Markham-Wislers, because English preaching in the Markham predated the union with the Waterloo people. The use of cars was also not an issue with the Markham-Wislers. To the best of my knowledge, there had been no English preaching in the Old Order Waterloo churches until the union with the Markham churches. Currently the use of PG or Dutch in the Markham area is all but discontinued. However, the few (less than 10) persons who are members of the Markham Waterloo Conference and are all middle aged or older do still use in their homes the PG dialect. It is a language they treasure and try to promote in their immediate families, including their grandchildren. It is certain the church ties with their friends in the retention of the dialect. Church congregations of more liberal Mennonites in the Markham area (now affiliated with the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada) include the following: § the Wideman Church on Highway 48, Markham, Ontario § the Rouge Valley Mennonite Church on Reesor Road, Markham, Ontario § the Hagerman Mennonite Church, Fourtheenth Avenue, Markham, Ontario § the Stouffville Community Mennonite Church, Main Street, Stouffville, Ontario. There are also two missionary churches with Mennonite origins in the Stouffville, Markham area. For the purposes of ascertaining the use of PG, I contacted a number of members of these churches. In every contact I made, the story is essentially the same. First of all, the members of these churches who are not of Mennonite background have little knowledge of PG and certainly do not use it. The Mennonites who are of ethnic Mennonite background in most cases have some awareness of the dialect, but relatively few can speak it. Quite a number can understand PG, but are “rusty” when it comes to speaking. My wife and I and our three daughters are in this category. When we were married in 1948, we 21 " "spoke PG almost exclusively in our home. Our first two children learned English and PG almost simultaneously. However, when they began attending the public school, where almost no one else knew the dialect, and they formed friendships with English-speaking fellow students, our use of PG gradually diminished until we used it very infrequently. Our youngest child never did learn PG. Probably our family is quite typical of the great majority of ethnic Mennonites in York Region, who, although our families used PG for six or seven generations since the early 1800’s, are now in the process of losing its use almost entirely. The Brethren A group of families who went by the name of “Tunkers” came into the Markham area, organizing their first congregation in 1808, with their first bishop a man by the name of Christian Stickley. He was assisted by an ordained preacher, John Donor. There is a record of a Nicholas Cober coming to what is now Vaughan Township in 1797. They had no church building as such until 1860, when the Heise Hill Church at Gormley (northwest of Markham) was built. Their theology favored house churches. Family names included Cober, Donor, Reaman, Winger, Heise, Hiltz, Baker, Schneider. Most of these families emigrated to Ontario from Somerset County, Pennsylvania. They have their roots in the River Brethren denomination and are also closely linked with the German Baptists. their name was changed in Ontario to Brethren in Christ in 1934. These people, like the Mennonites and others, brought with them the dialect called Pennsylvania German. It is surprisingly homogenous language which had grown out of a blend of the many dialects which came into Pennsylvania during the first wave of immigrants of the 17th century from the European Palatinate and surrounding areas. As a matter of fact, some of us have traveled to the Palatinate in recent years and have been able to converse in our Pennsylvania “Dutch” with the people of the eastern Palatinate. A number of York Region Tunkers early in [t]heir Ontario history set out to return to Pennsylvania, but decided en route to settle in Selkirk Township and in the Fort Erie area. There are now several Brethren in Christ churches in that area. In the Markham area church (Heise Hill), German was used in the worship exercises exclusively until about 1860, when a Peter Cober began preaching in English. By 1870, Little German was used, and it disappeared entirely from the worship services shortly hereafter. In the homes, however, ir continued to be used f]or many years, gradually declining until at [p]resent only a very few of the older people can [u]nderstand or speak even a few words. It is safe to predict that the dialect will be lost [e]ntirely in terms of use in the B.I.C. church [g]roup in the next few years. The German Lutherans Another group of people who spoke the PG dialect were the Lutherans who came from Pennsylvania to Vaughan Township in about 1820. Vaughan is located immediately west of Markham Township. According to a descendent of this group of emigrants, none of them currently use this dialect. There is some use of German, however, due to the fact that other Lutherans directly from Germany have, through the years, moved into the same area as the earlier emigrants from Pennsylvania, some of whom were of the Benzy settlement. In the Thornhill Lutheran Church, records indicate German was used exclusively until about 1849. Family names in the group who emigrated from Pennsylvania in the early 1800’s include Snider, Stong, Schmidt, Summerfeldt, Stiver, Quantz, Ritter, and Eckhardt. The story of the Pennsylvania German-speaking Lutherans of Vaughan Township, Ontario, is really another story. I mention them simply to create awareness of a group of people other than the Mennonites who used the PG dialect for many years. Members of the Luteran churches of the Vaughan/Markham area are active in the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, York Chapter. II. Factors which have contributed to the use of PG from the time of emigrated from Pennsylvania until recently: § strong loyalty to the church, which in the case of the Mennonites and Tunkers (B.I.C.) promoted a theology which to some degree equated the English language with “the world” and worldly influences. § until the mid-1940’s, many, probably most, of the Mennonite people of the area were farmers, or employed in farm related trades and businesses, and not in non-farm commerce or in the professions. § in the past only a small minority of the youth became involved in higher education or the academic world. § fewer than average contacts with the broader society, due to a variety of factors such as life style, religion, education choices, and with some, different dress. III. Factors which contributed to the dying out of the dialect in the Markham area: § the encroaching city of Metropolitan Toronto, a very large city which is noted for its multicultural, multiracial, multilingual, and multifaith character. Many farmers of PG ancestry have moved to other areas of Ontario. § we are surrounded by a great variety of languages because of the multiracial character of the area. It is said that in the Milliken public school, only a few miles from the city of Markham, 60 different languages are spoken. To be bilingual in our area means to speak English and French. Since there are few new Pennsylvania German immigrants, the PG dialect has virtually no impact or visibility! § the PG speaking people in the Markham area have never been situated in geographically concentrated communities, and have been interspersed among English speaking neighbors. § to the best of my knowledge, there never have been any Mennonite parochial schools in the area, and all Mennonite children have attended the public schools. § there has not been any literature such as newspapers or books available in our area in the PG dialect. § the PG vocabulary used in the homes did not include words to describe modern technology, commerce, computerization, or world issues. Therefore, English words had to used, resulting in an interesting mix! § sometimes in the schools PG was regarded with some amusement, even scorn, which did not encourage its use by the PG students! IV. My reflection is that we are the losers because of the progressing disappearance of the dialect in our area. It is an advantage to be multilingual. On the other hand, the fact that the PG dialect has persisted from the early 1800’s to almost the present is a rather surprising and interesting linguistic phenomenon, and speaks to the power of church and family influences. Bibliography 1. Canadian German Folklore; The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society of Ontario. Vol. XI – 1989. 2. The History of the Pioneer German Language Press of Ontario 1835-1918. University of Toronto Press, Herbert Karol Kalbfleish, 1968. 3. A Brief History of the Mennonites in Ontario; The Mennonite Conference of Ontario. L.J. Burkholder, 1935. 4. Mennonites in Canda, 1786-1910. Macmillen of Canada; Dr. Frank H. Epp, 1974. 5. Friends, relatives, and interested, helpful persons in the Region of York, Ontario. ******** A Memorial Day Trip Back Into the Family Past 22 "