American German
| American German | |
|---|---|
| Region | United States |
| Ethnicity | German Americans |
|
Native speakers
|
1.06 million (2009-2013) |
|
Indo-European
|
|
| Latin (German alphabet) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|
| 1910 |
|
| 1920 |
 2,267,128 |
| 1930 |
2,188,006 |
| 1940 |
1,589,048 |
| 1960 |
1,332,399 |
| 1970 |
1,201,535 |
| 1980 |
 1,586,593 |
| 1990 |
1,547,987 |
| 2000 |
1,383,442 |
| ^a Foreign-born population only | |
Over 50 million Americans claim German ancestry, which makes them the largest single ethnic group in the United States. Around 1.06 million people in the United States speak the German language. It is the second most spoken language in North Dakota. In 16 states, it is the most spoken language other than English and Spanish.
German became the second most widely spoken language in the U.S. starting with mass emigration to Pennsylvania from the German Palatinate and adjacent areas starting in the 1680s, all through the 1700s and to the early 20th century. It was spoken by millions of immigrants from Germany, Switzerland, 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. After the First World War, German lost its position as the second most widely spoken language in the United States.
Around 1800, two German-language Methodist churches were founded, the "Vereinigten Brüder in Christo" and the "Evangelische Gemeinschaft". Both used Methodist hymnals in German and published German newspapers, of which one existed until 1937. From the middle of the 19th century English was used as a second language in the churches, but there were regions in which German was the main church language into the 20th century. In 1937 both churches fused and joined the United Methodist Church in 1968.
The first German newspaper in the U.S. was der Hochdeutsch-Pennsylvanische Geschicht-Schreiber, oder Sammlung Wichtiger Nachrichten aus dem Natur- und Kirchen-Reich ("the High German-Pennsylvanian story-writer, or collection of important news from the realms of nature and the church"), later known as die Germantauner Zeitung. It was a German-language paper, Der Pennsylvanische Staatsbote that on July 5, 1776, was the first paper to report the American Declaration of Independence, and it did so in German translation. English readers would have to wait a day later to read the English text in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.
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Wikipedia