Austinist: Zentrales Texas hat es soll Sprache besitzen

ERic

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:47:46 -0600

I remember learning about this 30 years ago in my HS German class in SA (not too surprisingly). I was told that it was called 'TexDertch'. I guess a parallel to TexMex.

pd

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:24:17 -0600

True. Another example is American Sign Language. It's a mix of French Sign Language and various North American pidgin sign developed by deaf children in the American northeast. Interestingly enough, back when ASL was being developed, one British family held a monopoly over deaf education and when American educators wanted help, they refused in fear of competition. So, they turned to the French.

ConanTheLibrarian

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:17:21 -0600

Interesting story. There are numerous examples of Old World Languages evolving in the United States. Amish “Dutch” is another German variant. Cajun French was at risk of dying out in the 1960s but is now in revival. The Gullah dialect in the Coastal Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina was an amalgamation of West African languages and English. I would not be surprised if New York Yiddish of the 1930s had evolved to be a separate dialect from the Polish Yiddish of the same time.