Chapter X · Imperfect English.

§ 1. Broken English.

Specimens of English as badly spoken by Germans who have an imperfect knowledge of it, are common enough, but they seldom give a proper idea of its nature. The uncertainty between sonant and surd is well known, but like the Cockney with h, it is a common mistake to suppose that the misapplication is universal,[88] for were this the case, the simple rule of reversal would set the speakers right in each case.

It is true that the German confounds English t and d, but he puts t for d more frequently than d for t. In an advertisement cut from a newspaper at Schwalbach, Nassau, in 1862—

Ordres for complet Diners or simples portions is punctually attented to and send in town—

there seems to be a spoken reversal of t and d, but I take 'send' to be an error of grammar, the pronunciation of the speaker being probably attentet, and sent. "Excuse my bad riding" (writing) is a perversion in speech. A German writes 'dacke' take, 'de' the, 'be' be, 'deere' deer, 'contra' country, and says:—

I am æbple [able] to accommodeted with any quantity of dis kins of Ruts [kinds of roots]. Plies tirectad to ... Sout Frond Stread ... nort america.

Here there is an attempt at the German flat p (p. 11) in the b of 'able'; the surd th of 'north' and 'south' becomes t, and the sonant th of 'this' becomes d—'with' remaining under the old spelling. The p of 'please' remains, but d of 'direct' becomes t; and while final t of 'front' and 'street' becomes d, the first t in 'street,' and that in 'directed,' are kept pure by surd s and cay. The rule of surd to surd and sonant to sonant is neglected in most of the factitious specimens of broken English.

The next is an instructive and a genuine example, being the record of a Justice of the Peace in Dauphin County (that of Harrisburg, the State Capital). It will be observed that the complainant bought a house, and being refused possession, makes a forcible entry and is resisted. The spelling is irregular, as in 'come' and 'com,' 'the' and 'de,' 'did' and 'dit,' 'then' and 'den,' 'nothin' and 'nosing,' 'house' and 'hause,' 'put' and 'but,' 'open' and 'upen.'

The said ... sait I dit By de hause and I went in de hause at de back winder and den I dit upen de house and Dit take out his forniture and nobotty Dit disstorbe me till I hat his forniture out; I did but it out in de streat Before the house; and then he dit Com Wis a barl and dit nock at the dore that the Dore dit fly open and the molding dit Brack louse[89] and then I dit Wornt him not to come in the hause and not to put anneysing in the hause and he dit put in a barl Into the hause and I did put it out and he dit put it in again and then he did put In two Sisses[90] and srout the barl against Me; and then I dit nothin out anneymore and further nosing more; Sworn & Subscript the Dey and yeare above ritten before me.... J. P.—Newspaper.

The beginning and close follow a legal formula. The PG. idiom which drops the imperfect tense runs through this, in expressions such as 'I did open,' 'I did put,' 'I did warned,' etc.; but as might be expected, the English idiom is also present, in 'I went' and 'he throwed.' Making allowance for reminiscences of English spelling, and the accidents of type, this is an excellent specimen of the phases of English from German organs. It shows that sonants and surds do not always change place, as in did, nobody, disturb, out, that, not, come, which are not necessarily turned into tit, nopotty, tisdurp, oud, dad, nod, gum.[91]

In the foregoing example, the final t of went (where some might have expected 'wend'), dit for 'did,' hat for 'had,' streat, wornt for 'warned,' put, srout for 'throwed,' and subscript,—is for Latin -AT -US, English -ed, and as this is t in German, it is retained by the language instinct, even when represented by 'd,' as in gol-d. Were there not something different from mere accident here, Grimm's Law would be a delusion. The t of out, disturb, and the first one in street, is due to the surd s beside it, or in the German aus and strasze.

In the, de; then, den; wis; anneysing, nosing; srout, the sonant th becomes d by glottōsis,[92] and the surd one s by otōsis, or t by glottosis also, and 'nothing' is more likely to become nossing or notting, than nodding—and English z is not known to many German dialects. On the other hand, z as the representative of sonant th, is legitimate in the broken English of a Frenchman.

The p of 'open' and the g of 'against' are influenced by the German forms öffnen and gegen.

In "I dit nothin out annezmore"—any is made plural, and 'did out' (for the previous 'put out') seems to be a reminiscence of the German austhun.

§ 2. The Breitmann Ballads.

In these ballads Mr. Leland has opened a new and an interesting field in literature which he has worked with great success, for previous writers wanted the definite, accurate knowledge which appears in every page of Hans Breitmann, and which distinguishes a fiction like the Lady of the Lake from a figment like Hiawatha. Here we have an attempt to represent the speech of a large class of Europèan[93] Germans who have acquired English imperfectly, and who must not be confounded with the Pennsylvania German, altho the language of the two may have many points in common.

Apart from their proper function, and under their present spelling, the Breitmann ballads have but little philologic value. Instead of being the representative of an average speech, they contain forms which can hardly occur, even when influenced by the perversity of intentional exaggeration, such as shbeed, shdare, shdory, ghosdt, exisdt, lefdt, quesdions, excepdion, and where the sonant d occurs beside the surd sh, f, and t, in the lines:—

'De dimes he cot oopsetted^{1 1} oopsettet.

In shdeerin lefdt und righdt.^{2 2} G. recht.

Vas ofdener³ as de cleamin shdars^{4 3} G. öfter ⁴ shtarrss.

Dat shtud de shky⁵ py⁶ nighdt.' ⁵ sky. ⁶ G. bei.

In these pages an average speech is assumed as the basis of comparison, and also the average German who does one thing or avoids another in language. In such examples of bad English, surd and sonant (p,b; t,d; k,gay) must be confused, and German words like 'mit' for with, and 'ding' (rather than 'ting' or 'sing') for thing, may be introduced at discretion, as in Mr. Leland's use of ding, mit, blitzen, erstaunished (for -isht), Himmel, shlog, and others.

When German and English have the same phrase, it should be preserved, book (G. buch) has a sonant initial and a surd final in both languages; a German therefore, who brings his habits of speech into English, will not be likely to call a book a boog, poog, or pook; and Mr. Leland's habits as a German scholar have led him to write book, beer (and bier), fear, free, drink, denn, trink, stately, plow, born, dokter, togeder, hart (hard), heart, tead (dead), fought, frolic, goot, four, hat (had, hat,—but in the latter sense it should have been het), toes, dough (though), tousand, pills, etc. Under this rule, his 'ploot' and 'blood' (G. blut) should have been blut:—

benny penny dwice tvice pefore before prown brown

blace place fifdy fifty pegin begin py by

blaster plaster giss kiss pehind behint prow brow

breest priest led let plue blue sed to set

creen green mighdy mighty pone bone streed shtreet

deers tears pack n. back prave brafe veet feet

dell tell pall băll pranty brandy vifdeen fifteen

den ten peard beart preak break vine fine

dwelve tvelf pecause becauss prings bringss wide vite

In cases where the two languages do not agree in phase, either phase may be taken, as in 'troo' or 'droo' for English through with a surd initial, beside German durch with a sonant; but as German cognate finals are more likely to be surd than sonant (as in lockwouth for logwood at the end of Ch. I. p. 6), goot, hart and holt, as breitmannish forms, are better than good, hard, and hold. Mr. Leland practically admits this, as in 'barrick' (G. berg, a hill), which, however, many will take for a barrack.[94] The following have a different phase in German and English:—

day tay door toor -hood -hoot red ret

ding ting dream tream hund- huntert said set

dirsty tirsty drop trop middle mittle saddle sattle

done tone fader fater pad path drink trink

but k, and the pure final German s would turn d to t in 'bridges,' 'brackdise,' 'outsides,' 'holds,' 'shpirids;' it would turn g to k in 'rags,' and it makes 'craps' (crabs) correct. The power of English z can scarcely be said to belong to average German, or to the breitmannish dialect; it should therefore be ss in 'doozen,' 'preeze' (breeze), and 'phaze.' When it is present it occurs initial, and we have 'too zee' once, against numerous s initials like see, sea, say, so, soul, six.

The ballads have many irregularities in spelling like—as, ash; is, ish; one, von; two, dwo; dwelf, dwelve, twelve, zwölf (for tvelf); chor, gorus; distants, tisaster; dretful; tredful; eck (the correct form), egg; het, head, headt; groundt, cround, croundt; land, lantlord, Marylandt; shpirid, shpirit, shbirit; drumpet, trumpet; foorst, foost, first, virst; fein, vine; went, vent; old, olt, oldt; teufel, tyfel, tuyfel.

English J is placed in soobjectixe, objectified, jail, jammed, juice, jump (shoomp, choomp); it is represented by sh in shoost, shiant, shinglin; by ch (correctly) in choin, choy, choke, enchine; by g, dg in change, hedge; and by y in Yane and soobjectifly—which is not objectionable. English Ch remains in catch, child, chaps (and shaps), fetch, sooch, mooch; and it becomes sh in soosh (such), shase, sheek.

English Sh is proper in shmoke, shmile, shplit, shpill, shpoons, shtart, shtick, shtrike, shtop, shvear; it is omitted in smack, stamp, slept; and it is of doubtful propriety in ash (as), ashk, vash (was), elshe, shkorn, shkare, shky.

English D final is often written dt that the word may be recognised and the sound of t secured, as in laidt, roadt, shouldt, vouldt, findt, foundt, roundt (and round), vordt (and vord), obercoadt. English ed and its equivalents should be et or t in broken English, as in loadet, reconet, pe-markt, riset, signet, rollet, seemet, slightet, declaret, paddlet, mate (made), kilt; -ed being wrong, as in said, coomed, bassed, scared, trinked, smashed, rooshed, bleased.

English F, V, W, receive the worst treatment, and are judged by the eye rather than by speech. German folgen and English follow are turned into 'vollow'; German weil is 'vhile' and 'while.' Other examples are wind and vindow; vhen, vhenefer (turning not only German v, but English v into f), fery for very,—but svitch, ve (we), veight, vink, are proper. The following example is from 'Schnitzerl's Philosopede'—

'Oh vot ish all¹ dis eartly pliss? ¹ ol in folly.

Oh, vot ish⁴ man's soocksess?^{2 2} sooccess.

Oh, vot is various kinds³ of dings? ³ s turns d into t.

Und vot is⁴ hoppiness? ⁴ iss or ish, not both.

Ve find a pank node in de shtreedt,^{5 5} shtreet.

Next[-sht]⁶ dings ⁶ der pank ish ⁷ preak! ⁶ dingss. ⁷ d requires b.

Ve folls¹ und knocks our outsides ⁸ in, ⁸ G. seit, and final s, require t.

Ven ve a ten-shtrike make.'

FOOTNOTES:

Chickis, near Columbia, Pennsylvania, Feb. 16, 1870.