Linguistics

"German-Russian communities were held together by specific human and divine values. Not least among these values were their dialects which were couched in spiritual, moral and ethical beliefs and feelings."  

- Prof. Arnold H. Marzolf, from his book titled Let's Talk German-Russian with Ernschtina un Hanswurscht

The Volga Germans migrated from a variety of different locations in Western Europe and brought to Russia their unique local dialects. Given their isolation from other German speaking people, their linguistics remained largely unchanged during their settlement in Russia, only influenced by Russian borrow words.

LANGUAGE DEATH AMONG THE VOLGA-GERMAN COMMUNITIES IN ELLIS COUNTY, KANSAS

The town of Hays, KS, located in Western Kansas along I-70, is surrounded by Volga-German settlements founded in the late 1800's, such as Pfeifer, Liebenthal, Katherinenstadt, Schoenchen, Obermunjou, and Herzog (Keel).

For many decades, these settlements retained their unique heritage, isolating them from the surrounding predominately English-speaking area. The persistent maintenance of their culture and language, as well as their being a minority separated from their homeland classifies them as German speech islands (Mattheier).

The purpose of this paper will be to research the social and historical development of the language, culture, and impending death of this speech island. Whereas the First World War is often regarded as the single factor attrition German speech islands, it is plausible to assert that in Ellis County, the First World War signaled only the beginning of a gradual process of language loss. The years between the First and Second World Wars represent a transitional period where the increased shift in usage from dialect to English is witnessed. The Second World War represents the most decisive factor responsible for the completion of this process. Aside from the discrimination against the German ethnic communities, the Second World War also brought important socio-economic developments to Ellis County, resulting in a disproportionate exposure to the contact society and increased mobility. Due to these factors the speech islands was compelled to compromise its cultural and linguistic uniformity and self-sustainability. This development led in the decades following the Second World War to a rapid and final language shift from the dialect to the contact language. The evidence suggests that, due to the historical breakdown of the speech islands, the Volga-German dialect and culture will also perish with the deaths of our informants' generation.