G.G. HARPER
(Grand Rapids)
Yankee Dutch is a dialect of Dutch spoken at onetime in parts of Michigan and Illinois, particularlyin Grand Rapids and Chicago. Yankee Dutch lookslike a pidginorcreole, but it is neither: it isbasically Dutch, but withAmericanEn glish words and expressions subtly stated in Dutch noises in the ratio of one American to two Dutch words. A variant, which is often miscalled Yankee Dutch, isthe kindof“dialect humor” language associatedwith almost all immi grantgroups— it survives indoggerel poetry written forchurchfeasts, weddings, and other occasions among the immigrants and increasingly among their se cond- and third-generation descendants, who have no way ofknowingthat it is only American English sprinkled with afew Dutch expressions and delivered in a kindofstage-dialect: e.g., “VelYake, hafyouse goten metchfor mine cigar?” and the like.GenuineYankeeDutch, at least thekind recorded byDirk Nieland in hisbook ‘n fonnie bisnis (1929), isessentially Dutch in structure and largely in vocabulary.
But abitabout Nieland and his book might be appropriate. Dirk Nieland was an early WOO’s immigrant from Sauwerd inthe province of Groningen.Hewas the only child ofPiet and Leifke Nieland.His book tellsofepisodesinthe life of Loe Verluk, a resident ofGrand Rapids, Michigan. Loe tells of “sonnieschoel pikkiniks,” “femmelie troebels,” and other joysand crises in thelives of Dutch immigrants to Michigan in the years 1900 to 1930,in a language uniquely adap ted to express the mysteries and complexitiesof the immigrant life. The langua ge is exquisitelyconstructed of standardDutch grammar, syntax, and vocabula ry, and phonetically expressed American English vocabulary. The episodes themselves are often poignant, but more often very funny. Nieland’s ear was veryaccurate, andhis nuances ofthe immigrant experience, especiallythe pro
Stylistyka X
cess of adaptation and assimilation, are truthful and amusing, even sometimes brilliantly funny.
Thelanguage itself isinteresting, especiallyin its status: it is not a pidginor a creole,asso manyrecordedimmigrant languages turn out to be.The Third Inter
national Dictionary (Webster) defines pidgin as “Aform of speech that usu. has asimplified grammarand a limited often mixed vocabulary.” Creole it defines as “A language resulting from the acquisition by a subordinate group ofthe lan guage of a dominant group, with phonological changes, simplifications of gram mar, and an admixture of the subordinate group’s vocabulary.” (McArthur
1992),stresses the matter of pidgin’s simplified grammar; of creolethe Compa nion describes that language as a nativization of a pidgin that has become the language of a whole community. Yankee Dutch has neithera simplified gram mar nor phonological changes; its grammar is still fully that of Dutch and the onlyphonologicalchanges are thoserelatingtothephoneticizationofthe borro wed American English terms. It is, then, a distinct dialectof Dutch, in this in stance a dialect not located in the land ofthe original tongue but in another part of the world, andsubject to the conditions of the adoptedcultureand language. An analogy with Afrikaans is strongly suggested here,and perhaps withtheva rieties of English spoken in other areas of the world such as India, southeast Asia, and various islandsof the Pacific and South Atlantic(e.g., Tristan da Cun ha).
Nieland’s version of YankeeDutch, now almostextinct in real life, survives mainly in the form ofhis book ‘nfonnie bisnis. Speakersnow in theirnineties canbefound, butshortlyall willbe gone, andthebook shall have to be the only memorial tothe language, read by fewerand fewer readers until finallyit isme relya museum exhibit. .But atone time it providedgreatenjoymentforagenera tionof recentimmigrantsand their children,and readings ofthe storieswereof ten held in church basements and private homes. The hearers saw themselves reflected in the lives of Loe and his circle, andwereamused into acceptance of their lot.
But now a short survey of the book itself.It isoffered as picture of the life and times of LoeVerluk, “peenter en dikkerator,”of Grandrapis, a city in Michigan towhichgenerations of immigrants, manyfrom the Netherlands, have come to work in the furniture factories. Loe spends days painting houses, his evenings enjoyinga cigar and conversationswith his friends and family,and his Sundays eitherat church or at home eating and thinking and visiting.Nowand thenhe ta kesa break: a “sonnieschoel pikkinik” or a fishingexpedition into the “kontrie” with his friends Bik Nik de boetser (butcher) and SikkePiet de eller (i.e., church
elder) But most ofbook is aseries of observations on life, and especially thelife lived by the recent immigrants in the culture thatchallenges their adaptability and linguistic skills. Theirspiritual life remainslargely what it had been in the “ol kontrie,” for the church inthe “Joenait Steets” still offers the oldpsalm-sin ging and long Dutch-language sermons, the old deferencetopreacher and elder, and the old authority.There are, however, newmatters to think about: boys no longer follow their fathers’ trades, and girls havemore independence. Nowand then awifelearnstoassert her own authority; indeed,Loe’s wife discloses anin dependent streak that atfirst startles him, then gains his approval. Hard work brings rewards, and the greatest boon of the new land is the opportunity tobe one’s own boss,whichLoe findsmuch to his liking, for heis goodatmanaginga business.
All inall,Loe isclearly well ableto confront theproblems that allimmigrants faced, and he is especially good at adjusting to the psychological and spiritual troubles inherentinspiritual kingdom andworld .Thebookendswith Loe’svi sit to the preacher, insome trepidation, only to find thatthe preacher is “’n fain feller”after all.A local committee has visited Loe regarding his alleged “ondie- sent” behavior,so Loe visits the domineeto hearfromhim an explanation. Loe reports the dominee’s words:
De Kemittie was alleen maar bij mij geweest om dekompleen (complaint) van Maarten Bram- metje inte vestegeeten (to investigate)om de beidesaais (both sides) van de storie te hooren. Enhij wist nuwel, zei hij, dat er geenriezen was ommet dekeeste persieden (proceed).0, of
kos, hij heeft ‘took nog ‘n luddelbit ingerobd (rubbed in) datalle piepel rielie meer sieries be- langden te zijn, (shouldbemore serious) endat ze zoo moesten leven dat er geen kikover gere-esd kon worden(should liveso thatthere can be nocomplaint), maar datwas zijn doetie als minnester, he?Daar wasniks de metter mee. Nosurrie, hij is ‘n fain feller, hoor! Enhij lijkt ‘n
jook(joke),aigis,want toenik wegging (wentaway)en handsjeekte (shook hands) met hem, pooktehij mij in de ribsenzeidat hij sjoer was dat ik laterwel keervolder(carefuller) wezen zou metmoensjain(moonshinewhiskey) en metal zulke monkiederij (monkeyshines).Ik zei
(said): “Joebet, dominee.” En toenben ik met ‘n hoollat iezierfielen(awhole lot easier feeling) weer hoom gegaan ('n fonnie bisnis 160)
Loe isat peace at the end,when he philosophizes over losingtheracefor elec tion to the office of deacon:
Wel, om ‘n lange storie kort temaken, toen het vootkounten (counting ofvotes) gefinnist was, had ik juust een-en-twintigvoots minder (less)alsmijn pardner en ikwas dus niet gelekted
(elected). Datwas wel toebed, maarik heb ‘n aidie, joeno,dat latse piepelgedachthebben, dat
eenjaap voor eller mij beter fitteendaaromzal ik maar studdie aan een beetjefiekeren(figu
Stylistyka X
The secondary characters, some of whomarenamed above, play their roles as foils toLoebut donot undergo development, as does Loe, thoughhis develop ment is slight, forhis character isformedwellbeforethe stories begin (thissub tly corresponds to the pattern established by Loe’simmigration - he brought not only his body but alsohis whole cultural andspiritualcomplexity with him; his only forming inthe new country is linguistic, andeven here his conservatism is manifest.) The setting isnowhere made very explicit, although the readers in Grand Rapids wouldrecognize the place-they all lived in it,or in a similar pla ce, such as the south side of Chicago. Theconcerns and interests of thecharac ters, brought to focus in Loe’s adventures and musings, are also authentic to the place and time: Many ofthepeople of Granrapis talked like Loe,had adventures like his, and had thesame outlook onlife. Loe is representative,then, of an era which is now pastbutwhich flourished for abriefperiod from 1900 to 1930 or
1940 in Grand Rapids, Chicago,and in smaller pocketselsewhere. The key to understanding both Loe and hismilieu lies in his language, and to thatwe now turn in more detail.
Asstated before, Loe’slanguage is neither apidgin nor a creole. What then is it? It is a dialectofDutch.Usually dialects arethoughtofas settled in the coun try of their origin, but there is no reasonwhy a dialect cannot begin in another land, provided conditionsare right. And these are the conditionsin which Loe, and hundreds of otherresidents ofGrand Rapids who shared hislanguage in the period, developed their dialect. First of all, most of the speakers of Yankee Dutch hademigrated fromtheprovince ofGroningen, and they continued to use that strong dialectforat leasta generation after theyarrived . The language dia lectknown as Yankee Dutchbegan, then, in a linguistic enclave that included speakers of a strong dialect with its many associations, whohad the self-assuran ce of peoplebondedby ties oflanguage, culture,and religion and folkways. It was strong enough to prevail, althoughthesecond condition now appears: ithad to absorb termsthatwerelocal and not to be found inthetransported,parentlan guage, terms first encountered as sound,not graphic symbol. And of courseall thewage-earners had tobecome somewhat fluent inthe language of the adopted country, so they learnedit, stumblingly, often from an earlier wave ofimmi grantsthemselves imperfectly grounded inthe new language. Andgradually the newvocabulary, but notthe syntactical structure, ofthe new language, Ameri canEnglish,replaced the old,and it even suppliedportmanteau words and phra ses (like Loe’s word of greeting,“piezelmietje”(i.e., “pleased to meet you,” but suggesting “piece of meat”)). Then oneshould add another condition: the human urge to dominate invades even pious Christian communities, and where all are
poor, at least for a few years, linguistic dominance will survive until economic and social dominance finallyarrive. So the incorporationof American English vocabulary intothenative dialect went on apace, and within a generation or two Yankee Dutch became the language ofthetribe, although notfor long, for the youngwent off for furthereducation and some ofthe olderimmigrants worked assiduously at acquiringanalmostaccent-freeAmerican English(Dirk Nieland himself spoke ahighly inflectedand rich English, althoughit was a bitold-fas hioned, forhismodels were JamesFenimore Cooper, James BranchCabel, and H. L. Mencken).
One of the most interesting featuresof Loe’s language is its flexibility. When need arises, he can speak “English” withthe best of his coevals, including his wife, who speaks not Yankee Dutch butstrongly accented English, as in the fol lowingexcerpt, which recounts Loe’s son’s stomachache and the treatment for it:
Mijn wijf was kreezie.
“Ja,der joehevdon it nou,”hallerde zij (shehollered), terwijlze kwiek water op de stoof poet voor een hatwaterbeck (hot-water bag) op Henkie zijn stommerik.
“Joe wanted mijn poer luddelHenkie toe lurneen treed.En nou joelurn him arriddie (already) toe git depeenters kollik (colic). 0, wat sell ai doe. 0,0,0!”
“Och,"” zeg ik, “peenters kollik. Watjoetoken ebout. Ik been peenter geweest voorjaren en ‘t
heeft mij nooit gebadderd (bothered). En de kidheeft ieven nietgepeent (painted), oonlie maar
watgepeest (pasted).No, aiteljoe wathet is. ‘t Is geen peenters kollik, but pleenensimpel eppel
(apple)kollik. Hij heeft toe muts eppels gehad.”
Maar mijn wijf hoordemijniet.Zij was all bizziemet Henkie, die nog alletaim hallerde. Zij ro-
bde (rubbed) hem de stommerick, en zei maar over enoveregan:“No, mijnbooi, of joe git bet ter, joe newer, newer wil bie ‘npeenter, hoor. Newer, newer!” (29-30)
An even more revealing episode involves Loe’s“Kompetieter,”Baanie (Bar ney,originallyBerend),who tells Loeabout meetingthe manager ofa business who might needsomepainting. Just aftertalking inYankee Dutch to Loe, Baa nie says, “Wei, ikken de mennesjer poediegoed en toen ikin zin offis kwam, zeg ik: ‘Hello, Jim, hougoos it’?’ ‘0 fain, Baanie,’zegt hij, ‘zit doun.’ Wei, ik ging zitten en hij handigde mij een naisten-center sigaar. ‘En nou, Baanie, wat joe want,’ zegt hij.” Baanie knowshow toshift from Yankee Dutchto American En glish, and does so withoutdifficulty, though notwithout a strong accent.Loecan shift too, but he prefers Yankee Dutch, and when forced to speak “English”he gets out of the situation as quickly as he can.
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Some closing observations: first of all, what of Nieland and Loe? They are not identical, ofcourse-no authoris entirely his fictional character. Butthe similari- tiesare interesting. Bothwere immigrants, both tackled the huge problem of sur vival inaforeign culture with its difficultlanguage, and bothwerepioneersof a sort (Loe, of course, representatively, not individually). Loe’s - that is, Nieland’s-language had not really been heardbefore, orperhaps only in bits and pieces, until Nieland organized it into a coherent representationof the way peop le spoke andfelt and thought for a brief moment in a particular place. He works through his hero, Loe,to express trulythe culture of a tough andvibrant people, facingodds that were partly duetothe new country,but also to the culture they brought with them,and in Nieland’sand Loe’sview, especiallythe rigid structu res of the church (which makes Loe’s reconciliation with the dominee all the more significant). InLoethe“luddelfeller” speaks, againstthepowers that clas sicallyandhistorically have kepthim down:church and society, andthehypoc risy that both generate against their wills. Loe, likeNieland,sees through thepo wers and gently exposes them, yet he is inno way programmatic about it: it’s merelythat he has seen all, knowsall, absorbed all, adjusted, and eventually for given. Andthe new language is vibrant with such meaning in waysthat neither the language ofthe “ole Kontrie”nor the language of thenew countrycould po ssibly have supplied.In Loe thelinguistic isthe vehicle of the social and thereli gious;conservative, the languageenablesNieland tofix histime and place. Yet language and the culture werechanging even as Loespoke;he isthe last as well as the first.
And the funniest. Loe is unconsciously funny; he doesn’t know thathis locu tionsarefunnyto bilingual speakers of either Dutch/English or English/Dutch. His fun does not consist of one-liners, or setup jokes, or highly exaggerated characterizations. Andcertainly the fun does notreside in mere mispronuncia tions -the main fare of so manydialectwritings purporting to reflect the speech of immigrantstoanEnglish-speakingculture. Loe’sfunisin the reflectionin his mind,expressed in hisexquisite fabrications,of the culture in whichhe hasbeen placed and in whichhe must survive and even thrive. He hasheard his fellow Americans say, often, so as to establish authority ofstatement, “Itell you....” Loe’sphoneticsystem (Nieland’s ofcourse) makesthatoutto be aiteljoe. Anot her passage illustrates his remarkable ability to adapt to the new language:
Laif is toch maar niet zoo iezie (easy). Spesjel de peenters hebben d’reen tuftaim Enik mijzelf nog wel het tufste.Ik ben nog niet zoo’n lang taim oonbos (myown boss) enheb duseenhool lat troebel met kompetieters(competitors).As ik oeen luddel jaap fieker(figure on a little job),
close) doenom een jaap te krijgen.In dat wee zit er niet’nlat monnie (in thatway there’snot a
lot of money in it), maar oonlie juust’n diesent livven (justa decent living) (35). And another - Loe is in “troebel”:
Nou heb ikal weer troebel. Endat komt omdat piepel(people)niet priesjetenwatzezelf niet
doen kunnen (donot appreciatewhat they themselves cannot do).Aiteljoe, ‘t isnottingals jel- lesie (jealousy),‘n Proffert (prophet) wordt niet geannerd(honored)in zijneigen kontrie. Dat’s
de troeblel (111).
Then follows a sad taleof misunderstanding and recrimination from other pe ople, butin the end Loe iscomforted by thedominee,andall iswell, as it always is for Loe and for others like him. The humor is low-keyand mainlyembedded in the remarkable linguistic adaptation, butthe general air of Loe and his kind is kindly, tolerant, and often graceful.
The humor heals over all the painof being astrangerina strangeland, trying hard to become fluent in a strange tongue, but in the end triumphant.
Sources cited
McArthur Tom, 1992, ed. The Oxford Companion To the English Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Nieland, Dirk (1929), ‘n fonnie bisnis (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, (1929)).
Śmieszny
interes:
jankeski holenderski
Jankeski holenderski jest odmianą holenderskiego używanąw stanach Michigan i Illi nois, szczególnie w Grand Rapids i Chicago. Jest to właściwie język holenderski, z amerykańsko-angielskimi elementami leksykalnymi. Wymową zbliżony jest do holend erskiego i na jeden amerykański przypadają w nim dwa wyrazy holenderskie.
Nazwa jankeski holenderski jest też odnoszona do “dialektalnego humoru”, którego używa się w poezji tworzonej z okazji świąt kościelnych, ślubów i innych uroczystości. Cieszy się on niegasnącym powodzeniem wśród potomków (w drugim i trzecim pokole niu) holenderskich emigrantów, którzy nie zawsze zdają sobie sprawę, iż jest to właści wie amerykański angielski, okraszony tylko holenderskimi wyrażeniami i traktowany jako rodzaj scenicznego dialektu.
Prawdziwy jankeski holenderski, a przynajmniej jego odmiana zapisana przez Dirka Nielanda w książce ’n fonnie bisnis (1929) jest strukturalnie i leksykalnie językiem
