HIGH AND LOW GERMAN
Most Wisconsin Germans were Low
German-speaking, though a sizable percentage
also had a good knowledge of the High German standard, which was reinforced
not only by clubs like the Plattdeutscher
Verein, but also German-speaking
churches. Although most speakers of Low German in Europe have been literate
in High German only, a number of people have produced original literature
in Low German and other dialects. Germany’s most famous dialectauthor
was Fritz Reuter (1810–1874). Born in Stavenhagen, Germany, Reuter wrote
a large number of novels in his native Low German, thereby contributing
significantly to the prestige of all German dialects as legitimate vehicles
for literature. Mark Twain, who drew heavily on dialect in his own writings,
mentions Reuter’s works in “A Tramp Abroad.”
Because of the large representation of Low German-speakers across Wisconsin, especially people whose ancestors came from Pomerania, many of the MKI’s archival recordings are of Low German dialects. The earliest of these were made by Prof. Lester W. J. “Smoky” Seifert (1915–1996), born in Juneau, Dodge Co., WI, in the 1940s, a third-generation Wisconsinite.
Prof. Seifert conducted interviews with many speakers of the Oderbrüchisch dialect, which he himself spoke natively, along with High German and
English. He was a professor of German at the UW–Madison and a leading
figure in German-American linguistics, not only because of his research
on Wisconsin German, but also Pennsylvania Dutch, on which he wrote his
doctoral dissertation. Many of the MKI’s other interviews were made by
by Prof. Jürgen Eichhoff, now retired from the UW–Madison and living
in Wiesbaden, Germany. Prof. Eichhoff grew up in Hamburg and, like Prof.
Seifert, learned both Low and High German natively.