I once read, somewhere that I cannot recall, that there was a time when a third of Pennsylvanians spoke Pennsylvania Dutch. My father is Pennsylvania Dutch and his father was bilingual, but his mother forbade him from being taught the tongue as it wasn't, "modern." She later admitted that this was a mistake. He once told me that he hated going to the local barber shop in his small coal town as all the old men would speak Pennsylvania Dutch and he would have no idea what they were saying.

My grandfather once visited a bar in Upper Darby, where we lived when I was very young, and the locals asked if he was Swedish, because of his accent. My mother has told me that when she met his grandparents, she could never quite tell when they were speaking Pennsylvania Dutch and when they were speaking 'Dutchified' English.

When I was in college, in an act of futility, I took courses in German that were taught by a woman from southern Germany. I once showed her my grandfather's old Grundsau Lodsch (Numma Finf an da Schwador) pamphlets, and she was amused to find the language rather familiar. (She also said that I sounded Austrian when I tried to speak German)

I wish that I were bilingual, because I would not be too far from High German, even if I would sound like something of a 'hick' in Germany, and it would be amusing if I could banter with my father auf Deitsch when he visits. My grandfather would often torment my mother, a self-described 'suburban princess' from Central Pennsylvania, by speaking Pennsylvania Dutch around her. He used to recite some poem that began, "A Truss truss trilly, a farmer hat in Philly," and ended, "the farmer had to sell," that I wish I knew all of. The Pennsylvania Dutch have strange, slight cruel streak, especially toward children. (Anybody who has lived in mortal terror of the Belschnickel knows what I refer to.)