The Volga German Dialect of Schoenchen, Kansas

Abstract

The town of Schoenchen, Kansas, lies 11 miles south of Hays, Kansas, in Ellis County. Schoenchen was founded in 1876 by German-speaking immigrants from the southern Volga region in Russia. Their forebears first came to Russia largely from the southern Hessian and northeastern Palatine regions of Germany in the second half of the eighteenth century at the invitation of Catherine the Great of Russia.

The Volga German dialect of Schoenchen, Kansas, remained strong for two generations following immigration to Kansas. Most of the grandchildren of the original immigrants were still actively using the dialect as young children during the years between the First and Second World Wars. The use of German began to decline during these years due to strong anti-German sentiment in the United States.

This dissertation describes the current state of the German dialect in Schoenchen, Kansas, which, like most other German dialects in Kansas, is in its last stages of existence. Seven informants participated in recorded interview sessions using interview materials which provided the basis for the Deutscher Sprachatlas and the Deutscher Wortatlas. In addition, informants were asked to describe pictures of rural scenes and to participate in extended question and answer sessions on a variety of topics dealing with life on the Great Plains prior to the 1950s. Some informants also related jokes and short anecdotes. All interviews were bilingual, with translation exercises and other questions presented in English and the informants answering in German. In addition, recordings of dialect interviews made in 1981 also provided data for this study.

Based on the data gathered from these interviews, the phonological, morphological and syntactic systems of the dialect are described and analyzed. In addition, a chapter is devoted to the analysis of Russian and English loanwords in the dialect. The final chapter deals with the decline and impending death of the dialect. The appendices contain all the interview questionnaires, as well as phonetic transcriptions of some translation exercises and selected anecdotes.