The Volga German Dialect Of Milberger, Kansas

Abstract

The uniqueness of the Volga Germans is in that their language was isolated from the linguistic developments in their German homeland and underwent unique changes, while conserving old features of the native dialect. The research subject for the present study is a Lutheran Volga German community in western Kansas that was founded in 1876 by German immigrants from the Volga region. This study focuses on several major areas while describing this community: First, history of the settlement is examined, including origin of the first settlers in Milberger. Second, the present dissertation provides a description of the phonological and morphological system of the dialect spoken by natives of this community. It also pays particular attention to the comparative analysis of the described dialect with the dialects that were spoken in two mother colonies on the Volga that subjects of this study identified as places of origin for their ancestors. Since some informants who were interviewed for this research were able to share the German origin of their ancestors, and their information was backed by genealogical research that is available online, the Milberger dialect was compared with Zhirmunski's description of the Central Franconian koine and the semi-dialect of Darmstadt. The third major area of investigation is the development of the language situation in this community that can be traced back with help of the interviews carried out in 2007-2008 in Russell, Kansas, Neale Carman's fieldwork notes, and available newspaper articles. These materials also allowed analyzing reasons for the language loss in this area. Particularly interesting linguistic features discussed in the present dissertation are diglossia and interferences from Russian and English that had an impact on this dialect. The study provides examples on how the "sectarian" diglossia that exists in this community resulted in leveling of some dialectal features towards High German. The present research also addresses in detail the list of Russian borrowings that was collected in 1910s in Russell, providing points for discussion, on whether some of these words could, in fact, have been borrowed before settlers arrived in Russia.