Pennsylvania Dutch Dialect - Articles
As you may or may not know, German (and many European languages) use
gender to complicate grammar. That is, each noun has an assigned
gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter). The endings of any words
associated with the noun, depend on the gender of the noun. Therefore,
the gender of each noun must be memorized.Plurals imply a different ending (and plurals do not depend on gender, it's just plural).
Pennsylvania Dutch has the accusative case (direct objects) the same as the nominative case (subjects), unlike Standard German, but that makes things a bit easier. The dative case is used for indirect objects and to show possession (instead of a genitive case). Hmmm, sounds like going back to high school English or German class. Well, my recommendation is to look over one of the grammar books to get a feel for the language, and then go off and do a lot of reading (and writing). Try to get things to sound right by reading and listening. Then go back to grammar class. But without a some background in the grammar, you'll be struggling with basic constructs.
If you had high school German (Standard German), then much of this will look pretty familiar. Remember reciting "der die das die" etc. Well just do the same with the rows below if you're so inclinded.
Remember, children can speak languages without knowing this much grammar by immersion. But to speak and write correctly, you will eventually need to come to terms with these details of the language.
The words for the
(definite articles)
M |
F |
N |
P |
|
N/A |
der |
die |
es |
die |
Dative |
em |
der |
em |
de |
The words for a/an
(indefinite articles)
M |
F |
N |
P |
|
N/A |
en |
en |
en |
- |
Dative |
me |
re |
me | - |
The words for no/none
(indefinite articles)
M |
F |
N |
P |
|
N/A |
ken,
kee |
ken,
kee |
ken,
kee |
ken, kee |
Dative |
kem |
kenre |
kem |
ken |