Ivan didn’t have a list of requirements when he went looking for a wife, but he did hope for one who could speak Pennsylvania Dutch. That is really his first language, the language batted back and forth with brothers and passed with laughter across the table at Kinsinger family birthday parties.

I am thankful he married me, in spite of my deficiencies in the Dutch department. In my growing-up years, Dad always talked Pennsylvania Dutch to his mom on the phone — but, sadly, I was mostly noncomprehending and noncaring of this heritage. Dutch was boring, a relic of buggies and head-covering strings — two things I was just as happy not to have in my world. 

When I chose to study a foreign language, I chose Spanish and French, not German or the Pennsylvania version of it. 

(Pennsylvania Dutch, as you probably know, is not Dutch at all. This “Dutch” is a mispronunciation of Deutsch, or German.)

Now, I am trying to learn. We want our year-old daughter, Annalise, to learn the language, not just so she doesn’t miss out on cousin conversations but because the language is part of her heritage, and because it’s good for all children to know a second one.  

For a person in love with words, languages are surprisingly difficult for me. Not the learning-to-read part, or the grammar — both of which I find easy enough — but learning to speak it. 

I am cautious and a perfectionist, two qualities not helpful in gaining fluency, where one must be willing to stumble and bumble and make mistakes in front of other people.

Added to this drawback is the fact that Pennsylvania Dutch is a spoken rather than a written language. When I ask my dear husband questions like, “Why do you say it this way and not this way?” and “What is the method for changing verbs into past tense?” he has no idea. 

He learned English grammar, not Pennsylvania Dutch grammar, in school, and anyway, attributed about as much importance to grammar as I once attributed to Dutch. His speaking is instinctual. 

To add to the ambiguity, there are about as many dialects of Dutch as there are segments of conservative Anabaptists. Ivan’s Dutch, the Oakland version, is slightly different than my sister-in-law’s, who speaks the Ohio version.

Thankfully, I did find several helpful books for learning Dutch, one of which is a Pennsylvania Dutch New Testament. Most mornings at the breakfast table, I read a few verses out loud, and even though it hasn’t brought fluency, I have become familiar with more Dutch words. 

ONe of my next writing ventures is a Dutch children’s book. Ivan suggested it, back when we were dating, and someday we’ll manage his dream. I’ve already got one drafted in a folder, imagined as a board book for a child Annalise’s age, which is about the only age level of Dutch I can manage at this stage. 

One of these days, the Lord and a publisher willing, I will finish it.

As I learn the language better, I’d like to write more children’s books. Dutch seems to me a graphic and earthy language, and I’d like to capture some of that visuality. 

As an example of what I mean, the Dutch don’t say “adulterer,” they say, “marriage breaker.” They call a curious child a “wonder nose” and potatoes “crooked berries.” 

In the story of Mary and Joseph that I read recently, the inn was a “sleep-house,” shepherds were “sheep-herders” and Mary wasn’t just pregnant or expecting, but “in a family way,” which is vague and picturesque and literal all at the same time.

I asked my blog readers, many of whom have Pennsylvania Dutch backgrounds, for idioms in that language. I received dozens of examples. 

Vans maisley sat iss, iss meel bittah. (When the mouse is full, the flour is bitter.) 

Ah! Pity de Lyddie de catz hut an kitty! (Ah! Pity Lydia, the cat has a kitty.)

You may not live among people who say “yah” instead of yes or “nay” instead of no, but what dusty treasures are hidden in your heritage? A language? A family tradition? A way of seeing the world that is seldom valued in contemporary society? 

I encourage you to pull those treasures out and polish them. The world is richest with a diversity of perspectives.