German vs. English

To hear Dad tell it, the US was swamped with German speakers, so why teach English?

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• centenarians
• german
• english

[hardstyle905]

what the hell did i just watch

[marfita]

@hardstyle905 I made videos of my dad - he was about 100 years old at the time.

[hardstyle905]

@marfita i find him hard to understand... damn my non native ears

[marfita]

@hardstyle905 Much of that had to do with age - and his teeth. Don't blame your ears!

[hardstyle905]

@marfita oh yeah i just read he was 100 years old. sorry for my rude comment. that's crazy! i don't know anyone who lived that long. and i can't even imagine what it must have been like. to observe an entire century, industrialization, a lot of wars, the age of computers... etc

[marfita]

@hardstyle905 Our name was tampered with in the 19th century, and between the wars Dad wanted to go back to the original spelling, but - heh! - it cost too much to change it so he got married with the "simpler" spelling and we're still dealing with the confusion.

[hardstyle905]

@marfita yeah true but it used to be even more. a lot of places, streets, even family names were anglicized both at ww1 and ww2 out of hatred for germans... among burning of books which my country also did in ww2, this is the worst thing a country or government can do.... destroying a culture, identity. i hope there will never be war between germany and the usa again...

[marfita]

@traktorensteff At the time the video was made, my dad was 2 months short of completing 100 years. He made it to 101.

[traktorensteff]

How old is he?

[marfita]

@13Voorheespt2 It was NY state. You can tell by the place names in the area that there were waves of Dutch, then English, then German settlers. What he doesn't mention is that at some point he refused to go to German school anymore. He and his brother were harassed by other kids because of their accents when the first world war broke out.