41 Maps That Portray The Lesser Known Facts About America

I am not surprised at all. I guess the Amish communities have a great deal in it

I did. I grew up in a very German family in the midwest. Why do you think Wisconsin is known for beer?

There were quite a few German and Austrian immigrants in the US that settled in the Northern Midwestern area of the country. Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota are known for their German-American cultures, cuisines and festivals....they make the best cheeses and sausages in the country!!

About 20 years ago the US Census reported that over 50% of Americans reported having German ancestry for the first time. But that was just for the nation at large. In the central midwest that happened in 1970. btw-My 94 y.o. landlord and friend grew up in Nebraska and he once told me, during that silly "official language" nonsense a while back that he didn't have school instruction in English until he was 12, it was all in German.

It was the second most spoken language in the US until wwi. Families and communities spoke mainly German. German language newspapers were not uncommon.

The US doesn’t have an official language, but we almost chose German back in the 1780s! Lost by one vote!

A lot of Hutterite and Mennonite colonies.

Most schools offer Spanish, French, and German. Take out Spanish, you are left with 2. I thought French would be more popular but maybe not?

There is approximately 44.2 million German Americans in the US. We are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups.

The midwest has a lot of German descendants?

We hear it a lot in Wisconsin. Maybe because the surrounding suburban areas of Milwaukee were settled by Germans.

It's not really surprising when you realize that the founding fathers actually considered making German the official language of the US. Fun fact: English is NOT the official language of the US. There is no official language. Google it if you don't believe me.

It almost became the national language actually, that's how many German speakers there were in the US originally.

In the Midwest, prior to the 80s, German was widely taught in schools. Today, it's mostly Spanish and various other languages. The German speakers represented in the map are mostly people like me who studied it in school, but it's our SECOND language. Hmong, Vietnamese, Navajo, etc are probably people's NATIVE languages.

Well given back in 1780. German was second in line to English as Voted as the official language...... you obviously have very limited knowledge of American history :)

There are a lot of Amish that speak German

Mayabe the high schools offer it? ... Yeah, I'm at a loss. *head scratch*

Anyone with German ancestry, Eur-Asian ancestry, or immigrants themselves or a family history of immigrants (older or newer) from that part of the world?

Anyone with German and/or Eur-Asian family history?

Probably because Germans started coming here in larger numbers in the 1670's.

A lot of Germans found the Midwest looked a lot like Germany and settled there. My father's family came over in the 1840s.

There isn't any Spanish either.

The biggest migratory population into America in the 19th and early 20th centuries was not Irish , Italian ,Chinese etc. It was German. The reason they didn't make such an impact as other nationalities lay in the fact that the german language had/has so many dialects, there was no one cohesive language to bind them together like the Italians or Irish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_legend

Who wouldn't?

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I'm German, and we're very common in those states! I still have family in Penn (the Pennsylvania Dutch are actually German) and apparently there's some ancestral family home in the area. I'm not fluent myself though, having been here since I was a baby. Ironically enough, I live in Florida and I speak French. :/

Has a lot to do with the Amish, who speak a very strange version of old German.

Na gut!

Germany was late to the development of lands in the Americas. it thus planned on sending over it's overflow of people and creating a new Germany. Thus the settlers came to Texas in droves from 1845 onward.

Anyone who lives in Amish country.

1/3 of the Texas population is of German decent, but that doesn't mean it is a commonly spoken language. However, it does not surprise me that German is a widely spoken language in this country. Millions of Americans are of German decent.

I thought PA would be more German than Italian.

A bunch of northern cities with breweries are all German

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My hometown in Ohio use to publish a newspaper in German.

Very large waves of immigration from German-speaking Europe in the later 19th century and early 20th century. It was a tough period for Eastern Europe states.

...keine alte Sau

Me. :)

Is that in the same way that american english is different from british english? Different words for items (taps and faucets) and phrases eg This is different from (British) and this is different than (US). I can't come up with better examples off the top of my head, sorry!

So many Polish bakeries in Chicago - that wasn't a surprise to me though.

When I was growing up in Detroit in the 50s they said it had the second-largest Polish population in the world, only behind Warsaw.

Doesn't (almost) each island have its own dialect, or separate language? Palawan, Mindanao, Cebu, Leyte, etc...

Thanks!

Cymru am byth! Getting revenge on those haters of centuries before. Enjoying Welsh folk music and learning of Welsh history and folklore. I honor my Welsh ancestors by attending a gmanfa ganu whenever I am able to.

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