Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 21:51:14 -0500

From: "Joseph C. Salmons" jsalmons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU

Subject: Re: kimmelwick



Larry Horn writes...

[T]he unrounding of high front vowels is of course quite common.

I don't know enough about PA D(e)ut(s)ch to know if unrounding is a

symptom of that dialect as it is of Yiddish (e.g. "shtick").



Yes, it is, but the southern/central dialects where 'Weck' would be

used are generally unrounding. We don't even necessarily have to look

to Pennsylvania German on this one, since similar German borrowings

for cultural items abound across so much of the country. On the other

hand, 'Weck' does occur in the west middle/SW German dialect areas

that PaGm has grown from.



Luanne von Schneidemesser has done lots of really good and interesting

work on such German loans in American English and maybe she knows the

details of this item.



joe salmons