In the early days of America prior to the Revolution, most Germans who immigrated to the country lived in Philadelphia or other towns in Pennsylvania.
Naturally the people who lived in German enclaves continued to speak German among themselves. They were interested in maintaining contacts to their homelands and cultures. In response, a printing industry in the German language was established between 1728 and 1737. The printed information included hymnals, almanacs and newspapers. Benjamin Franklin published the first foreign language newspaper in 1732 with the title Die Philadelphische Zeitung. Unfortunately the newspaper was not successful and Franklin abandoned it after two issues.
Source: Language Log
Two other German printing pioneers of the times were Andrew Bradford and Christopher Sauer. Sauer was born in Frankfurt and immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1724. He printed in German Fraktur, a typeface similar to what German immigrants would have known from home. His most popular works were almanacs with weather forecasts, sunrise and sunset information, Scripture passages and practical farming advice. In 1739 he began to print a German newspaper in Germantown that continued to be published by his family until 1777.
Source: Wikipedia
Urban Legend: German Almost Became the Official Language of the United States
Language became an emotional issue when English settlers in Pennsylvania began to resent that so many of their local compatriots were German speakers. The truth is that the United States has never had a legally-established official language. There was never a German vote in 1776, though the legend was that a vote was held: The English language won with one vote because a German-favorer had left the room to visit the mens’ room.
The events that led to the misinterpretation of a German vote occurred much later in 1795. In that year Congress considered a proposal to print federal laws in German as well as English. There were a great number of plans, but none satisfied the House so a vote to adjourn was passed 42 to 41. The vote to adjourn is sometimes called the ‘Muhlenberg Vote’, after the speaker of the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania, Frederick Muhlenberg. As was the tradition, he stepped down from voting on the adjournment, thus dooming German in America to a minority-status language. He wasn’t in the bathroom!
Frederick Muhlenberg, Source: Bridgeman Images
Another legend is that Benjamin Franklin recommended that German be the official language of the United States. Actually the opposite is true: Franklin was deeply worried that German ancestry would overwhelm America and change its most basic virtues. Franklin wrote of the Germans in 1753: ‘Few of their children in the country learn English…Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.’
The German Language in America Today
The xenophobia of the 18th Century against Germans was later replaced with a respect for their hard work and assimilation. Today nearly 20% of all Americans have some German roots. Though at one point there were dozens of German language newspapers in the United States, the publishing industry in German dissipated during WWI, and the further during Prohibition, when advertisers withdrew their support. However German still thrives in the English language. From ’Kindergarten’ to ‘Schadenfreude’, from ‘Iceberg’ to ‘Angst’, many German words are a regular part of the English vocabulary.
Sources:
National Constitution Center: www.constitutioncenter.org
Dialogue InternationalABC News: www.abcnews.com
National Endowment for the Humanities: www.neh.gov
Deutsches Historical Museum