Editing Pennsylvania Dutch language (section)

== European origins ==
[[File:West Germanic dialect continuum in 1900 (according to Wiesinger, Heeringa & König).png|thumb|A linguistic map of West Germanic dialects on the European mainland prior to [[World War II]]: [[High German]] is yellow and orange, including Pennsylvania Dutch and [[Palatine German language|Palatine]].]]
The ancestors of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers came from various parts of the southwestern regions of [[German language|German]]-speaking Europe, including [[Palatinate (region)|Palatinate]], [[Electoral Palatinate]] ({{langx|de|link=no|Kurpfalz}}), the [[Duchy of Baden]], [[Hesse]], [[Saxony]], [[Swabia]], [[Württemberg]], [[Alsace]], [[German Lorraine]], and [[Switzerland]]. Most of the people in these areas spoke [[Rhine Franconian dialects|Rhine Franconian]], especially [[Palatine German language|Palatine German]] and, to a lesser degree, [[Alemannic German|Alemannic]] dialects; it is believed that in the first generations after the settlers arrived, the dialects merged, as there were few new German immigrants for a period of ~60 years. (ca. 1760 to ca. 1820).{{Citation needed|date=January 2009}} The result of that [[dialect levelling]] was a dialect very close to the eastern dialects of Palatine German, especially the rural dialects around [[Mannheim]]/[[Ludwigshafen]].

Pennsylvania Dutch is mainly derived from [[Palatine German dialects|Palatine German]], spoken by 2,400,000 Germans in the [[Rhein Neckar Area|Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region]], a region almost identical to the historical Palatinate.<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Buffington
  | first = Alfred F.
  |author2=Preston A. Barba
  | title = A Pennsylvania German Grammar
  | edition = Revised
  | publisher = Schlecter's
  | location = Allentown, PA, USA
  | year = 1965
  | orig-year = 1954
  | pages = 137–145 }}</ref> There are similarities between the German dialect that is still spoken in this small part of southwestern Germany and Pennsylvania Dutch. When individuals from the [[Palatinate (region)|Palatinate ''(Pfalz)'']] region of Germany today encounter Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, conversation is often possible to a limited degree.{{fact|date=June 2024}}