UT professor works to save Texas German dialect

As one of the German-descended bloggers here, I found this article pretty interesting. My family is from the so-called German Coast of Louisiana, where a very large German community settled. The Germans were readily absorbed into the very eclectic South Louisiana society, and little remains (except for boudain - local Lousiana junk stuffed into a sausage casing - a German invention). I think it's commendable that this UT professor is working to preserve the dialect of Texas German.

Still the German spoken by immigrants across Central Texas differed widely from town to town, even family to family, because the immigrants came from different German regions and spoke a variety of dialects. Many had limited knowledge of standard German, either spoken or written.

Over time, immigrants adapted their language, their children studied standard German in school, and they traded vocabulary with other dialects.

Texas Germans also borrowed from English, coming up with phrases such as der cowboy, or der fenzposten, "the fencepost."