No! to all three. I don't know where your grandmother was raised; but, no, it was not a local thing. PA-Dutchmen pronounced their English Vs like Ws, and vice versa. Even though I left the old home town more than fifty years ago; I still give out with a "vell" and a "wery" now and then. The German W is pronounced "vay" so German wunderbar "voondahbor" and English wonderful "vondahfull" are quite compatible. The German V is pronounced "fah" so you'd think English "very" would be pronounced "fery"; or, if not that, then "very"; since both the F and the V involve putting the lower lip between the teeth. I don't know vy it's pronounced "wery". No to speech impediment and no to Elmer Fudd. He had trouble with his Rs. Richard Emlin Reed Wesley Chapel, FL ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Vuxta" <rvuxta@charter.net> To: <padutch-life@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 1:28 PM Subject: Re: [PD-LIFE] The Letter V; Warning PA-Dutch Dialect Richard, I was wondering if you could help me out with something. I read your post concerning the pronunciation of the German letter V and it has me somewhat confused. My maternal grandmother, Frances Sweitzer Barnhart, who understood and spoke the language always seemed to pronounce v's as w's. She would say things like "it's wary cold today" or "Pennsylwania Dutch". Even our own last name she pronounced as 'Wook-stah'. Do you think that this was just some local thing, or perhaps a speech impediment?? Maybe she was the local version of Elmer Fudd? What do you think? Ron Vuxta Fallon, Nevada -----Original Message----- From: padutch-life-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:padutch-life-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Richard Emlin Reed Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 7:48 AM To: padutch-life@rootsweb.com Subject: [PD-LIFE] The Letter V; Warning PA-Dutch Dialect The German letter V is pronounced "fah". It is sounded like the English letter F. Verboten (forbidden) is pronounced "fairboten". In PA-Dutch, it is pronounced "fahbudda". That little german car which we called a VW (vee-dubya) is a "fah-vay" in Germany. There are some German words that are pronounced like the English V; Vakuum, Vampir, Vanille, Variete, Vase, Vatikan, to name a few. Ver is a common prefix in German. When used with a verb it means "to" as in "verändern" (to change). In PA-Dutch, we said "fah-en-ah-ra". Veränderlich (fah-en-ah-lich) is an adjective meaning changeable. Veränderung is a noun meaning change; I can't recall that we used it. A German might say," Ich habe eine berufliche Veränderung gemacht" ( I made a change of jobs); we would have said, "Ich hop en onnahrah jop grickt" (I got another job). Von means from; it is pronounced "foan"; we said a short "foon". Baron Manfred [foan, not von] Richthofen. Vor is a prefix meaning in front of, as well as several other meanings. It is pronounced "for". A "Vorbau", for example, would be a porch. We used the English "porch". The front porch was "dee feddahsht porch" and the back porch was "dee hinnahsht porch". In Newmanstown, every front porch had a swing; in the summertime, pre a/c and pre-tv, the front window would be open; and someone would be sitting on the swing, listening to the radio. Vorhaben means intention as in "What do you have ahead?". We used to say, "wos husht im gong?" (what do you have going?). Some suffices (or suffixes) used both the ver and vor prefices. In PA-Dutch, we pronounced them with a slightly different sound; and we put the accent on different syllables. Verlassen (fah-LUSSA) means to leave; Vorlassen (FOR-lussa, without the rolling R) means to let someone go ahead. Vermachen (fah-MACHA) means to bequeath; Vormachen (FOR-macha), to show how. We said, "Ich weis dah wie". We had an expression in PA-Dutch; "Ich hop mich fahshlookt" (to swallow the wrong way) which meant that some food had become lodged in one's throat (windpipe). Our translation for this was "I got it in the wrong throat". I can't forget to mention our famous PA-Dutch word "fah-hoodelt" which means confused. The German word is verwirrt. And fah-hoonst which means damaged, marred, messed up because of ineptness or carelessness. The German word is "verhunzen" which means to ruin. The last word under V is vulkanisch which means volcanic. It also means that I have no more to say. I thank you for your patience (Ich bedunk mich fah eerah Geduld). Richard Emlin Reed Wesley Chapel, FL ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PADUTCH-LIFE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PADUTCH-LIFE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message