German speakers in the US

[King of Kensington]

Most places that have larger German speaking populations today are Amish/Old Order Mennonite settlements, such as Holmes County, Ohio.  But some counties in the Dakotas and Montana have large German speaking populations today (presumably these are "Volga Germans").  As late as 2000, 35% of McIntosh County, North Dakota (where 80% are of German ancestry) said they spoke German at home!  Didn't that immigration dry up about 100 years ago?

I don't have more recent data, but here are some county figures for 2000.  I think it's safe to assume German speakers continue to increase or at least remain stable in Amish/Old Order Mennonite communities while it's gone down quite a bit in other places.

http://www.usefoundation.org/userdata/file/Research/Languages/german.pdf

http://www.usefoundation.org/userdata/file/Research/Languages/pennsylvania_dutch.pdf

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, the big ones are obviously Hutterite colonies in the Dakotas then.  Though it's also true that the "Germans from Russia" came to the US later than Germans from Germany proper and were in more isolated settings.  Their late arrival in the US and isolation would have made them less susceptible to the anti-German hysteria of WWI.

Still I find it remarkable how long it held out.  I think it's probably reasonable to assume that most of the second generation was born in the first quarter of the 20th century and the third generation in the second quarter.   So people born before 1950, say, may have grown up speaking German (and the older people are still speaking it in their homes today to some extent).

[King of Kensington]

Just fascinating.  Here's an NPR report about German in Wisconsin.  Though Wisconsin is often thought as the "most German state" it didn't survive to the degree it did in the Dakotas and Texas:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102523977

[King of Kensington]

From the 1980 census:

37,134 spoke German at home in North Dakota, 6.2% of the state population.  11,996 were 65 and older (born 1915 or earlier), 13,732 were between 45 and 64 (born 1915-1935) and 7,385 were between 25 and 45 (born 1935-1955).

In comparison, the other "ethnic" language in ND didn't hold out as long.  12,459 spoke Norwegian and a majority - 7,947 - were 65+.  3,524 were 45-64 and just 548 were 25-44.

In 1990, 24,453 spoke German at home and 7,113 spoke Scandinavian languages.

In 2000, 14,931 spoke German - 2.5% of the state population - and 3,193 spoke Scandinavian languages.

In 2010, 8,959 still spoke German - just ahead of Spanish.

[King of Kensington]

In Canada, the biggest concentration of German speakers is in rural southern Manitoba (around Steinbach) where there are large Mennonite communities, which in fact still get immigration from Mennonite colonies in Mexico, Paraguay, etc.

Saskatchewan has the highest proportion of German origin (30%) but German has really died out there and there are no German-speaking enclaves that I'm aware of.

Ontario has some Old Order Amish/Mennonite communities near Kitchener.

The German origin population in Ontario is made up mostly of descendants of Pennsylvania Germans who came after the American Revolution and as well as mid-19th century immigrants from Germany.  In contrast, in Western Canada few came directly from Germany - most are descended from Germans from Russia.  Manitoba is more Mennonite and Saskatchewan more German Catholic.