For twenty years I've been telling people I'm writing a novel about domestic life among the Pennsylvania Germans in 19th century Berks County. I don't write about it much here. And of course, writing about it is not the same as actually writing it. In fact, not only do I not write about it, I don't actually write it very much either, a realization I began coming to last year. Periodically I dedicate myself to it, but I can be very scattered and easily distracted. I see the work as about 150,000 words (picture The Poisonwood Bible or Feather Crowns). I have about 8,000 words, 25 or so manuscript pages.

Recently I identified the two main things that are holding me back from doing this work:
         1. If I actually do it, I won't have it to do anymore.
         2. I've become so attached to the story that I am afraid I will never master the craft enough to do it justice.

But I keep on keepin' on, because not to do so is also not to have it to do anymore.

Writing historical fiction means I have to develop two things at once -- the fiction crafting skills, and the historical and cultural details of a world doubly not my own. Today I took a step toward filling in one of the areas that I think I really need to know something about. I had my first Pennsylvania German language lesson.

Linguists are divided over whether Pennsylvania German is a dialect of high (literary) German or a separate language on its own. Some believe it is more closely related to Yiddish than was previously thought. It developed because most of the German immigrants who streamed into this country beginning in 1683 were from the Palitinate region of Germany and many others from the nearby regions of France and Switzerland. They read and wrote in literary German, but they spoke their regional dialects in everyday conversation. Among those who settled in the southern half of Pennsylvania, the dialect solidified and became Pennsylvania Dutch. In 1900 there were as many as 600,000 speakers of the language in southeastern Pennsylvania. But as intermarriage continued and public education and broadcast media began to have a greater influence, the numbers dwindled. Today only about 125,000 people speak the language, including 25,000 Old Order Amish. Most of these people are over 60. It is an endangered language.

Last month I signed up for ten weeks of introductory instruction to be given at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society on Route 30 in Lancaster. I paid $90 because I am not a member (yet) of the Society, and today I attended the first class.

I have already gotten my money's worth.

There are some people you just know, from the minute they stand up in front of the class, are born teachers. Stephen Miller (Schteff) is one of them. He's a huge man and authentically Amish -- picture Lou Ferrigno in bushy beard and bowl cut hair, black shirt and pants with deep blue vest, straw hat, heavy shoes and heavy black jacket. He sounds like Tom Brokaw when he speaks English and like a man who has never been more than ten miles from his farm when he speaks the dialect. His hands are the big hard hands of a farmer and his voice so strong I know he can be heard across a field of rolling grain.

He was about a half hour late for class. As an observant Amishman he neither owns nor drives a car. He had arranged for a ride to and from class with someone who had expressed interest in studying the language, but there was some misunderstanding and that person decided not to attend. But nobody told Stephen, and when it became clear that no one was coming for him he had to walk a half mile to a neighboring farm to use a telephone, since he doesn't have one of those either. (There are taxi services that cater to the Amish, since many of them have jobs in the city and must travel there to do personal business as well. The traditional horse and buggy is a familiar sight on country roads and even along congested Route 30 where the Mennonite center is, but you can't really negotiate the city with one.)

There are about fifteen students in the class and I find myself in the middle of the age range. There is a woman with two of her children, a boy of 18 and a girl about 9, a young man who has recently leased some land from an Amish farmer and wishes to be able to communicate with him more effectively, and a woman who runs a taxi service such as I have described, driving ten young Amish men back and forth each day to their jobs in a factory. Several are people in their sixties and seventies who suddenly realize that they are the last in their family with even a rudimentary knowledge of the tongue and they desire to recapture the speech of their grandparents. One woman barely out of her teens has a wish to know her heritage. I am the only member of the group with absolutely no Pennsylvania German in my blood.

Today we had mostly a brief introduction to the culture and the language, and it is the mark of a dazzling lecturer that he can present material I already know without making me impatient. We looked at a pronunciation guide, and Stephen taught us to ask Wie bischt du? (Who are you?) and to answer with Ich bin die (feminine) or der (masculine) ....

Ich bin die Margaret, and I am a novelist.

*(My text says that this is actually "how are you," but it's what I remember we said. I'll ask next week and correct it if necessary.)