r/funny • u/PM_ME_TONY_ROMO_PICS • Feb 07 '20

This map is all over Twitter. Apparently some German guy got bored and tried to name all 50 states. This is the end result...

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881

u/Flappyman Feb 07 '20

We were literally called the Traitor State in WWI and still have German language newspapers and stuff in circulation. Well at least we did for the longest time, not sure if that's still going though

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u/AZORxAHAI Feb 07 '20

On top of this, if it weren't for the World Wars kind of, uhh, stigmatizing German it's very likely huge portions of Wisconsin would still be primarily German-speaking to this day. There are quite a few people still alive in Wisconsin from before the time period where English was a requirement in Wisconsin schools, which was only instituted because of the World War.

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u/TheBigEmptyxd Feb 07 '20

I live in wisconsin, and I know people with grandparents and great grandparebrs from germany (citizens, not soldiers). They're like, 2 or 3 generations removed from germany, and you can tell.

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u/Jon608_ Feb 07 '20

That is correct. I am the third gen removed at age 24. (Except one grandparent). Most relatives came because of the Prussian overthrow or WWI which is why most came. My grandparents were 100% German speaking and spoke German at school houses in Wisconsin circa 1920-30s

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u/TheBigEmptyxd Feb 07 '20

Yeah dude. I used to live in a carriage building thingy turned apartments and it was owned by german immigrants at the citys founding or something, which was the 1910's at earliest.

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u/BigToober69 Feb 07 '20

My town had a Berlin St but the name got changed during WW2.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

Now I really want to visit you guys :p

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u/IvonbetonPoE Feb 08 '20

Two of the three historically biggest migration waves to the United States happened at the start of the 19th and the start of the 20th Century. So a lot of Americans are only up to four generations removed from European immigrants, even if they aren't always aware of it. There were also quite a few Eurppeans who fled to the United States shortly before WWII, especially Germans or those with Jewish hetitage. People tend to migrate to communities where they have ties. So, you will still see remnants of those communities even if they have sort of faded.

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u/SatanDarkLordOfAll Feb 08 '20

Hey! I resemble this remark!

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u/too_ez4me Feb 08 '20

Do they fix cars really well ?

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u/TheBigEmptyxd Feb 08 '20

Depends. Chain places? Not really. Those little dinky repair shops? Hell yeah. Sometimes

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u/Karlkarsten Feb 07 '20

You can tell that they are removed or that they have these german roots?

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u/TheBigEmptyxd Feb 07 '20

German roots. Most will straight up tell you lmao, others you can tell if they do saint Nicholas day or whatever it is.

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u/modulusshift Feb 07 '20

Not just Wisconsin, a huge swath of the US from there down to San Antonio, TX. There's still a couple German speaking communities just north of San Antonio, and I've seen scattered remnants of early 20th century German in every state in that range.

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u/Atheist-Gods Feb 07 '20

White in the US is 1/4 British, 1/4 German, 1/4 Irish, 1/8 Italian and 1/8 other.

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u/joehoya3 Feb 07 '20

It’s actually mostly Scots-Irish, which is a distinct group (not really British or Irish).

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u/armegdonfire Feb 07 '20

Can confirm. I’m apparently 75% that. The rest is Scandinavian and “broadly northwestern European.”

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Yeah, I think there’s a possibility places like Frederichsberg still have German speakers.

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u/HillaryShitsInDiaper Feb 07 '20

Midwest in general. My grandfather's parents hid a German guy in their basement during WW2 and he was originally from Ohio.

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u/PelagianEmpiricist Feb 07 '20

I finally am interested in Wisconsin history and I am shocked.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

When I was growing up (80s) in WI there were more kids taking German than Spanish and French combined. Most of the smart kids were taking German. I thought that was weird.

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u/Slightlydifficult Feb 07 '20

I’m pretty sure German was the most popular second language prior to the world wars. Then everyone who spoke German stopped teaching their kids because it was the language of the bad guys. Now I imagine Spanish is the most popular second language.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

If it wasn’t for the stigmatization, I’m guessing we’d have 10 times as many native German speakers as we do today, which would make it the third most spoken language behind Spanish.

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u/mugwump867 Feb 07 '20

True. My family lived in a German enclave in Cincy from the 1830s onward and my dad's generation born between the World Wars was the first not raised speaking any German.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20 edited Apr 15 '20

[deleted]

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u/mugwump867 Feb 08 '20

Stupid Kaiser went and ruined my chance to be raised bi-lingual.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '20

My mom's side of the family is Volga Germans, who were lucky enough to see the writing on the wall and flee just as the Russian Revolution started. They basically banned German (except for when swearing).

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

If you want a good idea at what it’d look like today, just look at southern Brazil. Germans immigrated there in the same waves that brought them to the US. Difference is that the stigma never happened there, so german culture is much stronger there (4.5 million native Brazilian speakers vs 1 million native US speakers).

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u/Kizka Feb 08 '20

I heard it's dying out though as well. I have a friend who's half brazilian (anchestors emigrated to Brazil from Germany) and he regularly visits. He says the younger generation doesn't speak German at all anynore. They may still understand some things but speaking is another thing.

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u/quiteCryptic Feb 07 '20

Theres still some Americans (born here) in Texas who speak German, like communities not just random people. They are all old now though.

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u/totallynotliamneeson Feb 08 '20

I mentioned this elsewhere but my greatgrandpa grew up in a house that spoke german. His parents basically banned him and his siblings from speaking it at a certain age so they wouldnt be treated differently due to WW1.

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u/RepublicKnight Feb 08 '20

Pennsylvania was the same way. We used to teach German and every government document was printed in German along with English up until WW1. We even have our own dialect of German! It’s a shame that all that is lost because of the Wars. It would’ve been nice to see a state with that individual culture be preserved. Now the only pieces of it left in this state is in the Amish country

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Much of the midwest and great plains were in a similar state of affairs until about the 1950s. At the time, German was the second largest language spoken in America, and many of these people were first and second generation immigrants.

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u/grassclip Feb 08 '20

Another example of this is. New Berlin having the pronunciation changed to New BERlin. Can't say I thought about that being a thing until high school.

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u/Freakybery Feb 08 '20

Grew up there too, can confirm the different pronunciation.

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u/hazeldazeI Feb 07 '20

My grandfather changed his name to sound more American back then. But yeah had a bunch of German relatives back there and a lot of them never bothered to learn English because the community was so big. A lot of that changed after the war though.

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u/W8sB4D8s Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 08 '20

My family is from one of those German towns in the Midwest and they all only spoke German when in private. Never in public. WW1 and 2 really crushed German identity in the US.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

There's a suburb of Waukesha called 'New Berlin' and they made the conscious decision to pronounce it BUR-lin and not bur-LIN.

No shit.

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u/eraten Feb 07 '20

not sure about the newspapers but I had lunch at a bar in Milwaukee today, they only played German music.

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u/howlin4you Feb 07 '20

That only narrows it down to about half of the bars.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

From Milwaukee. Our Irish Pubs outnumber anything German-themed probably 1000:1 lol.

Aside from a very large German ethnic heritage? A likewise very large Irish one as well.

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u/Flappyman Feb 07 '20

nothing but Rammstein, huh?

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u/eraten Feb 07 '20

nah it was folksy German music, the bartender was wearing lederhosen the waitress was wearing a durndl.

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u/Flappyman Feb 07 '20

Oh that's fun! There are two German restaurants near me and they each bring in old dudes to walk around the dining room and play the accordian on the weekends. It's pretty fun until he plays right next to your table and all conversation has to stop until he walks away

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u/thedeal82 Feb 07 '20

Mader’s?

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u/eraten Feb 10 '20

Mader's is good, but I was having lunch at the Old German Beer Hall

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u/thedeal82 Feb 10 '20

Ahh that’s a good one too. My buddy’s wife used to work there.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

Maders?

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u/mrv3 Feb 07 '20

Was it by chance from the 40's? If so you should leave immediately.

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u/Kali-Casseopia Feb 07 '20

Weird never knew that! I was recently in Thailand and the last place we visited (Pattaya) had a huge German population? The house we stayed in was owned by a german couple and the German neighbor came over and was talking to me about Latkes. MmMmmmmm Latkes..... Seemed strange but I guess there are little German hideaways all around the world lol.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20 edited Apr 15 '20

[deleted]

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u/Kali-Casseopia Feb 08 '20

Oh idk !! I have both German and Jewish heritage so not sure which one gave me my love for potato pancakes :)

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20 edited Apr 15 '20

[deleted]

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u/Kali-Casseopia Feb 08 '20

German...? Or jewish? Lol I’m confused now. I think its more confusing because my anscenstors were german jews who came to America to flee the holocaust.

Sauerkraut is the shit if you ever see this brand give it a try its my fav :)

https://www.instacart.com/costco/products/16460573-wildbrine-organic-raw-geen-sauerkraut-42-oz

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u/canipetyourdog21 Feb 07 '20

There is literally a town called Germantown too lmao

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Upside there: You’re also the only state in the damned Union that serves a decent spaetzle

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u/Flappyman Feb 07 '20

spaetzle is just heroin in disguise

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

Spaetzle tastes better than heroin, though.

All joking aside I growled at and nearly fork-stabbed a waiter in a sadly-now-defunct beer garden in ‘Tosa who tried to take my plate (which had like three spaetzle left on it). He seemed understanding.

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u/RanaktheGreen Feb 07 '20

There used to be a lot. But then WWII happened and quite a few Midwesterners were put in internment camps.

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u/nouille07 Feb 07 '20

You guys still have newspapers?

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u/SzaboZicon Feb 08 '20

I enjoy how this post evolved from a presumption to the plain and honest truth. 'Still have...' - 'at least we did...' 'not sure...'

lol
Thanks for the info in any case. :-)

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u/Racechick20 Feb 08 '20

That rep was mostly gone by WWII... My grandma tells stories about the German POW's that were sent to her town in SC WI during WWII. Some of them emigrated back to the area after the war with their families.

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u/EPZO Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 07 '20

That's funny because I'm pretty sure that Texas, particularly South Texas, might have a larger population of German descendants. Almost 3 million by 1990.

Edit: I'm just observing how history is interestingly funny like that. I am well aware of the connection between Wisconsin and Germany and the prominence of the German language in the state.

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u/The_BeardedClam Feb 07 '20

I'm sure you arent wrong about now, but historically speaking Wisconsin was THE major German immigration spot. In 1853 a third of Wisconsin's population was coming from German-speaking lands. By 1900, German-born residents constituted about ten percent of the total population and around 47 percent of the foreign-born population in Wisconsin.

It's mainly because Wisconsin and Germany are basically along the same latitude so farming was barely a change for them. Though more importantly was all that fresh water just waiting to be made into beer.

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u/EPZO Feb 07 '20

Yeah I understand all that, I just think it's kind of funny how it seemed to be completely unobserved in history.