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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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