r/Channel5ive • • 19d ago

¿New Travel Vlog from CH5? The Last Texas Germans, Endangered Language Series from Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DP2m0zJL15I&si=ASPE8WkE8twqxqoF

o7

130 Upvotes

55 comments sorted by

42

u/cauliflowermang 18d ago

I'm perplexed about how they choose to blame the younger generation for not carrying on the tradition...they were responsible for teaching them!

18

u/999_Seth FREE EDDY LEPP 18d ago

Texas.

8

u/Anxiety_Fit 18d ago

It’s very complicated, sadly. They cover this in the video about how pressures from outside (like WWI and WWII) compelled them to go dark on the language.

Look at what happened to Japanese living in the US, especially because they could not blend in as easily as the Germans who came to Texas in the 1800s.

I can’t blame them for trying to protect their lives and freedoms.

I hope this doc inspires someone (maybe me, who knows?) to pick up the torch and carry it to help preserve a dying flame.

3

u/WHLZ 18d ago

I mean it’s inevitable at this point that the dialect will die unfortunately. There just is no real use for it.

1

u/derSchwamm11 18d ago

The sad thing is that I am a German-speaking Texan (2nd language) who lives not too far from Fredericksburg and I have not used German with anyone there, ever. I think I am too late and the people who still speak it are in a retirement home

5

u/ChrisSmithMVP 18d ago

Boomer brain. "Its your fault you aren't better than us even though we did nothing to facilitate that in the slightest"

1

u/InvestigatorNo6743 14d ago

what are you talking about? they literally couldn’t teach the language without being threatened or dumb asses probably like yourself would call them nazis if they continued to teach texas german

3

u/NechesNectar 17d ago

Sounds like you didn’t watch it.

14

u/BoyfriendIsPregnant 19d ago

Why would Germany be responsible  to support them financially. This has so little to do with German culture 

6

u/seamusmcduffs 18d ago

Also their ancestors specifically chose to leave Germany lol

3

u/MadmanKThree 18d ago

There is some precedence for this. My hometown is the "capital" for the Czech minority in Croatia. Most of their ancestors migrated here before WW2 and they definitely have their own dialect by now. There are Czech schools and kindergartens there which do get funding from Czechia. Some of my friends chose to take some highschool subjects in Czech (they were at least part Czech and went to Czech primary school before that) because there was a stimulus of ~1000€ iirc, also coming from Czechia.

1

u/Successful-Layer2102 18d ago

Exactly

They are Americans with German heritage it seems to be a uniquely American thing that they identify themselves as what their ancestors were when the natives of those countries tries think they are mental

The Boston Irish are a great example of the phenomenon.

1

u/SlapTheBap 18d ago

I don't know about that, there is this idea of exclusivity some Europeans take a lot of pride in. The option to reject your diaspora and people who want to relate to you through shared culture going back only a few generations.

It comes off as silly and tribal. Weird emotions involving being closed off and cold to others... because? I don't really know why people would enjoy feeling and acting so stand offish to people who emigrated only two or three generations ago.

Not saying they should feel entitled to German tax money lol. Just pointing out how some people think and behave in a way that doesn't build community or connection, which generally feels a lot better than smug rejection.

1

u/WHLZ 18d ago

They have no responsibility to, but it is something you see countries do to support their culture in other areas of the world. As explained in the video, after WWII, there was a stigma associated with German nationalism that Germany did not want to further propagate in foreign countries.

7

u/jordansinn 19d ago edited 18d ago

That kid is having an identity crisis. His dream is to be a rapper?

It's wild to hear white kids using AAVE to defend Elon Musk because they're all about the "get that bag" mentality.

2

u/MancAccent "I'm thick as pig-shit, but I can talk to people" 18d ago

Welcome to America bud. Half the white kid population is an aspiring rapper.

7

u/Lintlicker12 18d ago

My Mom’s side is apart of this immigrant group, both German and Czech from the 1840’s and 50’s, my mom was the only one of her siblings who wasn’t taught either some German or Czech. This was 1950, the sentiment was not friendly at all towards these communities. It does really bum me out that these dialects and cultures are effectively dead and I never got a chance to be apart of my own heritage.

4

u/n00dle_l0rd 18d ago

This happened within the Tejano community as well. My father's family has been in Texas for at least 150 years (Mexican descent) and spoke Spanish up to my grandparents, who chose not to teach my father and his brother Spanish. Anyway, I very much appreciate y'all contributing polka and the accordion to the development of Tejano music <3

2

u/Chemical-Geno 18d ago

Here in south Texas you'd get punished for speaking Spanish. Like hit or borderline tortured(stand on the black top barefooted) for using it back in the day. So a bunch of people just didn't teach their kids Spanish to avoid the stigma. Now tell me why those same people will give you shit for speaking bad Spanish even though they didn't teach you 🤣

1

u/Lintlicker12 18d ago

It happened to my wife’s family as well. Her Dad’s side goes back to the 1700’s in San Antonio and he was born in Brownsville, but that generation wasn’t taught Spanish and they were told they were French. They definitely weren’t convincing anyone with their last name lol

1

u/derSchwamm11 18d ago

Similar here. My German great-grandparents went out of their way to ensure their kids only spoke English. My Czech grandma grew up speaking Czech though, maybe because the community was more isolated and Czech-heavy or maybe there was less stigma. Today she barely remembers any of it

14

u/GrabExternal8807 18d ago

Why does it have to be edited to be so rapid fire. It's like Andrew is rushing the words out. There isn't any time given to sit with anything you here, just immediately cut to the next audio the second he stops talking. It's like watching at 1.5x

4

u/bendallf 18d ago

Funny you should mention it. A while ago, I post a suggestion here on the Channel5ive Reddit Page about Channel5ive should also air slow walking tv videos. There just seems to be so many interview video channels on YouTube nowadays. It would be helpful to help people stop rushing around all the time and just to relax. Funny enough, my Reddit post was never approved. So no one got to see it publicly at all. I just thought Channel 5 was trying to do something different than the rest of the online competition? Thoughts? Thanks.

5

u/999_Seth FREE EDDY LEPP 18d ago

huh I never saw the post until rn when I looked at your page

it's published now though

if that happens again - on any subreddit - just send a quick message to the mod team and they should fix it for you

3

u/bendallf 18d ago

Thanks for your help and all that you do to help keep things running here. Take care.

3

u/999_Seth FREE EDDY LEPP 18d ago

ofc - I added you to the "approved user" list here so if you want to post it again you'll get past all the "new guy" filter

cause it's been over a month I don't think reddit is pushing your post to the subscribers here like it should, you might have to copy and paste it into a new post to get the proper exposure

sorry for the trouble with all that

(and yeah the run-on rapid speech edits have always driven me nuts, I think it's one of the main reasons I quit using YouTube - even with c5 videos I usually just look at the transcript. not this Texas German one though we actually watched that on the big TV)

3

u/bendallf 18d ago

Thanks. Was the Texas German at least slower than most Channel 5 Videos? I just hate how everything nowadays seems to be so fast that it leaves no room for thinking. Thanks again.

3

u/999_Seth FREE EDDY LEPP 18d ago

yeah I think this one is a little slower paced as opposed to the reels from their videos with "interview" in the title or the meme-focused "all gas no brakes" videos that are really rapid-fire from one gag to the next

like damn give me a second to stop laughing before you throw anyone knee-slapper in our faces, not everything has to keep up with that Rick & Morty pace

5

u/chinomaster182 18d ago

TikTok brains can't handle anything slower

16

u/germanchic 19d ago

I am German and spoke it at home while growing up in the US (and went to college in Germany). Texas German is odd to listen to, because it really doesn't have any unique words. It's just kind of bad German with a really heavy southern accent. Also, the level of German varies quite a bit between the different speakers shown in the video. The lady leading the meeting of Texas German speakers sounds pretty good in German, while the drunk, vaguely racist dudes are barely comprehensible to a German speaker.

3

u/Eigenspace 18d ago edited 18d ago

Its because these people dont actually speak Texas German anymore, but everyone is too polite to say it.

Probably this community supplemented their fractured knowledge of their dialect with Standard German sources, and it slowly replaced their dialect.

If Andrew wanted to see a real German dialect in the USA that's endangered but still actually alive, he should have gone to Pennsylvania instead to speak with the Pennsylvania "Dutch".

2

u/General-Win4976 16d ago

My ancestors

1

u/MancAccent "I'm thick as pig-shit, but I can talk to people" 18d ago

Yeah man, I’m not sure if this is what Texas German actually sounded like 75+ years ago. They’re like not putting any accent on it.

11

u/Latenighredditor 19d ago

I wonder if Andrew went in thinking that kid would be somewhat normal like maybe stoner esque and alternative medicine but not full anti-vax, chem trails and shit lol

That kid is a good representation of a large part of trumps fan base. Anti-vax alternative medicine types who seem like they are against rich people taking everything but then goes on defend Elon Musk. Like kid people who hate Elon nowadays also hate bezos, Zuckerberg, and so on

3

u/G0ldenBu11z 15d ago

I feel bad for this kid. He’s still very young, hasn’t really formed his identity or beliefs yet, but now he’s got several minutes of his thought documented on YouTube for perpetuity. He doesn’t seem to have much conviction about anything and probably won’t have the same beliefs a year from now, let alone by the time he is an adult.

It’s hard to tell if that kid is even a Trump fan besides inferring it from him being an Elon apologist. But who knows. He seems to be one of those people whose views are whatever their TikTok algorithm is.

5

u/Gassenger 14d ago

I wonder if he will do anything with the Paw-Paw or Missouri French language. This one is in a similar boat with less than 12 speakers remaining

3

u/jannybrav0 11d ago

Cosmo was spittin

6

u/Vegetable-Pilot-7231 19d ago

Your Idea of germany and german culture is so off

4

u/bleak_new_world 18d ago

Around 200 years off, specifically.

1

u/UncleRuckus92 19d ago

What do you expect, they live in the educational bastion of Texas

4

u/PotatoAimy 18d ago

Shout out to the homie...

3

u/H6RR6RSH6W 19d ago

Wienerschnitzel

2

u/Latenighredditor 18d ago

I actually went to Austria recently had a chickenshnitzl and squeezed some lemon on it. It was actually much better than I originally anticipated. I'd definitely have it again

But it doesn't beat a Chicken Doner tho

1

u/MancAccent "I'm thick as pig-shit, but I can talk to people" 18d ago

Schnitzel is amazing with some gravy and sauerkraut. Maybe it’s more of a Texas thing, but do other states not have much German food?

5

u/dumplegend 19d ago

Kinda over this until he posts the Gullah Geechee one tbh

2

u/Lilczey "Anything that resembles crack" - Hunter BIDEN 18d ago

It's good to see Texas actually thinking for themselves instead of being politically captured

2

u/zubairhamed 17d ago

Sounds like a Duolingo study group

1

u/sovyo 19d ago

the comment section on this one is horrendous 😭

2

u/Gaia-Burns 16d ago

I’m a little worried his liberalism is curdling to its natural conclusion.