littleones049

littleones049, originally uploaded by betsyanne.

KAH- KNOCK - WURST DAY!

Today, Victoria, who is German and American, became a teacher for the day in my WKU Teacher Education class with Dr. Davison. She had some great PowerPoint slides.

She showed us a map of the 1990 census, showing where most of the German people have settled in the U.S. As I suspected, many are in Wisconsin.

Then she told us her Grandmother's name. I think I counted about ten names in a row. I will have to ask her that again.

Then I tried to remember the German words I knew – some are:
Sauerkraut
Weiner Shnitzel
Braunchweiger
Auskesichnet (sp)
Ja (sp)
Achtung
Nein

Bitte

Commandant (!)
etc. etc. etc.
Not sure these are spelled right at all...

Oh! About knockwurst – the sausage - I found out today that it’s not KNOCK-WURST --- it’s KAH-NOCK-WURST. (You say the "k" hard -- because it means "break-apart" sausage --- at least, that’s how German people say it. I didn’t know it meant that. She showed me how the sausage breaks apart - kah-KNOCK! Kah-KNOCK!

The “students” were very rambunctious during Victoria’s lesson. She brought some delicious muffins and said “no muffins!” when some people got particularly loud. I was reminded of the “no soup for you!” person on Seinfeld. (I won’t say it, Victoria...)

I didn’t know what the German flag looked like! I was thinking that the German flag must have had an eagle on it like the stamps I used to collect.

Anyway, I learned a lot today, including 2 phrases that mean "don't be lazy". Victoria's grandmother taught her those. I wish I spoke German or even French half as well as Victoria speaks English. Somebody asked her if she was going to student teach in Germany. Nope. She’s student teaching right here in Bowling Green!

I didn’t know there were so MANY German-Americans here in the U.S.! The English-Americans have indeed fallen behind, but are way ahead of the Italian-Americans. And look what happens when the German-Americans count the other German-speaking countries! Well... I wonder if the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish should get together... I mean, help! The German-Americans are winning the percentage count! Augh!

I couldn't find the nice color map graphic (maybe Victoria will send it to me and I'll post it later) but I found this information from the Tricentennial Page here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~tricentennialfoundation/census.html

This is taken from their site here:

"Who's Counting?
The l990 Census of German-Americans

The results of the 1990 U.S. Census indicate that the total U.S. population is: 248,709,873.
The five major groups and their percentages of the total population are as follows:
1. German 57,985,595 (23.3 %)
2. Irish 38,739,548 (15.6 %)
3. English 32,655,779 (13.1 %)
4. Italian 14,714,939 (5.9 %)
5. Polish 9,366,106 (3.8 %)

The "German" category does not include Germans from other German-speaking states and regions of Europe and the Americas. Hence, to the "German" statistic the following can be added:

1. Austrian 870,531
2. Swiss-German 700,000
(this is 70% of the total Swiss statistic)
3. Pennsylvania German 305,841
4. Luxemburger 49,061
5. Alsatian 16,465
6. German-Russian 10,153

These six additional Germanic ethnic groups total 1,952,051.
The total combination then of all seven German ethnic categories is:

German 57,985,595 (23.3 %)
Other categories 1,952,051 (4.8 %)
Total 59,937,646 (24.09 %)"

The site goes on to say:

"The results clearly confirm that German-Americans constitute nearly a full one-fourth of the population. German-Americans take pride in the fact that they are the major ethnic group in America, just as they can be proud of their long history, dating back to the arrival of the first Gerrnans in America at Jamestown, Virginia in 1608."

Well..... I learned a lot today, Victoria - hope you get to use those PowerPoints again. The class wouldn't settle down enough for you to tell us more about them. And my assignment was to say, "I think that this is boring..." --sorry about that! I HAD to do that. I'm glad you did give me a muffin anyhow.