Pennsylvania Dutch is a classic example of an under-resourced, minority language spoken in North America. It is widely misunderstood as lesser than standardized varieties of its linguistic relatives English and German. Because it typically is not written and audio recordings of spoken language are exceedingly rare, decentralized, and/or difficult to access, it is difficult to correct misunderstandings about the language and do systematic research based on large amounts of natural spoken data. No annotated and published corpus of the spoken language is currently in existence. The Penn Dutch Dialects project (by Dr. Rose Fisher and team) seeks to rectify this situation by collecting recordings of spoken Pennsylvania Dutch (and English) from as many speakers and walks of life as possible. These recordings will be processed and published in a database that will be available for research, pedagogy, and public outreach.

This project was featured at the Fall 2026 Research Showcase