The near-extinction of the Lutheran Low German language in north-central Kansas is nothing new to Bill Keel.

Keel, chairman and professor of Germanic languages and literatures at Kansas University, is the director of the Linguistic Atlas of Kansas German Dialects, which uses interviews with German-speakers to map dialects.

He said the situation in Marshall and Washington counties was typical among other dialects across the state.

“It’s the breakup of rural society that’s led to the deterioration of the language,” Keel said. “If those communities had remained intact, people would still be learning German. But they got in their cars, went to the big city and married people who didn’t speak German.”

Aside from Lutheran Low German in north-central Kansas, other common German dialects in the state include Volga German near Hays, Mennonite German near Newton, Amish German near Partridge and Garnett, and Swiss German near Bern.

Keel started mapping German dialects shortly after he arrived at KU in 1978. The interviews now are being made available at the project’s Web site, www.ku.edu/~germanic/lakgdhomepage/main.htm.

Keel said he thought the renaissance the Low German language is seeing in Marshall and Washington counties was fairly typical for a language that had deteriorated to near-oblivion.

KU student part of revival of Kansas Germanic languages Professor uses interviews with speakers of German to help map dialects

“When you get into this ethnical language, it’s about family, heritage, the church and community,” he said. “You tap into something that’s part of their soul.”