This is my final entry for the
Texas-Deutsch Blog. It will act as a reflection for project as a whole
and how this research has influenced me.
Throughout this whole experience, I believe the value of what I learned about Texas-German is irreplaceable. There is not a huge amount of available research about Texas-German, which I find quite disheartening, mainly because the dialect itself will soon be gone altogether. Unfortunately it is too late to rebuild the dialect, but at least what remains can be documented and continue to be an important part of Texas history. Another aspect that was intriguing, was that almost all of the research conducted for Texas-German has been written in English (outside of face to face interviews). The fact that I wrote my blog in German will contribute to a wider audience and hopefully to a greater awareness to the dying dialect. The more people that know about Texas-German and are willing to contribute to the research/interview process, the faster it can be studied and recorded before it is gone completely. Hopefully, through this blog, I have contributed some to this process.
Using the blog as a way of documenting research was quite convenient. It allowed me to stay focused throughout the semester and research on a consistent basis, as opposed to researching everything all at once. I noticed that I was able to find more resources as time went by, as opposed to trying to find everything all at once. Having all my research posted online was helpful and easier to organize rather than having it all on my computer or flash drive. The blog was easy to create and maintain, and did not require a lot of technical ability, however there are formatting errors that the blog program did not allow me to correct.
One thing I would have done differently is using more spoken examples of Texas-German. In an ideal world, I would have liked to have an interview with a native Texas-German speaker, but studying in Ohio, and the fact that there are so few speakers remaining, made that difficult. This project ultimately was very enjoyable. The German influence in Texas is something that I grew up knowing, but I never really knew how deep the roots went into Texas culture and history. Having the opportunity to research this topic felt more like learning about myself and my own culture instead of work.
