Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Pennsylvania Dutch

PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH, a patois that is not, as some erroneously suppose, a corruption of German, originating in Pennsylvania, but a South-German dialect, brought from Europe, and due to a mixture of forms existing on the upper Rhine in Rhenish Bavaria, Baden, Darmstadt, Württemberg, German Switzerland, and Alsace. In the United States, chiefly in Pennsylvania, the dialect has taken up an English element. A more correct name would be Pennsylvania German.