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Immigrant groups had their own theatres, newspapers, libraries, schools, clubs, taverns and places of worship.Germans alone could choose betwenn 133 German-language newspapers by 1850.
It was possible indeed to live an entire liefe in the USA and never speak English.
Thus the linguistic legacy of some immigrant groups on the American English spoken today is immense.
Americans freely appropriated some Dutch terms like stoop, boss, cookie, waffle or the distinctive American interrogative how come?
Two particulary durable Americanisms that emanate from Dutch are
Santa Claus , Yankee or dope.
A group´s linguistic influence bears scant relation to the numbers of people who spoke it.
The Irish hardly supplied any words as well as teh Scandinavians.
The Italians enrichened the American language mainly with food words like
Spaghetti, pasta, macaroni, ravioli or pizza.
Far more productive were the German immigrants.
Words like sauerkraut , pretzel, dumb, kindergarten,nix, delicatessen, kaput, kaffeeklatsch or foodfest naturalized into American English.
Also an American custom to say Gesundheit! after a sneeze.
Many words underwent some mdoifications in spelling.
Autsch became ouch, krank became kranky, schmierkäse, smearcase and leberwurst, liverwurst.
Some terms that have been credited with African roots include bogus, banana, gorilla, funky, phoney and jazz.
Jazz is one of the mostly disputed terms in American etymology.
In any case, it´s first use, among both southern blacks and whites, was to describe sexual intercourse.It wasn´t until after WW1 that it entered the wider world conveying the idea of a type of music.Quite a number of Afro- American terms contain some forgotton sexual association.
Boogie Woogie appears originally to have signified syphilis.
Blues also originally had a strong sexual significance.So too did rock´n Roll.
Food terms often had a distinctly sexual conotation, especially in songs.
Although most urban, non native speakers of English could get by without English, most choose not to.
The adoption of American clothes,speech, and interests often accompanied by the shedding of an exotic surname, were all part of a process whereby antecedents were denied as a mean of improving status.
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