Greetings Germans from Russia,

With the COVID-19 pandemic, we have not been able to have a regular schedule. We have started using ZOOM for virtual meetings.

The next meeting is March 20, 2021 at 1PM.

The Central Oklahoma Chapter is inviting anyone who has an interest in the Germans from Russia culture and especially dialects, to meet on Zoom with us March 20, at 1 PM . Dr. John te Velde, Professor of German at Oklahoma State University, will present a program entitled “Maanzerisch, Schwabisch, Schwiezerdutsch: a little dialect fun.”   We will open the meeting at 1 pm, and there will be plenty of time for questions and discussions at the close of Dr. te Velde’s presentation.

Do you remember hearing the German words that your elders spoke but you couldn’t understand (except for a couple of words that you shouldn’t understand)? Maybe you even learned to understand some of it, but it didn’t sound like the German you took in college or heard on T.V. Vas ist los? What is wrong? If it’s not the German that you hear spoken today, what is it? The language spoken by the German-Russian settlers in Oklahoma was a mixture of dialects reflecting the areas of Germany and/or the Russian village from which they immigrated to the USA.

For door prizes, there will be three books awarded:  “The Worst Hard Times” by Timothy Egan, concerning the Dust Bowl era; “Isaac’s Storm” by Erik Larson, describing the Galveston hurricane and the meteorology that was involved; and “The Other Germans”, written by Dr. Philip Bryant, describing the settlement of western Oklahoma and eastern Texas panhandle.

 If you have not learned about Zoom, you are missing a lot.  Ask a child or grandchild to set you up and show you what to do - it’s not hard, and it can be a lot of fun. https://zoom.us/j/99138526206?pwd=aUNsckRjcStLNnBpdnVNeWJONVhxUT09

Meeting ID: 991 3852 6206     Passcode: 907859