The Texas German Endowment at the University of Texas at Austin
Conducting field interviews with the remaining native
speakers of Texas German is an expensive and time-intensive
enterprise. Organizing interviews, getting to the
field sites and back, and conducting interviews
takes about 6-8 hours per hour of interview. Digitizing,
editing, transcribing, translating, and aligning
the recordings requires an additional 60 hours of
work per hour of interview (this work is done by
undergraduate and graduate students in the Department
of Germanic Studies at UT Austin). The average cost
for each hour of interview contained in the Texas
German Dialect Archive is about $500.
Current funding for the Texas German Dialect Project
(TGDP) comes from the Dean of Liberal Arts, the
Center for Instructional Technologies, and the
Liberal Arts
Instructional Technology Services, all of the
University of Texas at Austin. The TGDP has also
been funded by Humanities Texas (formerly Texas
Council for the Humanities). However, the current
round of funding will end in August 2013.
Fund-raising effort
begins for the Texas German
endowment. The goal is to raise one million
dollars over five years to guarantee permanent
financial support for the documentation, archiving,
and analysis of Texas German language and culture
(similar endowments have already been put in place
by the Texas-Czechs and Texas-Swedes). Donations are
tax-deductable.
The TGDP is proud to offer a beautiful 34x28" map of German Texas for Purchase (click here for image). Surrounding the map of Central Texas are several paragraphs about important Texas German people, places, and events, and an extensive time-line of German Texas from 1844 to 1900. The maps cost $40.00 each, including shipping in a 36" cardboard tube mailer via USPS. Please click here for order form.
If
you are interested in supporting the Texas German
Dialect Project, please contact Professor Hans C.
Boas, Director of the Texas German Dialect Project.
You may reach him by email at hcb@mail.utexas.edu.
Alternatively, you may reach him at the following
address:
Department
of Germanic Studies
1 University Station, C3300
BUR 336
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-0304
Texas
German Speaker?
Are you a speaker of Texas German or know anybody
who speaks Texas German? Please contact Hans C. Boas
by email or regular mail with information as to how
establish contact (address, phone number, email).
You may also print a
flyer to hand
out to friends, neighbors, church members, etc.