During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Pennsylvania German, often referred to as "Deitsh" or "Dutch," was spoken by a third of the state's population, yet up until that time, few had attempted to document the typically oral tradition in writing. E. H. Rauch was considered an early leader among those dedicated to exposing the dialect to the masses through print. Defined by no particular orthography, early spelling was incredibly variable. Rauch's Pennsylvania Dutch Hand-Book was one of several dictionaries that emerged in an attempt to establish uniformity and to...