What is a German Accent?

   In my earlier post,  Conversion of a Spelling Reformer, I mentioned that the upper midwest was settled in the mid to late 19th century by immigrants from everywhere except England.   Today, they all speak only English,  but few of them came from England, though many came from Ireland.  My own people were Luxembourgers,  (both French speaking and German speaking,) and also Czechs, Austrians, Swedes, and Norwegians.  Two of my grandparents were born in Europe and spoke German as their first language.  But my mother,  brought up with Luxembourg German as her first language,  spoke no German as an adult, and by the time she died, had an excellent command of the English language and had no German accent that any Iowan would have noticed.   And I certainly never imagined that I had a German accent.
      When I was about thirty,  I went to Kansas City, Missouri to find work in the electrical trade.  The union hiring hall sent me out to a job site at Kansas City International Airport, which was then under construction.  The general foreman spoke to me for a few minutes, and then took me to my new foreman. He said,  "Here Jim;  I got another Iowegian  for you."   "Iowegian," I asked?.   He said, "I mean "Iowa German."    I asked, "What makes you think I'm German?   My name is has an English spelling."   He replied, "I could tell by your German accent."     I said, "Wait a minute.  I know what a German accent is.  Two of my grandparents had a German accent.  They would say diss und dat  instead of this and that. But my pronunciation of all English consonants is absolutely standard."   The general foreman replied,  "If you do not have a German accent, then how did I know that you are German?  You are of German extraction, are you not?"  "Yes,"  I confessed.   "But what did I say that you thought was so German?"   He said, "I asked you a question and you said 'ja.'   We do not say 'ja.'   We say yes or we say yeah--but we don't say 'ja.'   'Ja' is a German word."   I protested that I had said "ya,"  but not "ja."  The general forman couldn't see much difference.   I said, "But where I come from,  everyone says ya, and half of them are Irish."    The general foreman replied, "Yes, but they are Irish who were raised among Germans."
        This was not the first time I'd been away from Iowa.   I'd lived in California for four years, and had spent three years in the Army.  I had been stationed near New York City, and had served with people from all over the U.S.   And no one had ever commented on my use of the word "ya."    They say "ya" in California, New York,  and everywhere in the country I had ever been.   But they don't say it in Missouri.