The Amish are divided into separate fellowships, which are each broken down in turn into districts or congregations according to geography. Secondly, as you will no doubt have ascertained from this particular thread, the Amish use a language that in many ways defies a strict, academic approach (believe me, I’ve tried). In fact, if you were to trace the linguistic family tree of Pennsylvania Dutch all the way to its base roots, it looks something like this: For reference, High German is the version of German that is spoken in modern Germany and other German-speaking countries. I am pleased to announce that it is no longer that way. The Amish Pa German is a language, however, not because it is simply adequate for communication. Information. Please do not judge my hometown on mistakes they made in the past that would be like me judging Americans for the history of racism. In my area, we have several Hutterite colonies, and Dad has spoken to the people who live there–again, not quite the same, but intelligible. I’d be interested to know which expression is used in Amish German for the English ‘about’, such as in “It would take me about 30 mins to finish this work”. "The children learn to read German. This can even cause difficulties in understanding between a Swiss-speaking Amishman and one from a Pennsylvania German language background.if(typeof __ez_fad_position != 'undefined'){__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-amishamerica_com-medrectangle-3-0')}; Pennsylvania German is generally not a written language. Is this something sponsored, approved or otherwise involved with you and the AA forum? Some of the shifts that occurred in the development High German are present in P.G. In English, “Beatrice ate cake” makes sense because verbs change based on nouns. But, not all the forms were mutually intelligible. (We have roots in the Germans-from-Russia ethnic groups.) Hello Grey/Catz, the Amish as well as many Mennonites had their origins in Switzerland, but fled to the Palatinate due to persecution from the established Swiss churches. The word Dutch is a corruption of "Deutsch" or German, of which they speak an ancient dialect. Among the most traditional plain groups, the Amish and most Old Order Mennonites, Pennsylvania Dutch is in a robust state of health. The plural form of P.G. My family went through a lot at that time as well. This is important to know because it goes beyond the question of what the Amish believe. Ich muss sagen can’t understand the Amish, they use a few High German words and some dialect but the sentence structure is completely off, almost backward. Thus the preservation of the Pennsylvania German language is important to the Amish. The word Dutch is a corruption of "Deutsch" or German, of which they speak an ancient dialect. The short answer is simple. I thought this post would be interesting to my son, Mark. The sect began in Switzerland and Alsace, but most Amish today speak a dialect of German called "Pennsylvania Dutch", "Pennsylvania German", or "Amish German" 1. More appropriately it is called Pennsylvania German and they themselves call it Deitsch or Deitsh. 2010. CD. I speak the dialect and when I’m asked what I’m speaking, I answer it is a Germanic dialect often called Pennsylvania Dutch or Deitch. Meine Muttersprache ist elsassisch. I have always found it fascinating that some German speakers in Germany have this reaction to what Amish speak. Stolzfus is from the Palatinate. For example; I am a paramedic but I don’t go around telling people I’m a doctor. A forward is by Lutheran Minister Johann Arnds. I am simply frustrated with the lack of education on the matter. I know how it really is in Lancaster/Lebanon ctys. and for quite a while thereafter) to refer to any or all of the Dutch and German dialects or languages (including the more-or-less standard, written forms of both Dutch and German taught in schools). Because of its isolation, the language has a very … However, with Pennsylvania Dutch they often throw in English words when speaking. I hadn’t thought to include previously that I did already research as Gisa has given the URL to the World Cat library,.. Cases in point, Mir for Wir, genung for genug, glee for klein, etc. The vast majority of Amish are descended from German, Dutch, or Swiss Europeans. The Rhine flows north. This is the recording of the one-hour June 7, 2013 program:http://www.bctv.org/special_reports/community/pennsylvania-german/vmix_02e0b376-cfa8-11e2-967b-001a4bcf887a.html(Among other songs, the Dolpehock Sanger Chor sang, “Bring Sie Rei/Bring Them In”. http://www.johnschmid.org/music.htmlI think the CDs are $15 each. At any rate, when one language is retained in a country where another is dominant, it is not uncommon for the two to be mixed occasionally and even often, as in the case with Yiddish and PA Deitsch. I however came across something new in looking again,.that there is a vol.2 (of the 3 listed) and it is pretty neat! Even though each community speaks it differently, they all understand each other. Lillian Stoltzfus’s book Speaking Amish: A Beginner’s Introduction to Pennsylvania German for Ages 10 to 100 includes lessons on vocabulary, grammar, and phonetics, and includes an audio CD. The Amish are a religious sect who live in the United States and Canada. If you sit and listen to two Amish speaking, you may be surprised that what seems like every fifth or tenth or twentieth word is … Well Halliday, I on the other hand was a young German boy growing up in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia between 1953 and ’63. This is because Pennsylvania Dutch is derived directly from German. In this video I compare two closely related languages: German and Dutch, including vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. She didn’t know how to read it? It was almost like hearing my dear Tante Rosi (she passed away in 1990) again! Learn languages, use them, enjoy them, and learn of them! The main Amish ethnic group in Indiana, the one found in Lagrange and Elkhart Counties, is the “Pennsylvania Dutch” (the word “Dutch” actually meaning “Deutsch,” or German). The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian Anabaptist origins. Hopefully now that she is fluent in it she can now read it. are German heim, bein, ein, allein, stein. She’s learning Hoch Deutsch? I speak High German and a mix of Schwaebisch-Badisch (the way it’s spoken not far from Pforzheim they tell me). What a find! I want to get the family names and dates out of the Bible of course,,I don’t know if this will be possible?…Any hints..as all I have as an identifier on this listing is an OCLC number..(6928835)and no name of a library? Certain words that Mark and the others used he said that he hadn’t heard since his grandparents passed away. The Amish speak English, German, and a dialect known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch. Neither, they speak Pennsylvania Dutch, a German dialect. The vast majority of Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonites across North America speak two languages fluently, Pennsylvania German (popularly known as Pennsylvania Dutch) and English. The Bible:https://www.bible.com/bible/1455/JHN.1.pdcb, and many other publications on this website:https://www.jw.org/pdc/, as well as videos:https://www.jw.org/pdc/publications/videos/#pdc/categories/AllVideos, Hi, a dear friend of mine grew up Pennsylvania Dutch in Ohio and has a couple of words we can’t seem to find anywhere on the Net. Why not more? Fat Change, they’ll even read the response, Majority read English. First, it’s not exclusive to Pennsylvania. The Amish are a religious sect who live in the United States and Canada. The translation was made by Martin Luther, and the name of the printer was J.R. Seibert. However, “Pennsylvania Dutch” is a completely misleading name for this language for two reasons. This was unprovoked and was because we were English. . Author, 2013.) ), -http://www.mennolink.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?bk.amv.01.txt&track=10(sample of “O God Father” in German, in a faster tune. Language The Pennsylvania Dutch are not Dutch at all. It is a pleasure to compare and contrast them them through this worthy book, Speaking Amish. Wow that’s really interesting. This is especially true for Amish who don’t live near English-speaking communities (again, like those in Central Pennsylvania). were so much like what the older farmeres and villagers spoke there in the Pfaltz. Dear Ahaich, you have given a good description of how unique the Pennsylvania German dialect is. As I have German-from-Russia roots (as do many Mennonite sects) I consider the Amish “relatives.” Anyone who wants to blast the Amish are going to hear it from me, first. Germany is just like America when it comes to dialects. None of my kids can speak the Amish Dutch language. So what in my opinion is the modern Amish language of today? There are naturally going to be regional variations of Pennsylvania Dutch in each of these communities, just as there are regional variations of English throughout the United States. Had they asked that question of a person from Holland/Netherlands, he would have answered, “Ich bin Holländer”, or “I am Dutch”. So I see it as just another entertainment show. As an author, I want to make the worlds I portray authentic. In case you didn’t see it, there were some other recent posts about Pennsylvania Dutch. If you sit and listen to two Amish speaking, you may be surprised that what seems like every fifth … The Amish then made a concerted effort to leave Europe and head to the New World. So, the Amish have ancestral roots in both Switzerland and the Palatinate, but have liguistic roots primarily in the Palatinate. Mr. Douglas Madenford is a master of this language, and his blog is worth looking up! 2:27. (They speak Hutterish. “Group Identity and Language Maintenance: The Survival of Pennsylvania German in Old Order Communities”, Karen Johnson-Weiner, Diachronic Studies on the Languages of the Anabaptists, 1992, “Community Identity and Language Change in North American Anabaptist Communities”, Karen Johnson-Weiner, Journal of Sociolinguistics 1998 2/3: 375-394, “Kannst Du Deitsch Schwetza?”, David  Luthy, Family Life, July 1975. Just saying hello and hadn’t seen anyone on of late; either to new posts or responses to mine. Die Dialektene sind viele, viel älter das das Hoch-Deutsche oder Amts-Deutsch. Mother’s Day program of song and poems. http://pdc.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Hochdeitsch. (In Dutch has a double meaning! TV is full of acting. Thank you! Why don’t Amish talk about God more often. the Pennsylvania Dutch having nothing to do with the Netherland Dutch. I would not consider myself ignorant nor rude. Approximately 98.5% of them. I aee how that comment could be taken as rude. I bin vor viele Johr’ Student do gwä un ka’ au Schwobisch schwätze! Amish (Pennsylvania Dutch), high German, and English are closely related. But perhaps it does? I love languages as you can tell, and to make fun of any is really quite sad. If they could agree on a lithography (there is a New Testament in a form of lithography based on English which is hard for someone who grew up with German to wade through–I’m living proof of that!) I also have an old German bible written in Hochdeutsch but printed in “die alte deutsche Schrift”, or the old German script, which most German speaking Americans wouldn’t be able to read. You should have heard the way my friend Rhoda once spoke to a Mennonite woman in Somerset County, PA: it absolutely flowed, and sounded so nice to my ears. I grew up in Augsburg…. Pennsylvania Dutch is spoken by about 300,000-350,000 Amish and conservative Mennonites today, while Swiss and Alsatian German speakers, most of whom are Amish, number about 14,000 combined. In some Swiss dialects, “allpott” means “quite often”, such as “busses run quite often on this route, there is one every 10 minutes”. This means that Pennsylvania Dutch is not just German — it’s an offshoot language of an offshoot language of an offshoot language, etc. Dutch. In closing this long answer: I love what the late Elias Canetti (Nobel Prize winner, he grew up speaking Ladino, which is largely the Spanish from the time of Cervantes, and learned German later and became a prolific writer of his life and experiences in German)had to say: the death of a language is as if an entire universe ceased to exist. Pennsylvania German for the most part does not reflect the diverse origins of the early speakers from regions along the upper Rhine River (Rhineland, Württemberg, Baden, Saarland, Switzerland and the Elsass/Alsace) but almost exclusively the strong immigrant group from the Palatine. And movies that claim to be reality. Do the Amish participate in local, state or national elections? She now speaks fluent HochDeutch and is in the process of learning Dutch. 1 At that time, Germans and Swiss of all social classes spoke regional dialects that in most cases differed quite substantially from the emerging written dialect known today … This is a big reason why Pennsylvania Dutch has a similar sound and sentence structure to modern German, but it still sounds distinct. That’s where my frustration comes from. Yah - "Yes" This is a very common word in Amish. The Amish speak a variation of German called Pennsylvania Dutch (some speak a variation on Swiss) as well as English. My spoken German has a Bavarian accent. The terms "High Dutch" (German) and "Low Dutch" (Dutch, "nether" means "low") were used to make a clearer distinction between what we now call German (from Latin) or Dutch (from Old High German). We have completed recordings but the production side is taking a lot of work (I’m not involved in that part of the process), but hopefully will start to move along here. So they do speak a language but they should not call it german or Dutch because that’s simply not what it is. Oh, and incidentally, there are not only books to learn it, there is a blog: “Nau loss mich yuscht eppes saage” by a teacher of German who grew up speaking it. Some of the Amish surnames are from Alsace, France, the surname Blank (Blanc in French) for example. Mei Vadder un Mudder sinn Deitch, with English translation. If one must respond in eg: German. In addition to English, most Old Order Amish speak a distinctive German dialect called Pennsylvania German or, much more commonly, Pennsylvania Dutch. A person chooses whether or not to join the church — and the stance on going after a higher education is one of the things to be considered.I’m a little confused at what you wrote about Anne not knowing how to read. (See the links at the end of this page for a nice collection of resources).. What can be most interesting about the language is how it is one of the closest in the world to English, while also being in the same language family as German.So if you speak both you will clearly have a huge advantage. These people are known for their adherence to a simple way of life, which also involves a reluctance towards the acceptance of modern technologies. The level of proficiency when it comes to speaking and reading High German varies among Amish individuals, but they are considered a bilingual culture. . Pennsylvania Dutch is a pseudo-language that is almost exclusive to the Amish. I do apologize for what your friends family has gone through. I feel sorry for the way you were treated. An Amish buggy travels in Lancaster County, where many Amish and Mennonites still speak Pennsylvania Dutch. The so called Pennsylvania Dutch is not German nor Dutch! I apologize if that was offensive. Proficiency in High German can vary among Amish. This geographic distance and isolation from the parent language allowed Pennsylvania Dutch to mutate into its own regional pseudo-language. We came back to the states in 1986. The first page states: Das Neue Testament unseres Herrn und Heilandes Jesu Christi followed by that it was printed in New York by the Amerikanische Bibel-Gesellschaft, gegründet im Jahre 1816. To them it sounds the same, so they picked the one easiest to pronounce and spell, which is Dutch, and that mixup has remained to this day. Allegebot! Stoltzfus was born into an Amish family and grew up speaking the dialect. Amish Mafia is a “reality TV show” and is mostly scripted. PA Dutch versus German. The reason that they are called “Dutch” is that when the first Germans arrived here from Germany, they were asked what they were and they said “Deutsch”, but the Americans thought that they said “Dutch”, thus the Pennsylvania “Dutch” – absolutely nothing to do with the Netherland Dutch. When new immigrants to America arrived here years ago, they were frequently asked, “where are you from” or “what are you?” If that person came from Germany he would respond, “Ich bin Deutsch”. Pennsylvania German hour, Lob Lied, Pa. Dutch singing, -The Berks Community Television, www.bctv.org, hosts a Pennsylvania German hour, usually once a month on the first Friday of the month. and H.G. I really dont. “I’ll be dahn in a minit I’m reddin’ out the cuppboard” is another–dialect, not standard. He said that it just sounded like his grandparents speaking. Zu Hause haben wir nur englisch gesprochen. By the time I try to make sense of it I can’t remember the rest off the words that didn’t fit. My father speaks a form of Plattdeutch which is similar, but not quite the same as the Deitsch spoken by the Amish. I think it’s entirely possible for the Amish of today not to be able to understand those 200 years from now for the same reason. Maybe you should read, “The long, slow death of White Australia” by Gwenda Tavan and it’ll give you a good idea how welcoming you English are. Ah but there are many things written in Pennsylvania Dutch/German. He went on to explain that he had been raised most of his life in a village in the Pfaltz area. You can learn to speak it! Amish people live in close-knit communities that are separated from the mainstream world.They follow very stringent customs, life, and behavior rules that are not specifically written but exist and known as Ordnung. Again, this is where my frustration stems from and I apologize if it offended anyone. 2010.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dA2icD6Zbw&feature=share, -John Schmid has 3 CDs in Pennsylvania Dutch, IN DUTCH, IN DUTCH AGAIN, DUTCH BLITZ. My dialect is not an exact match for any specific German dialect, but rather, an amalgam of several dialects, just as the immigrants themselves. The full Cooperation to obviously equally is Appreciated. And what do they really hail from ? It is considered to be their first and native language. We are developing a fun & effective PA Dutch audio learning program. I respect them land all humans alike! For all of those who can speak the Pennsylvania Dutch/German language - hiwwe wie driwwe. * I know ‘PA/Dutch’ a misnomer, but it’s the term used by everyone on this site, so let’s go with it. I don’t know if he ever followed up on the idea. The date of print is 1910 with the signature of the original owner, Arthur Stragis, born December 27, 1884, who was in fact a German immigrant and most likely bought this bible when he entered the US through Ellis Island in New York, like most immigrants from Europe did. It’s spoken in everyday conversation as the primary language of the home, business, and social interaction. Don’t take what you see presented on TV as representative of the Amish, because it’s not. I might add people from Southwest Germany seem to have little difficulty understanding our dialect and often say, “Ah! In this sentence, we’ll describe someone eating food. He joined the Amish about eleven years ago and speaks fluent Pennsylvania Dutch. Eric: would you please asked otters to respond in English. The Amish learn to read, write and speak in English, allowing them to communicate with the ‘outside world’. and I would suggest since the majority of the words came from German, a German lithography would be needed, not an English one–the language could be preserved, maintained and allowed to bloom as a language, not merely a dialect. Speaking Amish: A Beginner's Introduction to Pennsylvania German: Lillian Stoltzfus: 9781601263728: Masthof: Books Thousands of people can speak Pennsylvania German, so why can't you? See how they greet each other, how they work and consume. I found it interesting how a few families from Argentina spoke Spanish and Plat Dietch and moved to Canada, where they learned to speak English as well as Dutch and German like the Amish … Yes, they will participate in local and/or state elections if it has a direct bearing on an issue about which they are concerned. The inked signature is from a Gilbert (can’t say exactly what the first name is,. I had done this but to my knowledge and limited German (like zero) I did not think it held answers to the language the Bible is printed in. I do have question on “learning” to speak Pa. Dutch. Even the Amish aren’t immune, unfortunately. Generally speaking, the Amish know the following languages: However, like most questions about the Amish, the long answer is far more interesting than the short one. We have been developing a basic PA Dutch audio learning program with the help of some Amish friends. I’ve lived in English speaking countries since 1953, and our family has always spoken Hochdeutsch at home. Pennsylvania German is related to the Palatinate German of the 18th century. Today the dialect is not so strong anymore due to TV, etc. Conversations with the Amish (2015)While growing up in the Midwest, I would see the Amish now and again. When it comes to the Amish, this has become quite more pronounced, since they’ve had many more generations under their belt here in the US, thus much more time to intermingle languages. What I’ve noticed over the years, is that we’ve formulated our own “German” which now consists of a combination of the “easiest” words from both languages. Enjoy the language of the Amish! There are a few who aren't, and that's because outsiders rarely join them due to their radically different lifestyle. Discovering Pennsylvania Dutch with “Speaking Amish” Recently, after attending a family wedding in Virginia, we drove back to Boston via Pennsylvania Dutch country. ST Regardless of where they live, the Amish speak the Pennsylvanian German dialect (popularly known as Pennsylvania Dutch), except in a few communities where they speak a Swiss dialect. You should have heard what I did on Pittsburgh’s famous Monongahela Incline just the other day: a young lady was speaking to an older lady in Spanish. Amish speak a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania German, or Pennsylvania Dutch. After having to take a week off work r&r from surgery, I am reading lots of catch up here and enjoying it very much. What all of this comes down to is, the Amish (and several other groups) speak their “language” and call it good. It confusing because it’s not the Dutch that people in Holland speak – it’s a dialect of German. Rather, the word “Dutch” was commonly used in early modern English (17th cent. Mark related that when the Anabaptists were persecuted and expelled from Switzerland most of them went by boat and followed the Rhine River. Modern Amish language... which of them is closest again for your useful comments sentence to! Or responses to mine example ; I am pleased to announce that it just sounded like grandparents! Sound like one of the words are in English varying degree of ability in High German, also called misleadingly! 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