Pennsylvania Dutch Language

Three Lancaster observations

After three weeks in the county, three more observations from Lancaster: Hair–men’s hairstyles here seem to range from the very short and close cropped to the much more Swartzentruber-esque bob.  Women’s hair is arranged a bit differently than midwestern Amish curled in tightly at the sides–almost too tight–but more on that later. Mennonites–the Old Order Mennonite population is significant here, with many ‘buggy Mennonites‘ populating…

Family Time

If you knock on a random door in any of a number of Amish communities across the country, there’s a decent chance the home might contain a set of books called the Family Bible Library. Originally published in 1971, it is a perennial hit among the Amish, who appreciate the vivid illustrations, easy-to-understand text, and solid scriptural reference.  For that matter many Amish have Bible…

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Pennsylvania Dutch versus Amish

Are “PA Dutch” and “Amish” the same? Here in the heavily-touristed areas of Lancaster County you see “Pennsylvania Dutch” (or just “Dutch” for short), or “Amish” attached to just about anything with something to sell. To take a few examples: “Jakey’s Amish BBQ”, “Amish Paradise Homestays”, “Dutch Delights”, etc. Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish are often taken as synonyms, but they aren’t exactly one and the…

Odds and ends from Lancaster County

A couple quick observations from Lancaster County: I recalled today how Amish usually try to switch to English whenever English people are around.  I was talking to an Amish guy today and one of his friends walked up to ask for help working on the school playground.  Obviously the most comfortable tongue would be PA Dutch, but, seeing I was there, he chose to speak…

New Order supper and a different sort of haystack

I had a chance to catch up with a couple more friends the Thursday before last–‘Martin’, a minister of the New Order Amish persuasion, his wife, ‘Annie’, and their neat kids. My timing was perfect–suppertime!  A grinning Martin plunked me down in front of a ‘haystack’–a potato-lettuce-chili-cheese- crumbled nachos concoction Annie had just prepared.  Yum.  (Yeah, I definitely had seconds). As we dug into our…

So you want to join the Amish

So you want to join the Amish

One thing that sets the Amish apart from many Mennonite groups, and for that matter most other religious bodies:  they don’t recruit. Amish typically neither condemn nor encourage attempts to join.  They may seem a bit discouraging towards the idea.  If the subject comes up, usually you hear something like ‘if you don’t grow up Amish, it’s really hard to do it.’ Occasionally, you run…

Why do you keep calling me that? I’ve never even been to Britain!

‘English’ is what many Amish call non-Amish people. ‘Yankee’ is another term. The Amish also use phrases–‘your people’, ‘those kinds of people’–which may sound somewhat derogatory to our ears. But no harm intended. Identity matters in Amish America.  Customs, clothes, language make dividing lines clear. At the same time, many Amish are surprisingly open to the world, and even have good friends among the English….

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Debunking some Speech Myths

The Amish don’t use ‘thee’, ‘thine’, or ‘thou’, as you might think after watching Weird Al’s video. Neither do they speak like Alexander Godunov or Jan Rubes did in Witness. Check that, at least one Amishman today does–but he was born in Germany and converted to the faith in his 20’s. They mostly speak English like any rural Americans would.  Though you could say there…