Update: below is the back-story of how I came to know the Amish. I’ve been long “retired” from selling books in Amish communities, but starting in 2004, this was my intro to Amish life. Over the next several years, I visited thousands of Amish homes in five states, including the four largest Amish settlements. Inspired by the experience, I started this website as a basic…
In places like 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. This naturally makes visitors assume that the Amish must have something to do with the Pennsylvania Dutch. But are they the same…
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…
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…
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…
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…