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What language did the Pennsylvania Dutch speak?

What language did the Pennsylvania Dutch speak?

Pennsylvania Dutch language

Pennsylvania Dutch
Native speakers 147,000 (2012-2016 American Community Survey) to 350,000 (2012) (L2 speakers: about 3,000)
Language family Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Irminonic High German West Central German Rhine Franconian Palatine German Pennsylvania Dutch
Language codes

Is Pennsylvania Dutch a dead language?

Today there are still groups in the region dedicated to preserving Pennsylvania Dutch culture. But the language is fading in the Lehigh Valley.

How do Amish say hello?

If they’re speaking English, they can say Hi, Hello, Hallo. If they’re speaking high German: Wie geht’s (literally “how goes it?”). If they’re speaking Pennsylvania Dutch: Wie bischt or guta Dag.

Do Mennonites really say once?

“Once” is probably the most-used throw-in word that you’ll hear from Amish and Mennonite speakers. Amish and Mennonites both say please in their everyday life, and generally speaking, both groups are polite in conversation.

Do Amish shake hands?

Amish church services are held on Sunday mornings inside homes, with sometimes as many as 175 people in one house, and can last three hours. The men usually gather outside beforehand, he said, and all of them shake hands. “There’s a different sense of personal space,” he said.

Where did the Pennsylvania Dutch language come from?

Pennsylvania German language. Historically, it has been accepted that the “Dutch” in Pennsylvania Dutch is a corruption or “folk-rendering” of the Pennsylvania German endonym Deitsch. An alternative theory is that it is left over from an archaic sense of the English word “Dutch”; compare German Deutsch (‘German’), Dutch Duits (‘German’),…

What kind of language did people in Pennsylvania speak?

Over time, the various dialects spoken by these immigrants fused into a unique dialect of German known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania “Dutch”. At one time, more than one-third of Pennsylvania’s population spoke this language.

Who are the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Amish?

The Amish are a more traditionalist (more “hardcore” as it were) offshoot of the Mennonite religious group. The Pennsylvania Dutch refers to the original German communities in Pennsylvania and their descendants.

Who are the descendants of the Pennsylvania Dutch?

Many Pennsylvania Dutch were descendants of refugees who had left religious persecution in the Netherlands and the Palatinate of the German Rhine.