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Our Amish Language

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Re: Our Amish Language

#91

Post by panative »

hommelix wrote: post #65
swongel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article; > The contours of Pennsylvania Dutch words are harder and sharper than English ones. It’s hard to ask for a soft favor. Difficult to communicate affection, impossible to say the word love. We have no distinct word for it. One must use the standard German liebe, obtuse and antiquated in our mouths, or succumb to English, a concession. It is a tongue of commands and directives, probing questions about…

I've often read on church in Flander "onze lieve vrouw", but I had read that there is no word in Dutch for love. Instead, one would say "ik hou van jouw" which I translate as "I'm attached to you". Could it be in Pennsylvania Dutch a similar situation, due to some lineage between the languages?

Pennsylvania German/Deitsch comes from Pfälzisch and as spoken by plain people mostly branched off in the 18th and 19th centuries but influence from other German speakers and especially English didn’t stop in time then.

It is much closer to standard German than any dialect of Dutch. Amish read the Luther Bible (mostly 1912 edition these days) in German and sing the Ausbund in German but don’t otherwise use “Hochdeutsch” in everyday life, and they exclusively use English for reading and writing outside of church.

It’s also very important not to confuse the Amish and their language from other plain Mennonites and Anabaptists who speak Plautdietsch which is a completely different low German language and not intelligible with Pennsylvania German or standard German at all. Many of them came from Germanic peoples who were settled in Poland, Ukraine, Russia etc.

Re: Our Amish Language

#92

Post by panative »

skissane wrote: post #24

I had not heard of the Libby (Montana) community before. But from the description in the article, it is clear they are at the liberalising end of the Amish. And one thing that almost certainly follows from their liberalisation, is their TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is going to gradually converge with mainstream society – not necessarily with the very low levels associated with the completely secular, but at least with…

Hasidim go to school in Yiddish for up to 12 hours a day through 12 grade and their secular and English education ends in 8th grade and is afterward taught exclusively in Yiddish with a side of Hebrew. After 12th grade many men continue to study Torah and Talmud all day for many years with rabbis doing so all their lives. The Talmud is in Aramaic and Hebrew but instruction, conversation and writing about it is conducted in Yiddish rather than English. Yiddish has orthographies in both the standard Hebrew script where it has a vast literature and is intelligibly romanized in Latin script with good concordance.

By contrast Pennsylvania German has never even had a standard orthography much less a literature. In the past fancy Dutch would read and write in Hochdeutsch (the standard literary German, for their times). Old order Amish education is exclusively in English and they are taught to read and write only in English except for reading the German Luther bible for church (as well as they can; typically most do better with the English side in the King James) and singing the Ausbund in German. Education ends altogether in 8th grade. Days are consumed with farmwork or trade work, chores, family life. Other than the Bible and the Ausbund (which is just a songbook) their religious texts are in English. There are some well-regarded old order Amish authors and journalist's who write books and periodicals in English. Many publications used by the Amish aren’t written by old order Amish but other Amish, Mennonites, and others.

In short there is no opening whatsoever for Pennsylvania German to become a written living literary language. There is a translation of the Bible into Deitsch done by outsiders that pretty much no one asked for and no one uses.

Re: Our Amish Language

#93

Post by panative »

pantalaimon wrote: post #42
lproven wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Ordnung What does that mean? (This entire thread is very hard for this Brit to follow. So many unknown words and whole concepts.)

the Order, as in community sharing/following a set of rules

As in understand it, the Ordnung are the rules themselves, but the rules are what create the community. They aren’t written down but they are collectively decided and determined and known within an individual district. Districts normally split due to growth rather than disagreements about the Ordnung but both can happen, and the Ordnung can develop differently from one district to another. An individual or family openly rejecting some aspect of the Ordnung can result in shunning/excommunication (though the intent is supposed to be for them to come back fully to the community, doesn’t have to be permanent, and it doesn’t always mean they are completely estranged).

Re: Our Amish Language

#94

Post by panative »

em-bee wrote: post #53
unkeen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be "Höhergestellte" nowadays.

"höhergestellte" are "superiors". "hohe leute" is more like "upper class people"

That isn’t the sense it’s used in Pennsylvania at all. A side hill dirt farmer with one striped shirt he wears six days a week and goes to a Methodist church every Sunday and a mustache with his beard is “hoch” and a man who wears solid black and white with buttons and suspenders and no belt or mustache, drives a buggy to church at a district members house every other week and owns a mill that employs 500 people is a “Kirche/Plain” person.

Re: Our Amish Language

#95

Post by IAmBroom »

orangelimesoda wrote: post #58
beacon294 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely plausible the author's experience is a valid projection of the people they were surrounded by and also valid.

"anecdote" is the word you are looking for - which means based only on personal stories and not systematic research.

Yes, and 99.9% of human discourse is anecdotal - as is the article this thread is based upon.

"Anecdotal" is not synonomous with "incorrect".

Re: Our Amish Language

#96

Post by em-bee »

panative wrote: post #94
em-bee wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"höhergestellte" are "superiors". "hohe leute" is more like "upper class people"

That isn’t the sense it’s used in Pennsylvania at all. A side hill dirt farmer with one striped shirt he wears six days a week and goes to a Methodist church every Sunday and a mustache with his beard is “hoch” and a man who wears solid black and white with buttons and suspenders and no belt or mustache, drives a buggy to church at a district members house every other week and owns a mill that employs 500 people is a…

can you elaborate please? the way i read this it directly contradicts what you say here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903436

“hooche Leit” is PA dialect for standard German “hohe Leute,” literally “high people” in the sense of “fancy” people

but that supports what i said, because upper class people are also fancy.

Re: Our Amish Language

#97

Post by wildfireday2 »

em-bee wrote: post #96
panative wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t the sense it’s used in Pennsylvania at all. A side hill dirt farmer with one striped shirt he wears six days a week and goes to a Methodist church every Sunday and a mustache with his beard is “hoch” and a man who wears solid black and white with buttons and suspenders and no belt or mustache, drives a buggy to church at a district members house every other week and owns a mill that employs 500 people is a…

can you elaborate please? the way i read this it directly contradicts what you say here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903436 “hooche Leit” is PA dialect for standard German “hohe Leute,” literally “high people” in the sense of “fancy” people but that supports what i said, because upper class people are also fancy.

“Fancy” is has a very specific meaning as as opposed to “plain” here and “upper class people are also fancy” is not generally true. “Plain” refers very specifically to lifestyle rules and modes of dress and sometimes speech adopted by conservative Anabaptists, most notably Amish, and historically, Quakers (very few of whom are meaningfully plain anymore although “simplicity” is still taught as a Quaker value). It has nothing to do with social class, there are many examples of plain peoples who were better off as a whole than their “fancy” neighbors. Fancy, in the context of plain people in America, is just anyone who lives according to the dominant culture or otherwise isn’t bound by the rules of plain people. Those being things like what kind of fasteners or colors you can have on your clothes, what kinds of hats men wear, head coverings and dress standards for women, etc., and for the Amish extending to bans on mains electricity, automobiles or self propelled vehicles, etc.

Re: Our Amish Language

#98

Post by ButlerianJihad »

wildfireday2 wrote: post #97
em-bee wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you elaborate please? the way i read this it directly contradicts what you say here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903436 “hooche Leit” is PA dialect for standard German “hohe Leute,” literally “high people” in the sense of “fancy” people but that supports what i said, because upper class people are also fancy.

“Fancy” is has a very specific meaning as as opposed to “plain” here and “upper class people are also fancy” is not generally true. “Plain” refers very specifically to lifestyle rules and modes of dress and sometimes speech adopted by conservative Anabaptists, most notably Amish, and historically, Quakers (very few of whom are meaningfully plain anymore although “simplicity” is still taught as a Quaker value). It has…

Closely related, and not limited to the sects which you mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiness_movement

Re: Our Amish Language

#99

Post by skissane »

panative wrote: post #92
skissane wrote: post #24

I had not heard of the Libby (Montana) community before. But from the description in the article, it is clear they are at the liberalising end of the Amish. And one thing that almost certainly follows from their liberalisation, is their TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is going to gradually converge with mainstream society – not necessarily with the very low levels associated with the completely secular, but at least with…

Hasidim go to school in Yiddish for up to 12 hours a day through 12 grade and their secular and English education ends in 8th grade and is afterward taught exclusively in Yiddish with a side of Hebrew. After 12th grade many men continue to study Torah and Talmud all day for many years with rabbis doing so all their lives. The Talmud is in Aramaic and Hebrew but instruction, conversation and writing about it is conduc…

> In short there is no opening whatsoever for Pennsylvania German to become a written living literary language.

I wasn’t talking about it becoming a “literary” language

Consider this website - https://www.ujcbg.org/ - it is in Yiddish, but there is nothing “literary” about it, it is simply a news source for the Hasidic community of South Blooming Grove (village next door to Kiryas Joel). It contains articles on topics such as Sabbath rules for property developers and the volunteer fire department.

There’s no great barrier to Amish people using Deitsch for those kinds of purely practical communication purposes. It doesn’t require any advanced education or a standardised orthography. Historically speaking, a “standardised orthography” is something most languages didn’t have (prior to the influence of the printing press/etc)

A starting point could be as simple as one of the English language Amish newspapers deciding to include a section in Deitsch

Re: Our Amish Language

#100

Post by oliculipolicula »

avyeed_desa wrote: post #84
eythana wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m Eythana, the author. That German loanword isn’t used at all, I could say virtually to be safe, but it’s really not used anywhere among the Amish. No one in my community ever did, and the same goes for communities in Ohio where I have many relatives. But besides my anecdotes, Rose Fisher, a linguist at Michigan State who works on the language, has validated this claim, and so has Mark Louden, the foremost PD histo…

Don't you use the word in expressions like "ihr liewe Leit" (we usually use it as an expression of astonishment, seldomly to address a group of people) or "es lieb Mädsche" (the /nice/lovley girl)?

Do I sense a tinge of irony there, as one might exclaim in English

  "Oh blessed people!"
the irony might come from slightly religious but unfolksy substitution "blessed". Or simply (but verging on sarcasm)

  "Lovely!"
Otherwise, I hope you won't mind me declaring palatinates to be the long-lost tribe of Stoics across the mountains :)
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