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Question about German & Amish Dutch | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| BrianDeAlabama Groupie United States Joined 4519 days ago 89 posts - 113 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 13 11 November 2013 at 3:59am | IP Logged |
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Is German & Amish Dutch aka Pennsylvania Dutch mutually intelligible? Any German speakers ever spoke German
with the Amish? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 13 11 November 2013 at 1:10pm | IP Logged |
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According to Wikipedia the Amish don't speak Dutch - they speak an old version of a German dialect described as "West Central German" (and this dialect belongs to the realm of High German, not even Low German aka Platt, which is much closer to the language spoken in the Netherlands, which we normally call Dutch.
However Mennonite Plautdietsch (mostly spoken in the Chaco part of Paraguay, but also by a few persons in North America) is allegedly an old form of "a low Prussian variant of East Low German, with Dutch influences". I actually didn't know how Amish German sounds, but I found a video on youtube that switches between German and PA (Pennsylvania) German, and the lady in the video says it isn't a problem for her to understand PA German. And a Swiss German speaker says the same thing in the comments to the video. There are also some videos with English sentences followed by their translations into PS German (as spoken by the Amish), but I find that structure far more confusing - I understand it much better when I ignore the English voice, but even then I have to repeat the phrases in my mind before their meaning occurs to me. However after a day or so of listening I think any German with an ear for dialects should be able to understand the thing without too much ado, except maybe some strictly local vocabulary. I have also read and heard Mennonite Plaut, and with a background in 'normal' Platt it is reasonably simple to understand Plaut. However without that background I imagine that it could be a problem, and I have a suspicion that some Germans (and Danes!) aren't really used to deal with dialects - and certainly not dialects of Low German. Edited by Iversen on 11 November 2013 at 1:29pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| orion Senior Member United States Joined 7021 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 3 of 13 11 November 2013 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
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In the area I am from there are a number of Amish and sometimes you can overhear them speaking their language. I am by no means fluent in German, but I can usually get the gist of what they are talking about. Once, over 20 years ago, I tried speaking High German with a group of Amish and it was not well received. They are not keen on outsiders (whom they call "English") invading their privacy.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 13 11 November 2013 at 2:12pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I can understand some parts of those videos very well, but some of it is pure gibberish to me. It's like a very strong dialect.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4688 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 13 11 November 2013 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
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I would call them basically mutually intelligible.
There are certain groups, e.g. in Indiana, who make money from having outsiders come into the commuinity to visit to some limited extent. All I remember is that they had a dining hall and served our large group a bunch of food for some family celebration we had years back. I didn't participate in the conversation myself, but I believe that I observed my mother schwetzing with one or two of the locals in German, and her German's never even been all that strong. My guess is that it's not going to be much further from Hochdeutsch than Texas German or other German groups that split from Europe within the last couple hundred years, and likely will have similarly taken on some characteristics of vocabulary and accent from the surrounding English speakers. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5732 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 6 of 13 12 November 2013 at 1:47am | IP Logged |
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Knowing German and Spanish, the best comparison is that Deitsch (PA German) is as mutually
intelligible with Hochdeutsch as Portuguese is with Spanish. That is, I can understand most of the individual words and usually get the gist, but not always, depending for example on the speaker's accent or just what is said. Edit: For the record I've been exposed to it quite a bit and have time to get accustomed to the differences, so this is what it's like after the initial perod of acclimation, for a non-native speaker. Edited by Astrophel on 12 November 2013 at 1:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BrianDeAlabama Groupie United States Joined 4519 days ago 89 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 13 17 November 2013 at 5:18am | IP Logged |
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Thank you guys for the input.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 8 of 13 17 November 2013 at 10:43am | IP Logged |
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I've never studied Dutch or Amish but I've heard both languages in TV / films. I can certainly understand more
Amish than Dutch, so I'm inclined to say the Amish language is a form of German. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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