Even though Amish people live in America - a country whose official language is English - most Amish people do not actually speak English. A "hybrid dialect" of Pennsylvania Dutch and Pennsylvania German is what constitutes the Amish language in its spoken form. Interestingly, standard English has still found its way into this dialect, because if you listen to an Amish person speaking, you will notice that every few words (anywhere from every 5-20) will sound familiar, because it is an English word. Even though the Amish language is distinctly different from standard English, it is still close enough that we would probably be able to listen to a conversation between two Amish people and still follow along well enough that we would be able to extract the main point of what they are saying.
While the spoken form of the Amish language is distinctly different and unique, the written form is much more standardized. Because Pennsylvania Dutch is a language that is usually spoken and not written, most Amish do not write in their own dialect. When they write, they do so in standard English (which to me, just sounds way too complicated). Young children are only able to speak the dialect (Pennsylvania dutch), because that is the language that everyone talks in. That is all they hear so that is all they know. They do not learn any English before they start school because they do not need to write before school. Once they do begin school, they will learn to speak and write English, and all of their lessons will be taught in English. This is interesting because the school will typically be in a strictly Amish town, and the teacher will be an Amish person as well. But even still, the English language that is not utilized in conversation (and therefore, the affairs of the town) is what kids are taught in school.
Even further, Amish people are usually trilingual. On top of being able to speak Pennsylvania Dutch and English, most Amish can also speak High German. Religion is the focal point of an Amish society, and the Bible's they use are often written in this High German. Because of this, church services are typically performed in this High German as well. This third language is evidently an essential part of the Amish community because religion is an essential part of the Amish community, and a knowledge and acquisition of this third language is necessary to be able to fully participate in the religious sanctions.
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Honestly, this just sounds like a bunch of unnecessary work. Having three languages seems like it could cause a lot of confusion, but it could also cause a lot of social divisions and hierarchical power structures because some will be more fluent than others. The PA Dutch is needed to be able to keep up with conversation and sound intelligible; English is needed to be successful in the educational system (and consequently, life after that), and High German is needed to be able to fully understand and take part in the religious sanctions and functions that serve as the focal part of the entire community. I'm sure that all of three of these get intertwined with each other, and I really don't understand why they don't just get everything together on the same page. It seems like so much time would be wasted teaching kids each of three, and that time could be much better served if they would just pick one language (or make up a combination of the three) and translate and teach everything into that one language.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nick completely. This kind of made me laugh. Why do they speak one language but write the other language? That, to me, is unnecessary work. Especially when the children are raised speaking a certain language and then when they start school, they have to learn to speak AND write in another language. Why not just speak and write in the language they were raised to speak in?
ReplyDeleteAfter reviewing this article I find it very interesting that Amish are trilingual.This can also brings an issue of confusion when communicating. This can also be a confusing factor when attempting to teach children how to speak one language and write in another. I also find it interesting how Pennsylvania Dutch and German constitute to the Amish spoken language. In all this article discuss a lot of interesting information.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with everyone. I will be difficult for children to speak one lanuage and than have to learn another lanuage in order to be able to write. Speaking in German every fifth word makes no sense.If the Amish are trying to incorporate different lanuages into their culture I think they are making it difficult for the people.
ReplyDeleteIt is already difficult for some chidren to learn how to read, write, and speak. If you throw three different languages at them, this is even more difficult. I think it is not neccessary for the Amish to have three languages. Although, I did not know the Amish had three different languages. In fact, I thought they only spoke English. I think it would be important for the Amish children to learn English, because in most school systems in the United States, English is the dominate language used.
ReplyDeleteI have never known that Amish people were trilingual. It is very interesting that they speak in High German because their bible is written in this language and their church services are in High German. I believe the children should be taught English at a younger age because it may be hard for them to learn a whole other language once they are in school. This seems like a lot of work for a young child to do. However, Amish people must be able to learn quickly if they are doing all this extra work.
ReplyDeleteIt has been said on many occasions that English is the international language, as well as one of the hardest languages to master. I can only imagine how hard it is for Amish children and adults alike to know when to use their own language and when to use English. It seems that there is to much going on when it comes to there language, which can easily confuse them as well as others. For example they speak mostly Amish but write in mostly English. This would be hard to keep up with, and to make matters worse their religion is in spoken in German. This would be equivilent to Americans speaking English but only being allowed to write papers in French and, and all of our religious documents or lectures being spoken in Arabic. The Amish language may be simple for them to grasp, however from the outside looking in it seems chaotic.
ReplyDeleteAfter read this blog/article on Amish language, I must agree with the other comments that learning three languages must be very chaotic and difficult. Although, it must be difficult to learn and distinguish between all three languages, I believe it is a way of keeping Amish traditions. I think that by keeping the tradition of learning the three languages in their lives, they are able to keep outsiders away because they are capable of speaking and writing in English but know a language (PA Dutch) that most Americans do not know.
ReplyDeleteBefore this article, I never knew that the Amish were trilingual or even spoke another language at all. This article was quite informative and very interesting.
I really thought this article was interesting as well as informative. Learning three language is a very difficult task, that takes time and patience to intake all of the structures and method there are to fully grasp the language. However, there are some disadvantages with this article as well. Communicating in three different languages can cause a lot of confusing in the learning of young people and the difficultly of adapting to different surroundings when the time neeeded.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that the Amish can speak different languages but also odd that they mostly associate with other Amish. This is odd to me because they learn three languages just to mostly associate with themselves, it seems kind of redundant to learn and use other languages to only have to speak to someone else who speaks the same languages already.
ReplyDeleteI really had no idea that Amish people spoke so many different languages. I never even took it into consideration, that they would speak differently amongst one another. It is odd that they teach standard English within the classroom, but they do not use standard English outside of the classroom. It seems to me that it is rather pointless to even teach the language if it is not being practices, outside the walls of the school.
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