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Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language

Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language

Mark L. Louden

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While most world languages spoken by minority populations are in serious danger of becoming extinct, Pennsylvania Dutch is thriving. In fact, the number of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers is growing exponentially, and has remained for the most part an oral vernacular without official recognition or support. A true sociolinguistic wonder, Pennsylvania Dutch has been spoken continuously since the late 18th century. In this probing study, Mark L. Louden, himself a fluent speaker of Pennsylvania Dutch, provides readers with a close look at the place of the language in the life and culture of two major subgroups of speakers: the “Fancy Dutch,” whose ancestors were affiliated mainly with Lutheran and German Reformed churches, and traditional Anabaptist sectarians known as the “Plain people”—the Old Order Amish and Mennonites. (504pp. illus. index. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2019.)


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