Scandinavian languages

[Rick Mc Callister]

	The Amish conduct religious services in High German [or an archaic
version of it] and are literate in the language but they don't speak it at
home.

>Rick McCallister wrote:

>>	Pennsylvania Dutch, spoken by the Amish and other similar groups,
>>is more or less a "relic language" in that the vocabulary and not much else
>>are from the original language [mainly a mix of German dialects of the
>>Upper Rhine valley such as Swiss German, Swabian and Alsatian]. The syntax
>>and the morphology are principally from American English.

>'Principally' is one of those words that can mean whatever you like, BUT
>written PennDu, at least, has 3 genders, 3 cases, personal rendings on
>verbs in the present tense separable verbs and rules for verb second and
>verb last which look pretty like those of standard German - to mention just
>a selection of features not terribly like US English. I'm willing to admit
>to not haveing met any real live speakers myself, but I'd be surprised if
>my large selection of textbooks on the subject is entirely misleading.

>Sheila Watts

[ moderator snip ]