LL-L "Mennonites" 2004.01.06 (01) [E]

Tue Jan 6 16:46:34 UTC 2004

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L O W L A N D S - L * 06.JAN.2004 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (ZeÃªuws)
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From: jpkrause <jpkrause at weblink2000.net>
Subject: Mennonites

    Most Mennonites who went to the Vistula Delta, and from thence to the
Ukraine were not ethnic Germans, but were in fact Flemish, Dutch, Frisian,
with a few Swiss here and there.  It's a common misconception that because
we bear German sounding surnames that we are German.  For example, my family
name Krause is about as common in Stuttgart as Smith and Jones is in New
York City.  Apparently, and this is only a guess, that name was attached to
the family sometime during their sojourn in the Ukraine.  In our native
Pluatdietsch the name is KrÃ¼se.
    So why the switch from Plautdietsch to German?  If I have my history
correct, there were a number of different ethnic groups which settled in the
Ukraine during the course of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  Some
were ethnic Germans.  It was czarist policy for the beaureaucrats in charge
of these various colonies to do business in the German language.  Czarina
Catherine the Great was German, by the way which may have had something to
do with the precedent.  Slowly over time, Mennonites began to abandon their
native Plautdietsch and employ German in their church services as German
language Bibles became more and more prevalant, and as ethnic German
evangelists began to preach among the Mennonites during the 19th century.
There were also cultural changes happening in Europe at the time that tended
to discourage the use of Plautdietsch and Low German/Low Saxon generally.
    By the time the Russian Mennonites migrated to the USA, Plautdietsch was
considered too "earthy" to be used in church, and so was spoken only at
home.  Publications of the era were commonly in German, and that was a handy
language to use for communication with other Mennonite groups which were
ethnic German or Swiss.
    Allow me to recommend a good book by Reuben Epp who incidentally is a
correspondent on this list, entitled "The Story of Low German &
Plautdietsch."  It's a very good book and quite informative.  Available from
The Reader's Press  ISBN 0-9638494-0-9 for $12.95 US.
Jim Krause

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Mennonites

Thanks for answering Annette's inquiry, Jim.

> From: ANNETTE GIESBRECHT <beautyaround at email.com>
> Subject: Mennonite History and Origins
>
> My husband's family is Mennonite and would like to know what part of
Germany
> or the Netherlands they came from, before emigrating to the Ukraine and
> thence to Canada in the late 1800s.  Also in what part of Germany do they
> still speak the Mennonite language?

I was beginning to wonder if I am the only one awake around here (and that
admittedly only barely), wanted to see if anyone else would oblige.  So
you're getting today's LL-L gold star for participation, Jim.  ;-)

Undoubtedly, what you wrote cannot be argued with, and I'm glad you added
the book recommendation.

However, not to put too fine a point on it, let me add my personal comment
that I have a strong hunch that both theories -- "Mennonites are Germans"
and "Mennonites are not Germans" -- are oversimplifications, IF we regard as
Germans the ancestors of those among us who were born in what is now
Northern Germany.  (Genealogically, they are a mixture of mostly Saxons,
Frisians and Slavs.)  I simply do not believe that the Mennonites who
emigrated from the Netherlands (including Westerlauwer Friesland) to the
Delta of River Vistula (Polish _WisÅ‚a_, German _Weichsel_) in what is now
Northern Poland did so without mixing with "Germans" of what is now Northern
Germany.  I wonder if this can be proven by means of records.  I would be
very surprised if, in the 16th century, they traversed Northern Germany in a
rush and in isolation, given also the facts that "proper" Germans (i.e.,
people from Southern Germany) and Swiss joined them and that they would have
encountered many kindred spirits so close to the heartland of Protestantism.

The Vistula Delta area, though multi-ethnic and multi-lingual, was largely
under German power while the Mennonites lived there.  The Hanseatic Trading
League was fading away and with it the Lowlands Saxon ("Low German")
language from official function.  The native language of a majority of
"Germans" in the region was still LS, and the Mennonites adopted it as
theirs (and many of them did hail from LS-speaking areas of the Netherlands,
and in my theory also of Northern Germany).

Reuben Epp mentioned that prior to settlement at the Vistula Delta the
emigrants from the Netherlands wrote a form of Dutch "with eastern color"
(_Oosters gekleurd_), which I understand to mean a loose mixture of Dutch
and Lowlands Saxon with room for variety.  This was also the type of
language the founder Menno Simons used in his later writings (composed in
Groningen [Netherlands] and Eastern Friesland [Germany]), as did his
followers: _Een jeder deed wat goed was in ziine oogen_ ("Everyone did what
was good in his eyes"), this sentence alone being quite understandable to
speakers of Dutch, Frisian and Lowlands Saxon alike.

But in German-administered areas, German had begun to overshadow LS and was
asserting itself as the language of administration, learning, power and
prestige.  So, I think we could say that Germanization of the Mennonites'
ancestors began *prior* to their emigration to what is now Ukraine and from
there to Russia proper, Siberia, Central Asia and eventually the Americas,
lately also to today's Germany.  German categorization under the czars
probably just reinforced the process, a process whose result was that many
speakers were conditioned into believing that their (now) native language
was inferior to their "proper" language "High" German (just as LS speakers
in the Netherlands were coming to believe that Dutch was superior to their
language and speakers of Scots were conditioned to consider English superior
to their native language).  In that regard, Mennonites were no different
from other North Germans, except that in their case this attitude survived
migration to the farthest reaches, from China to Chihuahua and from
Kazakhstan to Kansas, while many non-Mennonite LS-speaking emigrants to
North America afforded their native language a slightly higher status,
though rarely as high or higher than "High" German.

I assume that this Germanization process is currently being further
reinforced due to Germany's "repatriation" policy vis-Ã -vis "Russia
Germans," which assumes that Mennonites are ethnic Germans and has resulted
in Germany having acquired the world's largest number of speaker of
Mennonite Lowlands Saxon ("Plautdietsch"), and that as a matter of only a
few years.  While in their "diaspora," German was considered a superior
linguistic variety, being used for ceremonial purposes, for instance, for
Germany's Mennonites it is dominant in virtually every respect.  It remains
to be seen if Plautdietsch will survive this integration process.  If
valiant efforts such as Peter Wiens' (http://www.plautdietsch-freunde.de/,
http://www.sassisch.net/rhahn/low-saxon/periodicals.htm#plautdietsch) keep
on being successful, there is a good chance of this happening.  If it
survives, it might become even more Germanized than it already is (and I
find it more German-influenced than the Lowlands Saxon varieties of today's
Germany), and, given todays ease of international communication and the
sheer number of speakers in Germany this may affect the language universally
and dramatically.

These are just a few of my thoughts on the matter.  Please feel free to
correct them.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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