Talk:Plautdietsch

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Example

I put the example of Homer Groening in but perhaps it should go, i'll put it in for now. :)

P. Stoltzfus

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I am not sure that it should be included either, but I think it is important to mention the stigmatisation of Mexican born Old Colony Mennonites in places like Ontario. I grew up in the midst of it and it was quite severe. I have seen classmates who were Mennonites of Mexican origin deny their culture and language. These are the same forces which helped cause the death of Pennsylvania German in the non-Anabaptist communities of Southeastern Pennsylvania and Gaelic in Cape Breton.

P. Stoltzfus

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Is Plautdietsch different from the language used for the Plattdüütsch wikipedia. Is it different from Pennsylvania German language (which claims to be a mennonite language), Hutterite German, Texas German? Thanks. Secretlondon 13:13, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

• As far as I know, Plattdeutsch is a colloquial term used for both low and middle german dialects. My grandparents in Lower Saxony, Germany spoke both "Plattdeutsch" (Low Saxon) and "High German". Plattdeutsch is going to die off. 82.82.117.83 13:24, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Not really. Plattdeutsch is a Low German dialect. Actually even I (who am from Germany) can't tell the exact differences between Plautdietsch, Plattdeutsch (or Plattdeitsch)(or Plattdüütsch) or Low Saxon. These are all variants of Low German from what I understand. While it is true that High German is spoken by almost all in the area where Plattdeutsch is spoken, they are still a signficant number of speakers who can speak (or snack :-)) Plattdeutsch as well to some degree. I am not so sure that it is going to die off. True, there was a significant decline in it's use in recent decades, especially in cities with many migrants from other parts of Germany, like Hamburg, but I don't think it is going to completely die anytime soon. Middle German actually is also a colloquial term for a number of dialects. But out of these dialects High German evolved during the 16th century. But that does not mean this dialects of Middle German completely eroded. Quite a number of them are still used in everyday life. I for instance who am from the border area of Bavaria and Hesse, which is somewhat on the borders of the Middle and Upper German dialects, still mainly use some local variety of High German. I am surely able to speak High German perfectly but because doing so needs a bit more concentration, I use it only when dealing with non native German speakers or when dealing with Germans from the North, South or East. Within my immediate area I speak my local dialect. I think most Germans do it the same way. First they speak in there own variety of German (Alemannish, Bavarian etc) and if they notice the other has difficulties to grasp what you are talking about, then swap to High German. I don't think this is comparable to, for instance, English spoken in the southern USA and the one in New England. Some Northern German who goes into the bavarian forest and hears only the local dialect of High German is pretty lost if the other is unwilling to speak High German. I don't think that is the case with the above mentioned examples in English.

--Lucius1976 17:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This is late in the game but for the sake of other researchers who stumble by this, Plautdietsch is not closely related to Pennsylvania German (aka Pennsylvania Dutch). That language comes (mostly) out of the Palatinate and is a type of High German. It was indeed the language of Anabaptists but even more so of the "Fancy Dutch" who were mostly Lutherans, Moravians, and the like from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (and mostly not from what is now the Netherlands). The Pennsylvania German speaking Anabaptists tended to be refugees from places like Switzerland who had initially fled to the Palatinate before winding up in Pennsylvania (PA). Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 19:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Plattdeutsch (or Plattdüütsch), Low Saxon, and Plautdietsch sound very similar. I spoke Mennoninite Plautdietsch as a child, now my knowledge of it is passive; I can understand it, but I speak High German. I've never heard Low Saxon or Plattdeutsch, but numerous speakers of Plautdietsch have told me that these dialects are mutually comprehensible. It is important to note, however, that Plautdietsch refers to the Mennonite dialect; so it also includes borrowings and other changes that have taken place over the past three centuries, first in the Ukraine, then in Western Canada, and finally, for some groups, in Latin America and/or Ontario. For instance, the Plautdietsch word for tomato is "Bockel'zhonn"; I remember the word sounding like "Buckle-John". I suspect that this word is of Slavic, or at least non-Germanic, origin. Perhaps a speaker of Low Saxon or Ukrainian could confirm its origin. I think some of the names for traditional dishes are also of (Ukrainian?) origin. Perhaps "Wreninkje" for their cottage cheese pockets. I could be entirely wrong about these, but, again, a Plattdeutsch speaker from Germany or a speaker of Ukrainian could shed some light on the issue. A more recent example; Mennonites recently arriving in Ontario from Mexico use the word "pluma" for pen. When discussing Canadian Citizenship, they've borrowed the English "Citizen." I'll try to find some more specific examples, and in the case of earlier borrowings, reliable etymology. Perhaps the article could be expanded to include such developements.

I am Mexican born Plautdietsch speaker. Plautdietsch as I learned it, has a handful of words borrowed from English, but frequently adapted to Plautdietsch Phonetics. For instance, Kjäkj for cake, Beissikjel for bicycle, Heiwä for highway, Peinaupel for pineapple. One area with many borrowings has words for auto parts. Bumper, fender, brakes (pronounced Brikjs), "Ploggen" (spark plugs)were all words I learned as Plautdietsch vocabulary. Borrowings from Spanish are very common in speech, nevertheless it seems that, when Mexican Plautdietsch speakers move to other countries, as US or Canada, they seem to abandon those borrowings for English equivalents. However, two words that seem to be completely assimilated, are "Burra" for donkey, Spanish "burro", and "Wrastch" for sandal, Spanish "Huarache". Also very common is "Schiekle" for chewing gum. As a child someone corrected my Plautdietsch saying that "Schiekle" was not correct, I had to use "Shuagumm" instead. Good observation, isn't it?

________________________________________________________________

I'm curious about this "Plautdietsch". dietsch=deetsch. deitsch=dytsch. I've never heard any pronunciation other than "plattdeitsch". "ie" is pronounced "ee" in German. "ei" is pronounced "eye" in German.

Just my view on the issue of Plattdeutsch:

As I am aware the term Plattdeutsch encompasses a wide variety of languages/dialects spoken in the whole northern part of Germany. It is important to note however that the Plattdeutsch spoken in the more southern and eastern parts (mecklenburg vorpommern (sorry don't know the english term), lower saxony etc.) is regarded as a dialect and can be quite easily understood by someone speaking high german. The Plattdeutsch spoken in the northern part (Schleswig Holstein) however is regarded as a language of it's own and is harder to understand.

Also I have to contest the notion that the use of Plattdeutsch is dying out in Germany. While this may be true for the big cities, in almost all rural areas of northern Germany that I know (basicly Schleswig-Holstein) Plattdeutsch is still the predominating language used. I myself grew up on an island where most people in the "rural" part learned Frisian as first language, then plattdeutsch and only when they went off to school they started to learn high german.

Dutch influence??

The article claims that Plautdietsch is influenced by the Dutch language. I would like to see some kind of source for this claim, as Plautdietsch is an 'East' Low German dialect and Dutch lies on the opposite (i.e. western) end of the Dutch/German dialect continuum. Dutch and East Low German lie hundreds of miles apart. Unoffensive text or character 15:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Here you are: *De Smet, Gilbert 1983: 'Niederländische Einflüsse im Niederdeutschen', in: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (eds.), Handbuch zur niederdeutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, ISBN 3-503-01645-7, pp. 730 - 761. Ad43 00:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It is both western Holland influence and eastern Holland influence for the Plautdietsch. I know because of my family's Mennonite ancestors coming from the western side of Holland and they speak the dutchy Plautdietsch vs. the germanic type of Plattdeutsch. THAT is the difference. PlautDIETSCH vs. PlattDEUTSCH. PlattDeutsch is more a Swiss-German dialect, more Germanic. I also have relatives that are Mennonite heritage that speak the Swiss-German Plattdeutsch, which is High German. West Frisian is the most common of the three frisian low german types but all three of Frisian languages are Dutchy and my family influence came from the main one which is West Frisian. Look up "Frisian Languages" on Wikipedia for some information. A.R. 2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.240.201 (talk) 23:42, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

merging

I have contributed lately a little to the Mennonite Low German article and definitely, both articles should be merged, as they are about the one and the same thing. I am not sure if I am able to do that.

Three plural articles?

I have contributed extensively to this article in the last few weeks. I am an average native speaker of Plautdietsch but unlike the most of them, have studied and researched a lot about it, and I though it could be a good idea to share some of my findings with people who might care about this special language.

Lately I have discovered that I have a few "correcters". While I do not claim to have absolute or definite knowledge on the matter, I would appreciate contributions if they are true. Someone lately corrected the article and noun section claiming that there are three different articles in the Singular Nominative and in the Plural as well!!! No Germanic language has three plural definite articles, not even High German which is known as being one of the most complicated languages on the world.

Plautmex 21:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

In a sense, there are three different singular nominative definite articles in Plautdietsch: two of them (the feminine and the masculine) simply share the same form in the nominative. I would agree, though, that most varieties of Plautdietsch would appear to make no distinctions on the basis of either case or gender for the plural definite article, using 'de' throughout. Likewise, Standard German makes no distinction between genders in plural definite articles; it does, however, make a distinction on the basis of case, separating 'die' (NOM/ACC.PL) from 'der' (GEN.PL) and 'den' (DAT.PL). That might have motivated the changes you noticed earlier, but I'm really not sure.

You might be right that no living Germanic language has maintained a three-way distinction between nominative plural definite articles, though Gothic would appear to have had exactly such a distinction, and the reconstruction of Proto-Germanic presented on Wikipedia has this distinction, too. I'd be very interested to read more about this, if any typological comparisons of Germanic article systems are available. Whether or not High German is indeed one of the most complicated languages in the world, however, would seem to me to be a different and much more difficult claim to defend: I'm not sure how one might compare the complexity of individual languages empirically, or how one would know High German to be among the most complex without such a comparison.

(Whatever the case, great work with the most recent updates -- a lot of interesting information has been added to the article!)

Ccox 05:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"Vowel Lowering"

While a more thorough discussion of diachronic Plautdietsch phonology would certainly be a welcome addition to this article, I am a little puzzled by the discussion of "vowel lowering" in the present revision, which appears to assume High German as its benchmark. If the goal here is a cross-linguistic comparison of these two vowel systems, then this would seem more than alright. If, on the other hand, this section is suggesting that the present Plautdietsch vowel system has developed from that of High German, then one would seem to run into the problem that Plautdietsch is not descended from High German, nor would Plautdietsch vowels have necessarily "lowered" from any such historical state.

This isn't to say that vowel lowering hasn't occurred in the history Plautdietsch, or even in these particular contexts -- it is insisting, however, that High German shouldn't be taken to be the historical source of present-day Plautdietsch vowels, since no such genetic relationship is generally assumed to exist. A number of authors discuss historical developments in Plautdietsch phonology with reference to Old Saxon and Middle Low German: cf. the work of Jacob Quiring (1928), J. W. Goerzen (1952/1972), and most recently Larissa Naiditch (2005).

Ccox 18:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

OK to redirect

There is an orphan stub called Mundart des Weichselmündungsgebietes. Would it be appropriate to redirect it here? Or does it refer to a historically distinct dialect? — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 14:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Mennonite Low German

Would it not be better for the title of this Wikipedia entry to be "Mennonite Low German", and have "Plautdietsch" redirect to it? "Plautdietsch" simply means Low German, in the Mennonite Low German dialect. It would not be surprising to find that there are other Low German dialects, in which "Low German" is called something similar to "Plautdietsch". I have been working on the entry for Pennsylvania German, and there have been some that have wanted to regularly refer to the language as "Deitsch" in English. In this case, there certainly are other German dialects in which the word for "German" is "Deitsch", or something similar. I believe the practice of referring in English to a language or dialect by its native name, at least in these cases, adds unnecessary confusion. JMCooper (talk) 20:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

A Couple of Things

First, I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed to this article. The subject is fascinating.

Second, I've noticed a small problem in the third paragraph. The final sentence reads: Many Mennonites migrated to North America — especially Canada and the United States — and Latin America — especially south Brazil, Paraguay and Mexico; most of them live as rural settlers and added some Spanish and Portuguese words to their own language. This sentence implies that Mennonites in Canada and the US have added some Spanish and Portuguese words to their language, which is hard to believe, especially of Portuguese, which does not have much influence in the northern parts of the US or in Canada. Maybe we should add English to the list of influencing languages, or break up the sentence into two pieces? Unless there really are a lot of Portuguese loan words in Canadian Plautdietsch dialects...

Also, in the discussion someone asked about Pennsylvania Dutch (which linguists call Pennsylvania German). This dialect is based on Palatine German (Pfälzisch/Pälzisch or Pfaelzisch/Paelzisch). There is a good Wikepedia article on Pennsylvania Dutch, which has a fascinating history of its own and which developed from a blend of "mountain" dialects from Germany and Switzerland (and to a lesser extent Austria). Note that although it's called Pennsylvania Dutch in English (and this is what native PD speakers prefer to call it so I use that term), it is a dialect of Upper German not Lower German and consequently its level of mutual comprehensibility with Lower German dialects such as Plautdietsch would be low. In Pennsylvania, by the way, Mennonites tend to speak Pennsylvania Dutch or English, and not Plattdietsch. This is due to the long association with PD speakers, which at one time were about a third of Pennsylvania's population if I remember correctly, and also due to the fact that the original Mennonite settlers in Pennsylvania did not have the same Russian roots but tended to come from the Palatinate. I live in Pennsylvania, and the Amish and Mennonites here speak the same language but go to different churches. The two groups tend to co-exist peacefully, and both have become integrated into the fabric of Pennsylvania's culture while trying to remain "plain".

Another person asked about the relationship of Plautdietsch to Dutch (now called Netherlander or Neiderlander). By looking at a map you can see that the area where Plattdeutsch is spoken is quite close to the Netherlands and to Belgium (and I use the alternate spelling Plattdeutsch because I am talking about a family of Lower German dialects here and not just the Mennonite Lower German dialect). Therefore, you would (correctly) expect the languages to be much closer to Neiderlander (what we traditionally call "Dutch" in English). These languages grew up next to each other and would therefore have a history of influencing each other, besides being closely related from the start. The wikipedia page on German dialects traces this lineage nicely. I would further recommend reading up on Old and Middle Dutch and Old Saxon because those languages spawned most of the Lower German dialects. And I also recommend reading up on dialect continuums and sprachbunds, because the whole business of language classification is a messy one.

I think the best idea is to just lump all the Lower German dialects together along with the other German dialects, and Scandanavian, English, and Scottish, plus the Germanic languages I've missed, and just call them one language named "Modern Teutonic" or something. It saves a lot of work and from the perspective of a linguist in the far-distant future may be perfectly accurate. (I'm half kidding so turn down the flames to half strength please!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djkernen (talk • contribs) 16:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The sentence implies that those in Latin America have. In Canada and the US, English has been added. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Dialect vs. language

There has been ongoing discussion about the status of Plautdietsch (or Mennonite Low German) as a dialect or language. I have reverted a recent edit to the Plautdietsch page to preserve this discussion rather than let it be changed to a dialect only. I think there is value in showing the pros and cons of these arguments. I am sure that some people feel very strongly about one position or another, but this article will be stronger if we preserve these differences rather than edit them out.Lorkoe (talk) 22:07, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Relation to Non-Mennonite German

There is a lot of interesting information in the article, but I find that one vital question is left vague: The Mennonites of the Lower Vistula spoke a particular form of German; how, in outline, was this Mennonite form of German different from the form of German spoken by Non-Mennonites in the same region? Were the two forms much the same, except that the Mennonite form had a few vocab items of its own? Or were they much more different than that? I think the article should deal with this point pretty clearly at an early stage, because it affects the reader’s grasp of much of the more detailed stuff.Llezsoeg (talk) 08:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you are actually wanting to know what the difference between Mennonite German and other German was, you ought to bring this up in an article about German. As for Low German, given the formation of Plautdietsch as a settlers' language, I'd say that at first the other Low Germans in the region spoke their own dialects and later on they all formed Low Prussian, which the Plautdietsch speak (if a bit modified) today. Didn't find this very unclear. Or did I miss your point? The article doesn't state that their Low German was that of a hermetic religious community but that of a certain area from which a lot of people of a certain Christian sect emigrated.Dakhart (talk) 06:13, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

If I understand you, your view is that the form of German spoken by the Mennonites when they lived in the Lower Vistula region was pretty much the same as the form of German spoken by the non-Mennonites who lived in that region. If that is so, that seems to me an essential thing to be clear about. It raises the question: Why identify this Mennonite form of German as a separate language form at all, deserving its own name and article? The answer to that - I presume - is that the Mennonites moved on to other parts of the world such as Russia and later America, and once they had moved, their form of German developed and thus diverged from the form of German that inhabitants of the Lower Vistula region went on speaking up to 1945.Llezsoeg (talk) 09:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. First: Low German is not German, nor it is a form of it. Therefore I will refer to it as Saxon from now on. The thing with Mennonite Low German is this: Mennonites moved to the Vistula area in rather large quantities. They carried with them their Saxon (and to some extent Dutch) dialects of the places they came from. But soon they developed a common Vistula-dialect, which was a subdialect of Prussian-Saxon, with the other settles in that space. It was not specific to Mennonites, but was spoken by the people of the Vistula area (Weisselplatt). However, what's special about the Mennonites is that: 1. They sticked together, due to their religious structure, even when moving to other countries. 2. All other people who spoke their dialects and did not move to other places were killed or have died of old age, leaving only offspring which speaks the languages of the nations which came forth in the Prussian area. (Russian, Polish, Lithuanian) The ones who did move, but not with a closed Prussian community, took over to some degree the Saxon dialects of their new places of living. Thus 'Mennonite Low German' is a single dialect in different countries, because Mennonites are all from the same region, a region of which the non-Mennonite inhabitants scattered or died. I can see how people without knowledge of this might be incapable of extracting this from the article. Feel free to reword it or to create a History-section.Dakhart (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I’m sorry, but I still want to ask your help by checking one simple point. Take the situation once the Mennonites were well settled down: in the mid-17th century, for example. The Mennonites in Alt-Schottland, say, just outside Danzig were speaking a certain dialect of Low German. At the same time all the non-Mennonite people within the walls of Danzig and in the surrounding countryside were also speaking a dialect of Low German. I take it from your comments that both groups, Mennonite and non-Mennonite, were speaking the SAME dialect of Low German (or pretty much). If that simple point is established, then IMO logically the following issue is this: How did that common dialect come about? Was that dialect more or less the same as what the indigenous dialect of Low German of the area would have become by that time even if the Mennonites had never arrived? Or, on the other hand, did the coming of the Mennonites have very significant influence on the development of that dialect? However, I suspect these are probably impossible questions to answer with any precision at this distance in time.Llezsoeg (talk) 17:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I had an answer formulated, but the PC kicked it. So in short: The Mennonites came fron the Netherlands and the North Sea (Frisia). They emigrated to Pommern and Prussia. Today's Plautdietsch sound very much like Pommersch and Prussian people but not like those in the Netherlands and at the North Sea. They must have their pronunciation from the eastern dialects. The palatalisation (tj/kj) is not done in the eastern dialects, so must be a Mennonite phenomenon. On the other hand most people who lived in the Pommern/Prussian areas and were not Mennonites are scattered and/or dead. Mostly dead. Thus we have little to compare. I, however, know people who can tell east Prussian jokes and they never palatalise. Grammar is not a problem, because Pommern and Prussia were in the first place settled by people from the same regions as the Mennonites who came later. (And because Low German dialects have little to none difference to each other.) Thus the main difference is phrases and sayings. People go to places and talk as they are used to. Thus both parties hear new phrases and if they like them or hear them often enough, they adopt them, thus the new dialect. So: The dialect of Danzig has mainly been influenced by Polish, because Low German was the same along the coasts. The new Mennonites adapted to the local pronunciation, thus they had little influence on it, and the dialect would probably have turned out the same without them.Dakhart (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks very much. That's clear.Llezsoeg (talk) 21:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Friesland is today not only in the Netherlands but also in Northern Germany. Plattdeutsch is a phenomenon in German lanugage that originated with several language shifts in the middle ages. There are a number of distinctly different dialects. Plattdeutsch might be the source of the German dialect the mennonites are speaking, but plattdeutsch is definitely something different then what the mennonites are speaking today. I'm German born, German speaking but not a scholar on mennonite language, but it is obvious that the two topics (Plattdeutsch and mennonite language) need to be separated. This article (as is) should be deleted. It is deeply flawed. Sidiana (talk) 02:17, 9 August 2017 (UTC)Sidiana

It certainly is. But the Annabaptist groups who formed it were from what is currently the Netherlands, and the language was also informed by the languages spoken in delta area of Royal Prussia. All of that is entirely off-topic as Friesland is not even mentioned in this article. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:25, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Why have you deleted the Bible audios?

@User:Walter Görlitz and others, why in External links should't be the link to audio Bible in Plautdietsch (http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/index.php?action=getVersionInfo&vid=56)? I think it is allways useful to have here the demonstrations of the speech - and if you consider that the first EL (http://plautcast.com/?reqp=1&reqr=) doesn't work, my link (https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Plautdietsch_language&diff=591970416&oldid=591360717) to the Bible would be the only working link to an audio demonstration of this rare language (but even if it would't be the only one, I would be for to have it here...). What do you think about it? --Jiří Janíček (talk) 15:03, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I wrote, "not appropriate as an EL. They are to be educational links, not simply sources." I should have linked to WP:EL, specifically WP:ELYES. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

The Infinitive in English

Though it is common to see the claim that "to eat" and the like in English is the infinitive, and therefore the syntactic equivalent of Dutch "eten" and the like, this is actually incorrect, and is based on a mistaken analysis dating from the Grammar-Translation tradition - as far back as the 1700s. The infinitive of verbs in English is the so-called base form (eat, go, be), which is the direct equivalent of Dutch "eten", "gaan" and "zijn" (e.g. "I must go" = "ik moet gaan"). The syntactic equivalent of "to go" in the other Germanic languages likewise has either "te" (Dutch), "zu" (German) and so on: compare German "es ist Zeit, nach Hause zu gehen" with English "it is time to go home".

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Plautdietsch

I'm not sure if "low German" keeps getting reverted because the term "literally" is being use (such as here), or because it's unsourced.

1. http://www.mennolink.org/doc/lg/index.html
2. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/pdt
3. https://www.memrise.com/course/233536/plautdietsch-mennonite-low-german/
4. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Dialect_Literature_and_Speech,_Low_German

Only Gameo here is a reliable source. None of the sources use "literally". However, the language is translated as "low German" as can be seen. "Literally" has been removed since it's clear it's a variety of low German. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:08, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

th

English th = other Germanic languages d -> this is not correct, since Icelandic still has the fricative (actually, as in English both the voiced an unvoiced [θ] and [ð]... Wathiik (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

How would you prefer it to be worded? Would "most" be acceptable? I suspect "Germanic languages that use the Latin alphabet" would be too long. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:44, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Mennonites, West Frisian and Plautdietsch

So to be clear, none of the language groups are sourced. Mennonites were historically from two regions, The Swiss Mennonites were from what is today Switzerland. The "Russian" Mennonites came from what is today Friesland in the Netherlands. See https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Friesland_(Netherlands). The languages were still developing, but they spoke the dialects or languages of the areas of the Lowlands: Dutch, West Frisian and Dutch Low Saxon. When the "Dutch" Mennonites left for Prussia, they took those dialects with them and adopted the East Low German languages despite being under Polish control at the time. In subsequent moves, they did not discard this language the way they did with the Dutch regional languages they discarded entering Prussia. Further at https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Plattdeutsch . While Gameo uses Mediawiki, it is not an open wiki and is considered reliable for facts about Mennonite history: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 283#Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:35, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Kansas_(USA) says The Prussian Mennonites, founding the Emmaus Mennonite Church, the First Mennonite Church of Newton, and the Zion Mennonite Church at Elbing, began to come to Kansas in 1876

https://gameo.org/index.php?title=First_Mennonite_Church_(Newton,_Kansas,_USA) says that its members originated from Stogi. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zion_Mennonite_Church_(Elbing,_Kansas,_USA) says that its members originated from Stogi and Lubieszowo. Lubieszewo had a Flemish church, link under its German name. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ladekopp_(Pomeranian_Voivodeship,_Poland) Stogi had a Flemish church, link at its German name. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Heubuden_(Pomeranian_Voivodeship,_Poland) Members originated from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zion_Mennonite_Church_(Elbing,_Kansas,_USA)

However, according to what I have written sourcedly within Werdersch article, Lubieszewo and Stogi are supposed to have been Werdersch-speaking.Sarcelles (talk) 19:30, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Volhynia_(Ukraine):

The first and leading village inhabited was Karolswalde, situated four miles south of Ostrog. In 1821 the Mennonites were located in two villages, Karolswalde and Antonovka, with 38 families. Fur­ther expansion occurred in 1828 with the settling of the neighboring village of Karolsberge. In a listing of 1857, in addition to the three villages mentioned above, Jadvinin and Dossidorf were named. In 1874 Fürstendorf, Gnadenthal, and Waldheim were add­ed, but Dossidorf was not mentioned. An additional village associated with the group was Fürstenthal. All of the villages were located in the vicinity of Ostrog

https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ostrog_(Rivne_Oblast,_Ukraine):

Virtually the entire group emigrated in 1874 to Canton and Pawnee Rock, Kansas, and Avon, South Dakota.

https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Church_of_God_in_Christ,_Mennonite_(CGC):

after 1878, when some immigrant Mennonites from Prussia, coming from an ethnically different background, were attracted to him. These came largely from frustrated, landless "Polish Russians" from the Ostrog area, and from some spiritually troubled Kleine Gemeinde Mennonites, from South Russia's Molotschna area, who had experienced traumatic, internal divisions.

The Ostrogers were the progeny of the conservative Groningen Old Flemish from Holland.

About 45-50 percent come from the McPherson County group with names like Koehn, Schmidt, Unruh, Jantz, Becker, Nightengale, Wedel, Ratzlaff, Jantzen/Johnson. About 25-30 percent have a Manitoba background with names like Toews, Penner, Friesen, Giesbrecht, Loewen, Isaac, Wiebe, Reimer.

Sarcelles (talk) 20:09, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Mennonite Church USA has First Mennonite Church of Newton, and Zion Mennonite Church at Elbing, but not Emmaus Mennonite Church or any other Church in Whitewater in its directory. Furthermore, these are not the only ones in the area. Sarcelles (talk) 20:35, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

https://books.google.de/books?id=tWVxnfaQAhIC&pg=PA892&dq=ostniederpreu%C3%9Fisch&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgq_-J5fXuAhVB26QKHanoDTI4ChDoATAAegQIABAC#v=onepage&q=ostniederpreu%C3%9Fisch&f=false has a variety of East Pomeranian, which was spoken in

Pomerelia (Pommerellen), the area of Noteć river and parts of Chełmno Land (Kulmerlandes) until North of Czersk, South of Starogard Gdański (Preußisch Stargard), up til Kalembasee (Kałebie Lake) and West of Świecie (Schwetz). Heinrich Siemens: Plautdietsch. tweeback verlag, Bonn, p. 47, has one of three Plautdietsch varieties in Waldheim, Gnadenfeld und Alexanderwohl, which originated from the estate of a nobleman named Przechowka in the Świecie are and who orginated from a group of Mennonites from Groningen province. https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/54ae60d4-a104-48bf-99a4-7fde5aa54af7/view/8e1e655a-71a9-4b2b-b724-0ed48ccb1089/Cox_Christopher_D_201501_PhD.pdf S. 52 takes the view that in the Chełmno Land Kulmerland near Grudziądz (Graudenz) and Chełmno (Culm) Mennonites spoke East Pomeranian and took it with them to Kansas and South Dakota.

One of three varieties in Molotschna was the group of the varieties Alexanderwohler Mundart, Waldheimer Mundart and Gnadenfelder Mundart.

Sarcelles (talk) 09:21, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Quiring, Jacob (1928). Die Mundart von Chortitza in Süd-Russland (in German). Munich: Druckerei Studentenhaus München. p. 45 vquotes Firmenich as dividing the dialects of the left bank of Molochna river into Frieslandisch-Flamländisch, Gröning-Holsteinisch mainly spoken in Alexanderwohl, the major deviance of the aforementioned dialect and spoken in Waldheim and Liebenau, the respective dialect of Gnadenfeld and Schardau.Sarcelles (talk) 09:10, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

The first group is spelt Frieslandisch-Flamändisch, the second third spoken in Waldheim and Liebenau, but not in Alexanderwohl.Sarcelles (talk) 15:31, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Quiring, Jacob (1928). Die Mundart von Chortitza in Süd-Russland (in German). Munich: Druckerei Studentenhaus München. p. 21 says, most of the residents of Alexanderwohl went to the following area: Marion County, Kansas Harvey County, Kansas and McPherson County, Kansas Sarcelles (talk) 19:00, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Among the Old Flemish mennonites in Przechowka and Jeziorka and descendant communities the most important surnames were: Becker, Buller, Foth/Voth, Janz, Jansen, Kryckert/Kroeker, Köhn, Nachtigall, Onrouw/Unrau/Unruh, Pankratz, Ratzlaff, Richert, Schellenberg, Sperling, Wedel.Sarcelles (talk) 15:18, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Unruh, Benjamin Heinrich, ed. (1955). Die niederländisch-niederdeutschen Hintergründe der mennonitischen Ostwanderungen im 16., 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (in German).</ref>, p. 61 has Reimer as giving 6 West Prussian core groups:

• Flemish rural congregations
• Frisian rural congregations
• Frisian congregations in the upper Vistula lowlands
• Old Flemish congregations
• Flemish congregation of Danzig City and the urban part of Elbing congregation
• Frisian congregation of Danzig-Neugarten

Sarcelles (talk) 15:30, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Unruh, Benjamin Heinrich, ed. (1955). Die niederländisch-niederdeutschen Hintergründe der mennonitischen Ostwanderungen im 16., 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (in German).p. 153</ref>says :Gnadenfeld, Waldheim and Alexanderwohl were Old Flemish and on Molotschna.

Unruh, Benjamin Heinrich, ed. (1955). Die niederländisch-niederdeutschen Hintergründe der mennonitischen Ostwanderungen im 16., 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (in German).p. 152</ref> has as most importants surnames of Old Flemish in Przechowka and Jeziorka and their descendants including variants Becker, Buller, Foth/Voth, Janz, jansen, Kryckert/Kroeker, Köhn, Nachtigall, Onrouw/Unruh/Unrau, Pankratz, Ratzlaff, Richert, Schellenberg, Sperling, Wedel

Sarcelles (talk) 15:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Becker also was a name in Gnadenfeld, Waldheim and Alexanderwohl. Sarcelles (talk) 15:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Subdivision of Plautdietsch

https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/plau1238 is the code for Plautdietsch. It has three parts in this site. https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/amtr1234 Am Trakt-Alexandertal Alexandertal Mennonite Settlement https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Am_Trakt_Mennonite_Settlement_(Samara_Oblast,_Russia) says they arrived directly from Prussia, founding the colony in the 1850s. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Alexandertal_Mennonite_Settlement_(Samara_Oblast,_Russia) says there were Mennonites of West Prussia, who stemmed from the Grosse Werder district east of Danzig, and from the Graudenz lowlands farther up the Vistula River. https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nehr1234 Nehrung https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/werd1234 Werder Sarcelles (talk) 12:54, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259434565_Mennonite_Plautdietsch_Canadian_Old_Colony says, there also are non-Mennonite, varieties of Plautdietsch. These are -not in the linguistic meaning of the word- Polish. Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 11:30, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Study

amazing gift He has given us so we can know Him intimately and have our lives changed by our relationship with Him. As you read the Bible, test it by asking the following questions: 1 What is it saying? 2. What does it mean? 3. What is God saying to me personally? As you consider these questions, you'll find that the words will begin to have an impact on your life. The Bible will gain more signifi- cance for you as you begin to understand how God wants to commu- nicate with and relate to you and everyone in the world. God Is When you see the statement "God is," what is the furst thing that comes to your mind? Be very honest. The very first words of the Bible are "In the beginning God. There's no attempt to explain who God is or that He is. It just says, "In the beginning God.. "In other words, God is. Read a little further down the first page of the Bible and you see that He is the One who has caused everything else to come into existence. It can't be explained in terms understandable to us, but the truth is. God always has been. God always will be. Therefore- -God is. In the New Testament, the Bible expresses the fact that "God is" in another way. Colossians 1:15-17 (page 902) tells us about Christ, who is God. 2607:FB91:1A13:9062:3D6B:9DEA:B31B:B598 (talk) 15:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Mennonites in Prussia

Once inside this article ([1]):

• Migration history: "They took with them their Dutch, West Frisian and Dutch Low Saxon dialects, which over time they mixed with East Low German dialects: Werdersch, Nehrungisch and Vistulan. As Mennonites they kept their own (primarily Dutch and Low-German) identity, using Standard Dutch well into the 18th century. At the time of their migration to the Russian Empire, their spoken language resembled the dialects of the region with only some few Dutch elements."
• Influences and borrowings > Dutch: "The Mennonites for a long time maintained their old language. In Danzig, Dutch as the language of the church disappeared about 1800. As a spoken language, the Mennonites took up the Vistula Low German, the vocabulary of which they themselves had already influenced. [...] It was this Vistula Low German or Weichselplatt that the Mennonites took with them and kept while migrating to Russia, Canada and elsewhere."

First three varities/dialects are mentioned, and then it's only one, which is contradicting. Christopher Douglas Cox, Quantitative perspectives on variation in Mennonite Plautdietsch 2015, p. 27f. ([2]) mentions the three Mennonite settlement areas, where they picked up the local dialects as spoken language.
BTW, as for the underlined part, Cox p. 26 states: "Mennonites entering the Vistula delta as refugees from northwestern Europe in the sixteenth century were neither ethnically nor linguistically uniform. [..] Mennonites of this group consisted not only of Frisians and Saxons from East Friesland and surrounding areas, but also contained a substantial contingent of refugees from Flanders, as well as a smaller but still significant number of central Europeans."
--20:21, 10 September 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.40.167 (talk)