The Amish, formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. As they maintain a degree of separation from surrounding populations, and hold their faith in common, the Amish have been described by certain scholars as an ethnoreligious group, combining features of an ethnicity and a Christian denomination. The Amish are closely related to Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites—denominations that are also a part of Anabaptist Christianity. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, Christian pacifism, and slowness to adopt many conveniences of modern technology, with a view neither to interrupt family time, nor replace face-to-face conversations whenever possible, and a view to maintain self-sufficiency. The Amish value rural life, manual labor, humility and Gelassenheit.
An Amish family riding in a traditional Amish buggy in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Cover of The Amish and the Mennonites, 1938
A scan of the historical document Diß Lied haben die sieben Brüder im Gefängnüß zu Gmünd gemacht
Amish couple in horse-driven buggy in rural Holmes County, Ohio, September 2004
Pennsylvania Dutch language
Pennsylvania Dutch, sometimes referred to as Pennsylvania German, is a variation of Palatine German spoken by the Pennsylvania Dutch, including the Amish, Mennonites, Fancy Dutch, and other related groups in the United States and Canada. There are approximately 300,000 native speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in the United States and Canada.
An example of Pennsylvania High German in Palatine Fraktur: ("...𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖙 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖘 𝖎𝖈𝖍 𝖇𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖊, 𝖉𝖆𝖘𝖘 𝖎𝖍𝖗 𝖒𝖊𝖎 𝕯𝖊𝖚𝖙𝖘𝖈𝖍 𝖊𝖝𝖐𝖚𝖍𝖘𝖙, 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖒𝖊𝖎 𝕳𝖔𝖈𝖍𝖉𝖊𝖚𝖙𝖘𝖈𝖍 𝖘𝖆𝖚𝖓𝖉 𝖊𝖓 𝕭𝖎𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖑 𝖕𝖊𝖓𝖓𝖘𝖞𝖑𝖛𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖍."; "...first I must ask, that you excuse my German, for my Hochdeutsch sounds a bit Pennsylvanian.")
Pennsylvania Dutch writer Henry Harbaugh
Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1845
Pennsylvania Dutch arts history in Pennsylvania Dutch language