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Plautdietsch |
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Plautdietsch, or Mennonite Low German, was originally a Low Prussian variety of East Low German, with Dutch influence, that
developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia. The word is the form, in that language,
of Plattdeutsch. Plaut is the same word as German platt or Dutch plat, meaning 'flat' or 'low' (referring to the plains of
northern Germany), and the name Dietsch corresponds etymologically to Dutch Duits and German Deutsch (both meaning German),
which originally meant 'ordinary language' in all the continental West Germanic languages. The language (or groups of dialects
of Low German) is spoken by over 300,000 Mennonites, most notably in the Latin American countries of Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia,
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Honduras, Belize, and Argentina, as well as in the United States and Canada. They are members of
a religious group that originally fled from Holland and Belgium in the 16th century to escape persecution and eventually resettled
in these areas. They introduced and developed their particular East Low German dialect, the so-called Weichselplatt, while
they came to and lived in the Vistula delta area, beginning in the early-to-mid 16th century. These colonists from the Low
Countries were especially welcome there because of their experience with and knowledge of land reclaiming and making polders.
As Mennonites they kept their own (primarily Dutch and Low-German) identity, using their Dutch/Low German language. Their
East Low German dialect is still classified as Low Prussian, or simply Prussian. Mennonites, including Russian Mennonites,
trace their roots to the Low Countries and north Germany, southern Germany and Switzerland. Beginning in the late 18th century,
the expanding Russian Empire invited Germans and many from the Kingdom of Prussia, including many Mennonites, left and created
new colonies north of the Black Sea in an area that Russia had recently acquired in one of the Russo-Turkish Wars but which
is now situated in present-day Ukraine as well as other countries. Many Mennonites migrated to Canada, the United States,
and a great majority took to Latin America – especially southern Brazil, Mexico and Paraguay; most of them live as rural settlers
and have added some Spanish and Portuguese words to their own language due to the strong influence of the cultures surrounding
them in those regions. Today Plautdietsch is spoken in two major dialects that trace their division to Ukraine. These two
dialects are split between the New Colony and Old Colony Mennonites. Many younger Russian Mennonites in Canada and the United
States today speak only English. For example, Homer Groening, the father of Matt Groening, spoke Plautdietsch as a child in
Saskatchewan in the 1920s, but his son Matt never learned the language. In 2007, Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas directed
the film Stellet Lijcht, set in a Mennonite community in Chihuahua, Mexico. Most of the film's dialogue is in Plautdietsch. |
Names (more)[br] Alamaneg ar Venonited[ca] Plautdietsch [cs] Plautdietsch [de] Plautdietsch [en] Plautdietsch language [fa] پلاودیتش [fy] Minnistedútsk [hr] Plautdietsch [nl] Plautdietsch [no] Plautdietsch [pl] Plautdietsch [qu] Plawtich [ru] Немецко-платский диалект [es] Plautdietsch [zh] 門諾低地德語 |
Language type : Living
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Plautdietsch. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : pdtLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/pdthttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:pdt More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: pdtFreebase ISO 639-3 : pdt GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |