Germany.info : Information Services: Publications: The Week in Germany

Germany.info Home: Information Services: Publications: The Week in Germany

The Week in Germany: Culture

July 28, 2006

Pennsylvania Dutch Country: Lancaster

The “dutch” in Pennsylvania Dutch refers not to the people of the Netherlands, but to the German-speaking (“deutsch”) religious sects that first settled in the area nearly three hundred years ago. Today, three groups, the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Brethren still carry out their lives much as they did in centuries past. With a focus on simple lifestyle that forgoes technologies and spurns the modern conveniences most of us rely on, these groups live very family-centered lifestyles outside of mainstream culture.

The Plain Truth: Lancaster is surrounded by hundreds of family-run farms.

All three groups share the Anabaptist belief that calls on worshippers to make a conscious choice to accept God. They also believe in brotherhood, the authority of the Bible, and the importance of family.

The Amish are perhaps the most widely recognized – and widely misunderstood– group of the three. Dressing in the simple, unadorned black clothing of their forebearers, they carry out their daily farming without electricity, cars, motorized equipment, and other modern tools. The Old Order Amish is the strictest of these groups.

The Amish have their roots in the Mennonite community, and came to Pennsylvania as part of William Penn’s holy experiment of religious tolerance. The first large group of Amish arrived in Lancaster around 1720. Before fleeing from the mountains of Germany and Switzerland, the Amish had already begun to hold religious services in their homes, to evade persecution by Catholics and Protestants alike.

The Amish make no images of themselves, seeing photography as an open and unacceptable act of pride. This has made the Lancaster County tourism industry that blossoms around their communities an interesting exercise in diplomacy. Nevertheless, the Amish are now such a strong pillar of Lancaster County economic life that it is easy to meet Amish by doing business with them or visiting one of the Amish-run stores.

German-speakers will be fascinated by the way that the Amish have sustained their use of both their dialect, which is a 19th century dialect said to be similar to Plattdeutsch, English, which is used for business, and high German, which is taught in schools and used in religious services.

Links:

PA Dutch Country

Back to The Week in Germany

Introducing
The German Information Center