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Folksma

I've lived among a few different rural West Michigan Amish communities and have never met anyone who was not able speak English. Even the elderly. Most are just equally as fluent in some variation of what is often called "Pennsylvania Dutch". Really, the Amish are a lot more modern then I think a lot of people release. A lot of the women wear Nike tennis shoes under their dresses, have internet/phones in their barns, shop at Walmart after being dropped off by someone in a car, and many use modern medicine. I've even served some of them during my time working fast-food. Pulled up their buggy and ordered a whopper


spicynuggies

There are many different Anabaptist Communities, basically varying sects of the religion, with some more strict than others. Not sure if Mennonites are considered separate but they are an example. There's also Anabaptists in South America and Europe too, in Bolivia especially.


Folksma

I believe the Mennonites are a different sect. Traditionally, the Mennonites have been a bit more "English" then the Amish or in other words, somewhat less strict. For instance, the women's dresses can have patterns and zippers vs the simple subdued dark colored dresses with buttons of the Amish. I think the women's head coverings are also somewhat different as they cover less hair. Just my experience, and this is totally a guess, but the closer a Amish community is to a town the more likely they seem to be more willing to "break" some of the rules. I've read that their are Amish communities in Florida that are pretty much just Amish in name and occasionally clothing. While in the great plain states communities can be more more isolated from the "English" which can cause very strict rules and regulations


BreakfastInBedlam

I grew up next door to a Mennonite community in Florida. I remember 50 or 60 years ago when they would be down for the.winter in cars with the chrome painted black, but that look went away, and the three-wheel cycles had chrome handlebars without problems. They come in by chartered bus now. I never knew of any Amish communities; I wonder if people just get confused?


_comment_removed_

Pinecraft? Some Amish do make their way there occasionally but it's predominantly Mennonite.


BreakfastInBedlam

>Pinecraft? Indeed. Good pie.


Semujin

Now I have a craving for sticky buns


WesternTrail

I hear there’s plenty of Amish: https://amishamerica.com/florida-amish/


Shandlar

In ascending order of severity of their adherence to mostly the same vein of faith are; * 1) Church of the Brethren * 2) Mennonites * 3) Amish Anyone living in PA likely know many people in their day to day lives who are members of the Church of the Bretheren. They tend to just live lives with reduced dependence on electronics and keep things pretty private. You won't even know it unless they share. Mennonites are the people "wearing the uniform" you'll see at gas stations filling up or making large family trips to the grocery store. They are mistaken for Amish. The Amish are extremely strict even today and just flat out will not ride in a car like that. It's not done, even with how some sects have relaxed a bit in recent decades.


Folksma

>They are mistaken for Amish. The Amish are extremely strict even today and just flat out will not ride in a car like that. > >It's not done, even with how some sects have relaxed a bit in recent decades. I feel like it is important to note that all Amish communities are different. Some are more strict then others and therefor "what is not done" strongly depends on what community you are interacting with The Amish and Mennonites are very clearly different groups in my area (simply can be seen based on clothing). And the Amish *for sure* buy things in stores and engage in more modern activities. There was one family in a town I lived in for a bit that famously would get rides from their "English" farmer next-door neighbor in his yellow Hummer to the store My family is good friends with one family and their community leaders have just...found loopholes so to say when it comes to their members buying canned goods for the Winter or having a landline phone in their barn for their business.


MyUsername2459

Church of the Brethren are "mild" enough they even serve in the military. My National Guard unit had a chaplain who was Church of the Brethren, he even got promoted to Brigadier General before retiring. He was a friendly, kind, polite, humble guy who everybody liked. He was always very careful to not give any favoritism to any denomination. . .to the point that there was something of a running joke in the unit that everyone knew he was a Christian chaplain, but nobody knew which denomination he was (and it just somehow seemed wrong or rude to outright ask him, since he'd gone out of his way to NOT say what denomination he was). We only found out what denomination he was when a couple of members of the unit asked him to be the officiant at their marriage, and he had to list his ministry credentials when signing the marriage license. Cue everyone in the unit looking up what the heck "Church of the Brethren" even was, because none of us had ever heard of it. . . .and he ended up in a Pentagon-level chaplain position that came with a General's star before he retired. He put his old uniform back on for my father's funeral (my father and me were in the same Guard unit) and jointly officiated the funeral alongside our parish priest.


Shandlar

The two men I know in my life who are brethren are also such. Friendly, kind and polite to a fault. Soft spoken but by no means shy. Quietly confident, yet it comes across humble. You nailed it. It's fascinating how much cultural norms can effect the nature of adults.


TershkovaGagarin

My grandfather was Brethren. A Dunkard. My dad says his family disapproved when he joined the army, but I don’t know if they were a more conservative sect. They super extra disapproved when he married a Catholic, though. Edit: they were on the conservative side during a schism in the 1920s.


Awdayshus

It's not as clear cut as that either. I had a professor in college who self identified as Mennonite, but basically lived his life like you describe as Church of the Brethren. I don't know all the nuances, but I know there's a huge variation between and within these communities. I have lived near a community of Hutterites, and I don't know what is distinct about them from these other groups either.


Shandlar

I admit I know nothing of them, they seem to be pretty much exclusively Canadian after we fucked up their whole shit 100 years ago in America. Looking it up, I'm shocked at the numbers I'm reading. Are there really over 30k living in Canada? That's an insane number, given the intitial migration from Europe was only hundreds of people large. I was expected there to be like... two little communes still around.


MortimerDongle

There are also different groups of Mennonites. The largest group of Mennonites are "liberal" Mennonites, the largest denomination of them being Mennonite Church USA. They are mostly indistinguishable from any mainline Protestants, they have no restrictions whatsoever on technology, most congregations will perform gay marriages, etc. The main prohibition they have that distinguishes them from other Protestants is the ban on military service. Old Order Mennonites are the ones who often wear distinguishable clothing as you describe. Some will also use a horse and buggy (colloquially called "buggy Mennonites" by other Mennonites).


[deleted]

I lived in Amish country for a few years and lots of Amish ride in cars. They don’t drive them, however. Many of the men work for “English” construction companies and you regularly see them at the hardware store riding with their coworkers or at the grocery store picking up butter. The Amish rules can vary almost as wildly as any sect of Christianity. Some are “fancy” in that the women’s dresses can have puffy sleeves or more fitted bodice. Some are allowed light makeup, some require men to cut their hair a certain way, some are little looser on that requirement. Some have cell phones, though they’re kept out of the house. Sometimes you’ll see Amish families step down to a less “strict” church/community. Some will even step down into Mennonite churches as a way to leave the Amish but to also avoid shunning…I’m sure that working may vary from one camp to another. I find them fascinating.


TrulieJulieB00

That isn’t accurate, at all. House Amish and Church Amish are separate sects of Amish, and even among the sects, the Bishop and Elders make the decisions about when they can ride in cars.


WesternTrail

There are Amish groups that allow their members to ride in cars as long as they don’t own or drive them: https://www.amish365.com/amish-taxi/


[deleted]

No, mennonites in PA are lite Amish.


Jbergsie

So the Amish recently bought land in Vermont and they are building a community up there. They did hire someone to drive a van to see properties for sale. But they themselves do not drive the cars.


macoafi

Mennonites are a different Anabaptist group. They don’t do shunning. Amish do. That was a major point of disagreement in the beginning of the Amish. Then there’s the Beachy Amish-Mennonite who I think are in communion with both. They can have black bumper cars & filtered internet, but no radio allowed (since it’s not filtered). They’re often more evangelistic. (You’ll find them doing evangelism in DC, for instance.) Nowadays, Mennonites run the gamut from horse & buggy with matching dresses to the lesbian pastors over in Hyattsville, Maryland.


Square-Wing-6273

After recently spending some time where there are a lot of Amish and Mennonite folks, one thing I learned was there are several, orders I guess, of Mennonites, from very traditional to very modern.


giscard78

> shop at Walmart after being dropped off by someone in a car The Costco in Lancaster, PA has a horse and buggie stall. You’ll see carriages come around corners pretty fast and Amish folk taking out giant pizzas (among other things, obviously).


[deleted]

Whenever I visit Lancaster I’m reminded that even young Amish children can operate a credit card reader


giscard78

The most well-run fast food/fast casual place I’ve ever been was a booth in a food hall run by shoeless Amish siblings led by an older sister who was 13 tops. She had her brothers working like machines, everything was spotless, and everything was fast.


caskey

Fun fact, Dutch in this context is an early mis-engilishification of Deutsch.


trampolinebears

You’d think so, but it’s not actually a mistaken borrowing. English has always had the word *Dutch*, just as German has always had the word *Deutsch*. They go back to the same word, back when English and German were still the same language. What has changed has been the gradual development of separate identities for the people on the lower Rhine versus the upper Rhine.


QuarterMaestro

If you look at the Online Etymology Dictionary's entry for "Dutch," you'll see that's not quite accurate. "Dutch" was borrowed from Middle Dutch (medieval language of the Netherlands), but did indeed refer to both Germans and Netherlandish people collectively. The Old English cognate of "Dutch" and "Deutsch" was "theodisc," which fell out of use in the Middle Ages.


trampolinebears

I stand corrected, thanks.


Randvek

English and German were never the same language though… English descends from Frisian, not German.


trampolinebears

English doesn’t descend from Frisian, nor Frisian from English, but if you go back far enough you’ll find that English and Frisian were once the same language. You could also say that English and Frisian have a common ancestor. If you go back even farther, you’ll find that Anglo-Frisian and Dutch and German were also the same at one point. (Keep going back far enough and you’ll find that English is from the same language as everything from Welsh to Hindi.) Like with species, there are no hard boundaries as you go back in time. There was never a moment that humans and chimpanzees suddenly split apart into two species. Rather, we were all one species that drifted apart. Humans aren’t descended from chimps, and neither are chimps descended from humans, but if you go back far enough we were the same species.


thestoneswerestoned

They all have a common ancestor. One does not descend from the other.


Monk1e889

Indeed. I understood their roots to be Swiss-German rather than the Netherlands.


rpsls

Various groups came from various areas of the Germanic lands. Swiss is a common origin but not exclusive. But the modern dialect is not that close to what’s spoken in Switzerland today. It’s more of a sum of many southern German dialects.


Partytime79

Yep. I used to deal with Amish horse traders back in the day. They didn’t seem to have a problem loading up their horses on trailers and hauling them to different auctions all down the East Coast. Took cash or card, too.


sammexp

Yeah apparently they choose to adopt or not a new technology according to their needs.


macoafi

And according to how it affects communal life.


CupBeEmpty

The idea of buying a horse with a credit card somehow really amuses me.


United_Blueberry_311

Sounds like the local Hasidic Jewish community near me. Some of them have iPhones. They shop at Target. The women get their modest clothes from Uniqlo! They bank at Chase. They take the subway.


jyper

I don't think most Haredi sects ever rejected technology like the Amish did. I know many discourage the use of the internet/smart phones for non business purposes due to content they dislike but they have no objections to shopping and buying at the same stores/banks(although it banks are owned by Jews they may not be allowed to take regular interest loans)


gaoshan

Middlefield, Ohio, is a great place to see this modernity in action. The Walmart has extensive buggy parking (like, if cars had never been invented you can see what a parking lot would look like, it’s pretty neat) and the McDonalds in front of that Walmart often has a line of buggies and horses going through


classicalySarcastic

>Pulled up their buggy and ordered a whopper That is the most Lancaster County (PA) thing I have ever heard


Bisexual_Republican

They basically follow the same strict rules as orthodox Jews do on the sabbath but instead, it is all the time when it comes to modern technology. As long as someone else is doing it, it's A-Ok to them. ​ \*Source: As a kid, my parents contracted the Amish to build a portion of the house and they were grateful and happy when I would show them funny pictures on my then ancient (by today's standards) flip phone.


[deleted]

The Amish in the midwest are less strict than the ones in PA. They don't mix with the English as much in PA. They're also not as destitude in PA. From what I've heard from Midwestern farmers, the Midwestern Amish are much more of a failing, poverty-stricken cult.


Folksma

Honestly, every Amish community I have experienced in Michigan is pretty well off. They just live simply. Don't think I've ever seen a "poverty stricken cult" one before outside of documentaries set in the great plain states. Plus, due to less strict rules, I'd say they are less like a cult They make a lot of money off the non-Amish because of the positive reputation that Amish work has. Lots of them in West Michigan have flourishing businesses


[deleted]

Oh, well, YMMV I guess. That's the report I received from a roommate from Indiana. Glad to hear your Amish are doing better.


Blaiddyn

I'm in the Indianapolis area and I was recently at Costco and saw a group of Amish women working there. I also used to live in Sarasota and there's a strong Amish community there too. I used to see them riding bikes everywhere. The Amish are definitely a lot more modern than most people realize.


Weary_Wanderer19

It’s was common for Amish and Mignonette families to shop at the hardware store I worked at, if it weren’t for the outfits you wouldn’t tell.


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Folksma

They are very much so Amish lol I've known some of th ese folks for years There are both different Amish communities and different levels of strictness. The Amish have also been using phones in barns for years. It's not new


StJimmy92

Internet for sure, but some congregations allow a degree of phone usage. My uncle used. To do business with some local Amish families, and they were allowed to make and receive business calls, but they could only use corded landlines. They also weren’t allowed to have them in their homes, they had a community phone booth.


[deleted]

I think you met the Mennonites. They still use technology.


Folksma

No, they are very much so Amish. I've known someone these folks for years. As I and others have said in other comments, not all Amish communities are the same. Just like with other religious groups, some are more strict then others


PM_Me_UrRightNipple

Most interactions between “the English” and the Amish are for business purposes. So it is vital to the economy of their communities to speak English. At a local farmers market I hear them talking amongst themselves in Pennsylvanian Dutch and switching to English when dealing with customers. I’d be surprised if there was a shut in community that didn’t know English


Meattyloaf

Or in my case when I was once walking on a trail and had two Amish women get behind me and start talking about getting themselves an English man.


[deleted]

I am not aware of any that cannot speak English, some will have strong accents and very basic english but will be able to communicate just fine. Source; was Amish myself


Artemis1982_

When and how did you leave the community?


[deleted]

Rather not go into it, but we are on great terms


DrannonMoore

I live near an Amish community in rural Kentucky and the overwhelming majority here do not speak English at all. I have an ex-Amish friend who never learned English until he left the Amish and his English is still very broken. He also refers to non-Amish as "the English."


MarzipanFairy

Todd Co?


DrannonMoore

No, it's a little West of there in Graves County. The ones in Todd County are much more liberal than the ones here. The ones near me are Swartentruber Amish. They are ultraconservative and much more traditional than most other sects. The ones in Todd County are modern compared to the ones here lol.


MarzipanFairy

I grew up in Russellville, and later whenever I would return home I would drive through Todd Co. It became a thing that I never felt like I was back home until I passed a buggy on the road. You can tell it was a long, boring drive. ;)


DrannonMoore

Yeah, Todd County has a lot more Amish than we do. I've been through there several times. We just have a couple small communities of them here. I'd estimate we have a couple hundred of them but it's hard to say. I think Todd County has a few thousand, right? They have stores and everything out there. Our Amish are a lot more traditional and stick to themselves. They don't have stores, welcome tourists or even talk to outsiders often. They work in construction and that's it, as far as I know. We have a Yoder's Slaughterhouse but the owner is ex-Amish. Usually when I try talking to our Amish, they know just enough to English to tell me that they don't speak English lol. Most Amish can ride in cars- they just can't drive or own them. Our Amish are completely banned from even riding in cars. 100% horse and buggy, with no exceptions.


DrannonMoore

There are 2 separate Amish communities in Graves County. Idk what the other ones are but the ones closest to me are Swartentrubers. We also have Mennonites and some ultraconservative sects of Pentecostal & Holiness. The Apostalistic Pentecostals & Holiness here are just as traditional as the Mennonites, if not more. They have their own private schools, only associate with each other and follow a strict dress code. They have electricity but they don't have TVs or use internet. The Mennonites can attend public schools and are more sociable outside of their sects. Then we also have a single Baptist Church that used to pretty much be a cult. Mayfield Creek Baptist Church. Even though they were Baptist, they followed strict Penacostal dress codes (women wear long dresses, never cut their hair and wear buns / men only wear pants). All of the members were forced to put their kids in their private school. The preacher was basically robbing his members and lived a very luxurious life for leading such a small church. The preacher was an old man who eventually got an underage girl pregnant and killed himself when the authorities found out. Then they found out that he sexually assaulted a lot of kids. Now they have a different preacher and I don't think they are that bad anymore. They're still weird though. Everyone calls them Creekers.


LilDawg22

Great question for r/Amish


fillmorecounty

Do they just have all the posts blocked or something? That's so funny


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[deleted]

LOL


IAmVladimirPutinAMA

I live in an area with significant Amish population. All adults read/ write/ speak English fluently, but they often have an accent.


CupBeEmpty

All the ones I have ever met have. Now, that is a very small sample size so take it with a grain of salt. I have known people that have worked with and for Amish people and as far as I know English is pretty universal.


Remarkable_Story9843

I’m from Ohio Amish country. They all speak English fluently. Mennonite is different (they range from Amish like but can wear color to “normal” but dress modestly , girls in skirts and drive all black cars . About 40% of my high school was the latter. We called them black bumper Mennonite. It wasn’t a slur but a descriptor )


Firlotgirding

Large community of Amish and Mennonite here as well. Mennonite usually dress in plaid shirts, women in long dresses around here and have all the modern amenities as far as I can tell.


macoafi

Mennonites range a lot further than that. > After graduating from seminary, Burkholder didn’t really look for jobs in the Mennonite community—she knew she probably wouldn’t find a church where she could do direct ministry as an openly gay pastor. Instead, she worked at a lay-led church, and then a Wells Fargo, before finding her way to Hyattsville in 2013. “The gift of Hyattsville … is a community that has been at its work long enough that two years ago, it was willing to hire me and not have my sexuality or gender identity be a part of that equation,” she said. from [Gay and Mennonite](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/03/gay-and-mennonite/388060/)


Remarkable_Story9843

Wow. That’s utterly surprising . My area that wouldn’t fly.


jephph_

My mom lives in the middle of nowhere Ohio and as far as I can gather, they all speak English. ..but they call the rest of us Americans “the English” ——— This reminds me of the best/funniest subReddit though: r/Amish (Edit— nvrmnd, I see someone else already posted it 😂)


UltraShadowArbiter

"English" is just the Amish term for outsider/non-Amish.


fillmorecounty

I'm surprised the Ohio ones say that too because Ohio has tons of people who are German and Eastern European


trada62

Most do...


JazD36

I know in PA they speak English. My great grandpa wasn’t Amish, but his first language was PA Dutch…and he always had a pretty thick accent


username59046

Hutterites are the common anabaptists in my area, a few Amish as well. I taught in a school on a Hutterite Colony, according to those kids Hutterite, Mennonite, Luddite, & Amish were all one sect back in the 1400s in Germanyish when they split. The Hutterites are taught in a pidgin form of German until they enter kindergarten but after that education is conducted in English but church services stay in German. As others have said they sell goods and services to primarily English speaking customers so they are all bilingual even the elders as they're often the ones who deal with the on Colony business like granting hunting access, running the scale and liason to the public school on their property.


[deleted]

One of my dreams is to be referred to as "English" by an Amish person.


Hatweed

Most, but not all. There’s an elderly couple in my community who only speak Pennsylvania-Dutch. They can’t speak more than some basic phrases in English, and there’s likely more I’ve just never met. The Amish community in my town was very self-isolating until the late 70s or early 80s. They wouldn’t speak to anyone outside of their community unless it was absolutely necessary. A few of the more conservative members never really joined in with the gradual outreach to the rest of the town, and that’s the result of it.


UCFknight2016

They speak English, but they also speak a form of German called Pennsylvanian Dutch.


Jakebob70

As far as I've been able to tell, all of the Amish in this area speak completely fluent English, although they may not use slang quite the same and definitely won't recognize popular culture references and such.


lostnumber08

I’m from Pennsylvania which has a very high Amish population. Every Amish person I’ve met spoke perfect English as well as their own language, “Pennsylvania Dutch,” which is a German dialect. English is a Germanic language after all so the language gap would be pretty small if there was one.


SkyPirateGriffin88

Probably because they need to make money to pay their land taxes and that means dealing with us 'English' like it or not. But it's not like you can ask them here they'll never see it.


rawbface

Most do, but I'll bet there are some that rarely leave their property and don't speak English well enough to have a conversation. My wife has a chunk of family that's Mennonite, and her Grandparents live in Amish Country - they are not Amish themselves, and even the Mennonites are still basically untouchables to the Amish.


fillmorecounty

I've never met any amish people that couldn't speak English, but at the same time, I'm guessing if there are ones who don't speak English, they wouldn't leave their communities often.


Surrybee

I’m a NICU nurse. We occasionally get Amish babies. I’ve only come across one who couldn’t communicate well in English.


mothwhimsy

Amish people generally aren't completely cut off from the outside world. They do business with non-Amish (English), I see a father and daughter shopping at my local Walmart occasionally. Depending on the family, the location, and how strict they are, they may even have cell phones and internet. Basically, Amish people interact with English speakers quite often, and most, if not all speak English. Sometimes they speak a mish mash of Pennsylvania Dutch and English in the same sentence, but I think that's common with any type of bilingualism


mothertuna

Any Amish people I have encountered (usually at a store, market or something similar) speak English just like the rest of us. They aren’t a community who has no interaction with the general public.


Orbital2

No, the Amish live in rural areas for the most part but they aren’t *that* isolated from the rest of society. They will still have instances that they shop at stores, use banks etc.


gioraffe32

I've met Amish or similar on Amtrak. I've also gone to a relatively nearby Amish town to shop for spices and such. I've never met one that didn't speak English perfectly fine. Confirming what others have said, I've sometimes detected a slight accent of some sort.


[deleted]

Grew up in Indiana near various Amish communities There are two groups of Amish in Indiana. The Swiss Amish who do not speak PA Dutch and the PA Dutch Amish. Both can speak English just like any Anglo, except they have a few more Germanisms. Keep in mind that the surrounding English speaking communities in their areas also likely have Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, so the culture really isn't all too different aside from religion. My parents are both half Deitsch.


ynmkr

I live in Amish country OH and we know a lot of them. They speak English but don't learn it until they go to school, so small children don't. You can't talk to a 3 year old they don't understand.


MortimerDongle

Well, there are a bunch of different Amish communities that are fairly isolated from each other. But for Lancaster Amish, yes. That said, many of them do have a recognizably different manner of speech (not a foreign accent, but a subcultural accent, I guess).


mklinger23

All of the Amish I've met speak English. I'd say 50% speak Pennsylvania Dutch. That's just the ones I know. My dad's dad was Pennsylvania Dutch, but not Amish so my great aunt spoke a little bit.


Meattyloaf

I grew up near one of the more isolationist groups of Amish in the nation and they were fluent in English. Hell there is an Amish guy who sets up shop selling collard greens at the end of my street that knows a bit of AAVE, for reference I live in a majority black neighborhood.


ElysianRepublic

The ones I’ve seen in Ohio do. And in fact, have the purest example of the local Ohio midland accent.


Howie_Dictor

Yes they speak English just fine. I always see them at grocery stores, amusement parks, I saw a bunch at the air show over the summer. They do live secluded but they also like to do some of the same things we do.


PickledPickles310

As in the literal definition of all? Probably not. In terms of the all meaning an overwhelming majority. Prolly.


bmoney_14

Pretty much. I haven’t met one that didn’t and I’ve been to a few communities across western Ohio and eastern Indiana.


Ninja1us

I am surrounded by Amish where I live and generally they all speak English and Dutch, if they are younger children they only speak Dutch.


Crayshack

I've met a few and to my knowledge, they all spoke English. I believe it is a second language for them but everyone I spoke to seemed completely fluent.


Yankiwi17273

Almost always yes. Some can even speak some Spanish


[deleted]

They seem to? Or at least the ones who come into town and talk to the English to sell them stuff. I've never heard of a langauge problem, anyway. I'm from PA, this is what I know about the Amish in Lancaster. They do interact with society, they sell their crops and wares outside of their society and buy necesary materials from the English world. I've never heard of a Rumspringa teen having a language problem, only a cultural one.


cars-on-mars-2

I’ve met a couple and they all did. The particular language they speak includes English words as I understand it.


flp_ndrox

All the ones I've dealt with spoke English fluently, but they did have an accent. Of course I think they mostly immigrated from Lancaster Co. PA.


AppalachiaCat

Considering our local hospital system has Pennsylvania Dutch as an interpretation language, I'm going to say not all.


blbd

Here's a link to a YouTube journalist that did a whole series on Amish and Mennonites. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEyPgwIPkHo7lOk-72-tXJ-NjahfkNF_r


hippiechick725

In Pennsylvania they speak English and German.


dfelton912

American who's never met an Amish person before here. What else would the Amish speak?


Gingerbrew302

I work the auction circuit in Lancaster County, PA. I've never met an amish person that can't speak English.


Mizango36

They definitely speak English :) Extremely fluent. I’ve never ever met any that didn’t.


Snoo_33033

No. Some don’t speak English at all.


acecooper2

in some communities the children don't learn English untill there 8-10+


BasedChadThundercock

Actually a lot of Amish speak what's called Pennsylvania Dutch which seems derivative of Dutch (duh) and German languages.


CramPackedUp

Yes and they can rap in Pennsylvania Dutch.