Pennsylvania German Language - Speaker Population

Speaker Population

In Ontario, Canada, the Old Order Amish, most Old Order Mennonites, and smaller pockets of others (regardless of religious affiliation) speak Pennsylvania German. There are, however, far fewer speakers of Pennsylvania German in Canada than in the United States.

In the United States, most Old Order Amish and most "horse and buggy" Old Order Mennonite groups speak Pennsylvania German. There are, however, exceptions. There are several Old Order Amish communities (especially in Indiana) where dialects of Swiss German are spoken, instead of Pennsylvania German. Additionally, English has almost completely replaced Pennsylvania German among the Old Order Mennonites of Virginia. Other religious groups among whose members the Pennsylvania German language would have once been predominant, include: Lutheran and German Reformed congregations of Pennsylvania German background, Schwenkfelders, and the Schwarzenau Brethren or German Baptists. It should be noted, however, that until fairly recent times, the speaking of Pennsylvania German had absolutely no religious connotations.

There are also attempts being made in a few communities to teach the language in a classroom setting; however, as every year passes by, fewer and fewer in these particular communities speak the language. There is still a weekly radio program in the dialect whose audience is made up mostly of these diverse groups, and many Lutheran and Reformed congregations in Pennsylvania that formerly used German have a yearly service in Pennsylvania German. Other non-native speakers of the language include those persons that regularly do business with native speakers.

Among them, the Old Order Amish population is probably around 227,000. Additionally, the Old Order Mennonite population, a sizable percentage of which is Pennsylvania German speaking, numbers several tens of thousands. There are also thousands of other Mennonites who speak the language, as well as thousands more older Pennsylvania German speakers of non-Amish and non-Mennonite background. The Grundsau Lodge, which is an organisation in southeastern Pennsylvania of Pennsylvania German speakers, is said to have 6,000 members. Therefore, a fair estimate of the speaker population today might be approaching 300,000, although many, including some academic publications, may report much lower numbers, uninformed of those diverse speaker groups.

The number of Amish community members is not easy to estimate. In many cases, what is referred to as the Amish population represents only the baptized members of the community, which does not include younger members of the communities in their mid-twenties or younger. A better estimate is achieved based on the number of gmayna (church districts) and the average size of each gmay or church district. Furthermore, while there are large communities of speakers in the states of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, there are smaller speaker groups found in and outside those states, and in Canada, scattered among English speakers.

There are no formal statistics on the size of the Amish population, and most who speak Pennsylvania German on the Canadian and U.S. censuses would report that they speak German, since it is the closest option available. Pennsylvania German was reported under ethnicity in the 2000 census.

In Mario Pei's book Language for Everybody, a popular poem in the dialect is printed:

Heut is 's xäctly zwanzig Johr
Dass ich bin owwe naus;
Nau bin ich widder lewig z'rück
Und steh am Schulhaus an d'r Krick
Juscht nächst ans Daddy's Haus.

Freely translated (by J. Cooper) as:

Today it's exactly twenty years
Since I went up and away;
Now I have returned once more, alive
And stand at the school by the creek
Just next to Grandpa's house.