Plautdietsch: Mennonite Low German Across Borders

Who speaks Plautdietsch, and what do they call it?

Plautdietsch is the speakers’ own name for Mennonite Low German, spoken by Mennonites and their descendants in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Paraguay, Bolivia, Belize and Germany. Canadian communities include the Prairies and southwestern Ontario.

How many people speak Plautdietsch worldwide?

An estimate quoted in 2021 puts speakers at 447,360 across Europe and the Americas. It includes main-language users and people who retain Plautdietsch through family; a first-language total is not specified.

Where did Plautdietsch come from, and who spoke it in the past?

Plautdietsch belongs to Low Prussian, a branch of Eastern Low German within West Germanic. Sixteenth-century Mennonites seeking refuge from religious persecution settled in the Vistula delta, now Poland, adopting local Low German while retaining Netherlandic vocabulary.

From 1789, communities migrated to the Russian Empire, in what is now Ukraine, and later to the Americas. Earlier Mennonite writing often used Dutch or High German. J. H. Janzen was writing in Plautdietsch in the Russian Empire before the First World War, long after the language’s spoken beginnings.

Which Plautdietsch words might an English speaker already recognise?

Canadian Plautdietsch borrowed these words from English:

• Kottaluag — catalogue.
• Stua — store.
• Riefa — river.

Woata and English “water” are older relatives, sharing Germanic ancestry.

How does Plautdietsch vary from region to region?

Old Colony (Chortitza) and Molotschna are major traditions named for historic colonies in present-day Ukraine. Both have speakers in several countries.

Rempel writes “back” as Old Colony trigj and Molotschna tridj. Later contact brought English words into Canadian usage and Spanish words into communities connected with Latin America.

Is there a standard written form of Plautdietsch?

There is no single standard. Rempel’s dictionary largely follows Old Colony usage; Copre’s Molotschna grammar uses Ed Zacharias’s system. Written Plautdietsch appears in dictionaries, teaching materials, plays and stories. Arnold Dyck helped establish its Canadian literary tradition.

Which alphabet does Plautdietsch use, and what might surprise an English speaker?

Copre’s 2018 Molotschna spelling uses 27 letter forms when ä is counted separately: the 26 base Latin letters plus ä, excluding combinations such as sch. The letters q, x and y mainly occur in foreign words.

Rempel instead excludes q, v, x and y and uses ü. Nouns are capitalized, even within sentences.

Does Plautdietsch have grammatical gender?

Yes: masculine, feminine and neuter.

How do you say hello, thank you and goodbye in Plautdietsch?

• G'n dach — good day; a daytime greeting.
• Dankscheen — thank you, or thanks.
• Audee — goodbye, or farewell.

What are some memorable Plautdietsch sayings?

Mennonite Heritage Village in Manitoba shared these sayings as encouragement during the pandemic:

• Fonn nuscht ess nuscht. Nothing will result if nothing is put into it.
• Et ess kjeene Schaund dol too faule, oba ligje bliewe ess. A setback is no disgrace; giving up after it is the problem.

What everyday customs might surprise a visitor?

In the Russian Mennonite tradition in North America, faspa is an unhurried Sunday afternoon meal and visit, often with bread, cheese and coffee. Visits can stretch into hours of conversation. Baking may be done on Saturday to leave Sunday for rest.

Which Plautdietsch-language song and film offer a cultural introduction?

De Droom (“The Dream”), sung by the Heide family in Mexico, tells of a father dreaming that he will be separated from his family after death. He wakes grateful for time to turn towards faith, a theme of their evangelical repertoire.

Carlos Reygadas’s Stellet Licht (Silent Light, 2007) follows a married farmer’s affair and resulting family and spiritual crisis in a Mennonite community near Chihuahua, Mexico. The film uses Plautdietsch dialogue; Film at Lincoln Center screened an English-subtitled version.

What is available for someone curious about the language now?

Herman Rempel’s Kjenn Jie Noch Plautdietsch? is free online, with wordlists in both directions between Plautdietsch and English. Plautdietsch.ca groups entries by initial letter and links them to his pronunciation recordings.

Copre’s Molotschna grammar is a readable PDF with English explanations, bilingual examples and exercises.

Fun Facts

• In one Canadian Old Colony variety, fuj (“yuck”) apparently contains a vowel combination found in no other word.
• goodjenüach means “good enough”, but es die daut goodjenüach? can challenge someone’s nerve when they disregard propriety.