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Pennsylvania German (''Deitsch'', ''Pennsylvania Deitsch'', ''Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch'', ''Hinterwäldler Deutsch'', usually called Pennsylvania Dutch) is a variety of West Central German spoken by the Amish and Old Order Mennonites in the United States and Canada, closely related to the Palatine dialects. There are possibly more than 300,000 native speakers in North America. It has traditionally been the language of the Pennsylvania Dutch, descendants of late 17th- and early 18th-century immigrants to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina from southern Germany, eastern France (Alsace and Lorraine) and Switzerland. Although for many, the term 'Pennsylvania Dutch' is often taken to refer to the Amish and related Old Order groups exclusively, the term should not imply a connection to any particular religious group. In this context, the word "Dutch" does not refer to the Dutch people or their descendants. Instead it is probably left over from an archaic sense of the English word "Dutch"; compare German ''Deutsch'' ('German'), Dutch ''Duits'' ('German'), ''Diets'' ('Dutch'), which once referred to any people speaking a non-peripheral continental West Germanic language on the European mainland.〔Weaver, Kyle R. (2006), Meet Don Yoder Dean of Folklife Scholars, ''Pennsylvania Heritage'', vol. 32, no. 2, p.9–10〕 Alternatively, some sources give the origin of "Dutch" in this case as a corruption or a "folk-rendering" of the Pennsylvania German endonym "Deitsch".〔Hostetler, John A. (1993), ''Amish Society'', The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, p. 241〕 Speakers of the language today are primarily found in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and other Midwestern States of the United States and in Ontario in Canada. Historically, the dialect was also spoken in several other regions where its use has either largely or entirely faded. The use of Pennsylvania German as a street language in urban areas of Pennsylvania (such as Allentown, Reading, Lancaster and York) was declining by the arrival of the 20th century, while in more rural areas it continued in widespread use through the World War II era. Since that time, its use has greatly declined. The exception to this decline is in the context of the Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities, and presently the members of these two groups make up the majority of Pennsylvania German speakers (see ''Survival'' below). Some other North and South American Mennonites of Dutch and Prussian origin speak what is actually a Low German dialect, referred to as Plautdietsch, which is quite different from Pennsylvania German. == European origins == The ancestors of Pennsylvania German speakers came from various parts of the southwest corner of the German-speaking region of Europe, mainly the Palatinate, but also including the Electorate of the Palatinate (German ''Kurpfalz''), the Duchy of Baden, Swabia, Württemberg, Alsace (German ''Elsass''), and Switzerland. Most of them spoke Rhine Franconian, especially Palatinan and to a lesser degree Alemannic dialects, and it is believed that in the first generations after the settlers arrived these dialects merged. The result of that dialect levelling was a dialect very close to the eastern dialects of Palatinian, especially the rural dialects around Mannheim/Ludwigshafen. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pennsylvania German language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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