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Plautdietsch, or Mennonite Low German, was originally a Low Prussian variety of East Low German, with Dutch influence, that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia. The word is the form, in that language, of ''Plattdeutsch'' (Low German). ''Plaut'' is the same word as German ''platt'' or Dutch ''plat'', meaning 'flat' or 'low' (referring to the plains of northern Germany), and the name ''Dietsch'' corresponds etymologically to Dutch ''Duits'' and German ''Deutsch'' (both meaning "of the Tribe"〔http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Dutch&allowed_in_frame=0〕 i.e."German"), which originally meant 'vernacular language' in all the continental West Germanic languages. Plautdietsch, an East Low German dialect was a German dialect like others until it was taken by Mennonite settlers to the south west of the Russian Empire starting in 1789. From there it evolved and subsequent waves of migration brought it to North America, starting in 1873, and mostly from there to Latin America starting in 1922. Plautdietsch is spoken by about 400,000 Russian Mennonites, most notably in the Latin American countries of Mexico, Bolivia, Paraguay, Belize, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as in the United States and Canada (particularly Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario). Today Plautdietsch is spoken in two major dialects that trace their division to Ukraine. These two dialects are split between the ''Old Colony Mennonites'' and ''New Colony.'' Many younger Russian Mennonites in Canada and the United States today speak only English. For example, Homer Groening, the father of Matt Groening (creator of ''The Simpsons''), spoke Plautdietsch as a child in a Mennonite community in Saskatchewan in the 1920s, but his son Matt never learned the language. In 2007, Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas directed the film ''Stellet Lijcht'' (''Silent Light''), set in a Mennonite community in Chihuahua, Mexico. Most of the film's dialogue is in Plautdietsch, which some of the actors had to learn phonetically. Other parts were played by people of the local community. ==Migration history== Plautdietsch speakers today are mostly the descendants of Mennonites who fled from what is today the Netherlands and Belgium in the 16th century to escape persecution and resettled in the Vistula delta. They took with them their Dutch, Frisian and Dutch Low Saxon dialect, which over time they mixed with East Low German dialects, the so-called ''Weichselplatt'', of the region. As Mennonites they kept their own (primarily Dutch and Low-German) identity, using Standard Dutch well into the 18th century. At the time of their migration to the Russian Empire, their spoken language resembled the dialects of the region with only some few Dutch elements.〔Welschen (2000-2005), 49-50; De Smet 1983.〕 Their East Low German dialect is still classified as Low Prussian, or simply Prussian. Russian Mennonites trace their genealogical roots mostly to the Low Countries and north Germany, and to a lesser degree to southern Germany and Switzerland. Beginning in the late 18th century, the expanding Russian Empire invited Germans and many from the Kingdom of Prussia, including many Mennonites, to create new colonies north of the Black Sea in an area that Russia had recently acquired in one of the Russo-Turkish Wars. This is now part of Ukraine as well as other countries. Beginning in 1873, many Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites migrated from the Russian Empire to the United States and Canada. In 1922 Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Canada started to settle in Mexico, and in 1927 in Paraguay. In the 1930s Mennonites emigrated mainly from Soviet Ukraine directly to Brazil. The first Mennonite settlement in Bolivia was founded in 1957 by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Paraguay. Soon very conservative Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Canada, Mexico, and Belize also relocated to Bolivia, settling together. In 1986/7 a settlement was founded in Argentina by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from other Latin American countries. 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「Plautdietsch language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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