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Hutterite German (Hutterisch) is an Upper German
Upper German

Upper German is a family of High German languages dialects spoken primarily in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Northern Italy....
 dialect of the Austro-Bavarian variety of the German language
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
, which is spoken by Hutterite
Hutterite

Hutterites are a communal branch of Anabaptists who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the 16th century....
 communities in Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
 and the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Hutterite is also called Tirolean, but this is an anachronism.

erite is spoken in the US states of Washington
Washington

Washington is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute....
, Montana
Montana

Montana is a U.S. state in the Western United States. The western third of the state contains numerous mountain ranges; other 'island' ranges are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains....
, North
North Dakota

North Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States and Western United States regions of the United States of America. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the US; it is the 48th most populous, with just over 640,000 residents as of 2006....
 and South Dakota
South Dakota

South Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota people and Sioux Sioux Native Americans in the United States tribes....
, and Minnesota
Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with just over five million residents....
; and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta
Alberta

Alberta is one of Canada Canadian Prairies Provinces and territories of Canada. It became a province on September 1, 1905.Alberta is located in western Canada, bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S....
, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 588,276.09 square kilometres and a population of 1,015,895 , mostly living in the southern half of the province....
, and Manitoba
Manitoba

Manitoba is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 647,797 square kilometres and a population of 1,207,959 , with more than half located within the Winnipeg Capital Region ....
. Its speakers belong to the Schmiedleit, Lehrerleit, and Dariusleit Hutterite groups, but there are also speakers among the older generations of Prairieleit (the descendants of those Hutterites who chose not to settle in colonies).






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Hutterite German (Hutterisch) is an Upper German
Upper German

Upper German is a family of High German languages dialects spoken primarily in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Northern Italy....
 dialect of the Austro-Bavarian variety of the German language
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
, which is spoken by Hutterite
Hutterite

Hutterites are a communal branch of Anabaptists who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the 16th century....
 communities in Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
 and the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Hutterite is also called Tirolean, but this is an anachronism.

Distribution and literacy

Hutterite is spoken in the US states of Washington
Washington

Washington is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute....
, Montana
Montana

Montana is a U.S. state in the Western United States. The western third of the state contains numerous mountain ranges; other 'island' ranges are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains....
, North
North Dakota

North Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States and Western United States regions of the United States of America. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the US; it is the 48th most populous, with just over 640,000 residents as of 2006....
 and South Dakota
South Dakota

South Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota people and Sioux Sioux Native Americans in the United States tribes....
, and Minnesota
Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with just over five million residents....
; and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta
Alberta

Alberta is one of Canada Canadian Prairies Provinces and territories of Canada. It became a province on September 1, 1905.Alberta is located in western Canada, bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S....
, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 588,276.09 square kilometres and a population of 1,015,895 , mostly living in the southern half of the province....
, and Manitoba
Manitoba

Manitoba is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 647,797 square kilometres and a population of 1,207,959 , with more than half located within the Winnipeg Capital Region ....
. Its speakers belong to the Schmiedleit, Lehrerleit, and Dariusleit Hutterite groups, but there are also speakers among the older generations of Prairieleit (the descendants of those Hutterites who chose not to settle in colonies). Hutterite children who grow up in the colonies learn and speak first Hutterite German before learning English, the standard language of the surrounding areas.

As of 2003, there are about 34,000 speakers in the world, 85% of them living in 333 colonies in Canada and the remaining 15% in 123 colonies in the USA. Canadian adults are generally literate in Biblical German (Martin Luther
Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a Germans monk, theology, university professor, priest, father of Protestantism, and Protestant Reformers whose ideas started the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of Western culture....
's predecessor to Standard German
Standard German

Standard German is the standard language of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas....
) that they employ as the written form for Scriptures while Standard German
Standard German

Standard German is the standard language of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas....
 is used in the USA for religious activities. Children learn English at school; Canadian Hutterites have a functional knowledge of English. Hutterisch, is for the most part an unwritten language, though in August 2006 Hutterite author, Linda Maendel released a children's story titled, "Lindas Glücklicher Tag" in which all the dialogue is written in the dialect. Maendel is also working on a series of bible stories with Wycliff Bible translators.

History and related languages

Hutterite German is descended from the German which was spoken in Carinthia, in Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
, in the mid-18th century, a Bavarian-Austrian language. Since dialects spoken in Palatinate and in Alsace
Alsace

Alsace is the fourth-smallest of the 26 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the sixth-most densely populated region in France , with 222 inhabitants per km? ....
 are mostly Alemannic languages
Alemannic German

Alemannic German is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language. It is spoken by approximately ten million people in six countries, including southern Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Italy....
, Hutterite German is only 50% intelligible to a speaker of Pennsylvania German
Pennsylvania German language

The Pennsylvania German language is a variety of West Central German possibly spoken by more than 250,000 people in North America. It has traditionally been the language of many of the descendants of late 17th and early 18th century immigrants to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and even North Carolina from southern Germany, eastern Franc...
 (source : The Ethnologue, 15th ed.). It is more closely related to Austro-Bavarian
Austro-Bavarian

Austro-Bavarian or Bavarian is a major group of Upper German variety . Like standard German, Austro-Bavarian is a High German languages, but they are not the same language....
 (Bavaria
Bavaria

Bavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is a region located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest States of Germany of Germany by area....
 and Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
), Cimbrian and Mócheno (both spoken in Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
).

It should be noted that, although at one time the Hutterites spoke Tirol
Tyrol (state)

Tyrol is a States of Austria or Bundesland, located in the west of Austria. It comprises the Austrian part of the historical region of Tyrol....
ean German, they no longer do. The switch among Hutterites from Tirolean German to Carinthian German occurred during years of severe persecution in Europe when Hutterite communities were devastated and survival depended on the conversion of many Austrian Protestant refugees to Hutterite anabaptism.

The language has since adopted some Slavic as well as English loan words, which are the result of Hutterite migrations into eastern Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and now North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
.

See also

  • Pennsylvania German
    Pennsylvania German language

    The Pennsylvania German language is a variety of West Central German possibly spoken by more than 250,000 people in North America. It has traditionally been the language of many of the descendants of late 17th and early 18th century immigrants to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and even North Carolina from southern Germany, eastern Franc...
  • Texas German
    Texas German

    Texas German is a dialect of the German language that is spoken by descendants of German American who settled in the Texas Hill Country region in the mid-19th century....
  • Plautdietsch
    Plautdietsch

    Plautdietsch, or Mennonite Low German, was originally a Low Prussian variety of East Low German, with Dutch language influence, that developed in the 16th and 17th Century in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia, today Polish territory....
  • Hutterite
    Hutterite

    Hutterites are a communal branch of Anabaptists who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the 16th century....


External links