Plautdietsch

By Edward Hildebrand

This essay is in part a book review of "The Story of Low German & Plautdietsch" by Reuben Epp, and in part a personal commentary on our Mennonite Low German language. For the sake of clarity the terms "Low German" and "Plattdeutsch" will refer to that broad family of Germanic dialects historically resident in northern Europe around the North and Baltic Seas. "Plautdietsch" will refer to only our Mennonite Low German.

Reuben Epp begins his book by citing the scholar Christopher Moss who wrote, "English is a dialect of Low German." Our first reaction is that this must be a joke - but is it really? As Epp points out, if we think beyond our familiar Plautdietsch and delve into the history of Low German, there is a fair amount of truth in this statement.

It is often assumed that Low German (Plattdeutsch ) is a dialect of High German and is therefore a subsidiary language. That is possibly one reason Platt is translated as "Low" whereas its primary meaning is "Flat." This denigration of Plattdeutsch is not justified. It is an ancient language whose importance in history as a commercial and administrative tongue predates High German by several centuries. The term "Plattdeutsch" may have been derived from the fact that it was used by Germanic people in the generally flat and low lying lands surrounding the North and Baltic Seas, or it may also have come from an earlier meaning of the word "Platt" that read "clear, popular, understandable."

Epp traces the flow of the Germanic family of languages from their North European base eastward to the Baltic regions and even parts of Scandinavia, westward to the Netherlands, and northward to England. Much of this migration of language followed the movement of people, especially the Saxons as they moved westward across northern Europe, and later followed the Teutonic Knights in their eastward campaigns. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded England ca 500 AD. They came to stay and securely planted their Old Low German or Old Saxon language in their new realm. Over time this was modified by gleanings from the residual Celtic tongue to become Old English, and later by the language of the Normans after 1066AD, to become Middle English, the language of Chaucer. It was the mandatory study of Chaucer at school that kindled Reuben Epp's interest in Low German.

By thinking in his native Plautdietsch, Epp found he could translate Chaucer into modern English more easily than most of his Anglo classmates. He recognized the kinship of Middle English to his native tongue and wanted to learn more. Many of us have had a similar experience with Dutch. Even though we can hardly understand a word of the spoken Dutch language, we can read many written texts. This writer also found this to be the case with some of the Norse languages. On a business trip to Sweden, my hosts always politely spoke English to me, but Swedish to each other. Even though they spoke on a topic of common interest, I could not understand a word. However, when I saw a written Swedish text, and thought in Plautdietsch, I could grasp the meanings of many words and the gist of the message. These examples demonstrate the kinship of these languages as illustrated in more detail below.

Old Saxon and Old English eventually became extinct and were replaced by Middle English, the language of Chaucer.

Middle English followed its own development course into Modern English and is not a subject of this essay. Old Low German became Middle Low German at about the same time (ca 1000 AD) and entered into a period of substantial development. It would eventually become the parent language of our own Plautdietsch.

The engine of growth that propelled Middle Low German (henceforth called Low German) from a simple peasant tongue to a sophisticated language of commerce and administration was the Hansa, or Hanseatic League. The Hansa consisted of a series of trade agreements between cities located on the shores of the Baltic and North Seas. The first recorded agreement was between Hamburg and Luebeck in 1241 AD. From this humble beginning, the Hansa grew to a trade association of more than seventy cities, dominating commerce in the area for several centuries. Coincident with this growth were the eastern campaigns of the Teutonic Knights that spread Germanic populations and the Low German language to the east.

The Hansa administrative center was the German city of Luebeck. The language of Luebeck was Plattdeutsch, or Low German, which became the language of commerce at Hansa, counters, or offices, from Brugge to St Petersburg and from London to Bergen. From its base as a widely used language of commerce, Low German soon became the language of diplomacy and literature, probably reaching its zenith ca 1500 AD. Thereafter the Hansa went into decline and with it, the pervasiveness of the Low German language.

Epp cites numerous reasons for the decline. In England and other principalities Hansa offices were ordered closed to be replaced by more nationalistic ventures such as the various East India Companies and the Hudson's Bay Company in North America. These new ventures conducted their business in their own languages.

On the continent, southern German cities began to out-compete their northern counterparts, and thus broke the Hansa monopolies. These new masters of commerce used their native tongue, High German,which replaced Low German not only in commerce but in administration and diplomacy. High German also became the language of education and literature and was further given a mighty push when Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin to his version of High German. After about 1650 AD Low German became a secondary dialect used mainly by the less educated and lower orders of society and was scorned as an inferior language. After fading to near extinction, Low German resurfaced as a literary language in parts of Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century to serve the still substantial Low German speaking population.

This renaissance has continued and today there is a modest, but still thriving, body of Low German literature extant in Germany, and to a lesser extent elsewhere. Reuben Epp estimates the number of Low German speakers at about 8 million in Germany, 10 million worldwide. (Epp's original text estimated a total of 8 million but he now states that subsequent research supports the larger number.) Scholars have specialized in the language and developed grammars and dictionaries to govern its use. My mother's youngest half-brother, David Hooge, specialized in Plautdietsch in, of all places, the Soviet Union during the 1970's and 80's.

After its decline as a commercial and literary language, Low German in its various dialects was still spoken by masses of ordinary people as their usual means of communication in homes and villages, including the fledgling Mennonite communities in the Netherlands.

A majority of the people now known as "Russian Mennonites" originated in the "Friesia Triplex" of West Friesland and Groningen in Holland and East Friesland in Germany. They spoke a dialect of Westniederdeutsch (Western Low German). Mercilessly pilloried for their Anabaptist faith by the local authorities in the Netherlands in the mid sixteenth century, the Mennonites found refuge in the lowlands of the Vistula River delta where the inhabitants spoke a dialect of Ostniederdeutsch (Eastern Low German). They were welcomed in part because local authorities were more tolerant, and in part because their skills at reclaiming and farming low-lying lands were in demand.

These two groups now inhabiting the Vistula delta understood each other quite well even though their dialects were distinctly different. The Mennonites from the Netherlands brought with them their Western Low German with an admixture of Flemish, Dutch and High German words and over time melded this mixture with the local Eastern Low German. This blended language, whose speakers tended towards isolation in their villages, over time developed into a separate and distinct dialect that became Mennonite Plautdietsch.

This was the language of the Mennonite colonists at the time of their migration to southern Russia. Even within this small group their language was not quite consistent. Epp cites two possible reasons. First, dialects were in a constant state of flux and development and therefore changes may have occurred in Prussia during the years between the first emigrants of 1789 to the Old Colony and the next group in 1804 to the Molotschna. Second, the first group included only landless people with no assets, i.e. the poorest of the poor. People with assets were not allowed to leave at that time. It is safe to assume that this relative poverty also restricted their education, and thus their linguistic sophistication. For the second group these restrictions were relaxed and therefore the 1804 emigrants included richer, and therefore possibly better educated colonists. The minor dialect differences between the Old Colony and the Molotschna were probably further widened by the relative isolation of the two groups during the early years.

According to Epp, Plautdietsch was the language of our forefathers, not only in the home, but also in Church and in schools, such as they were, for the first twenty years of their sojourn in Russia. Some sermons were preached in Dutch since many were read, and writings of Menno Simons and other early leaders were in that language. However, original sermons were often in Plautdietsch. As the Mennonite colonies in Russia matured and prospered, cultural development caused both languages to disappear from use in religious observances and education, to be replaced by High German which was deemed to be a more refined and cultured tongue.

Reforms led by Johan Cornies and the Agricultural Society covered not only farming methods but also construction, administration and education. This leadership recognized that Mennonites must have better schools to ensure progress. To achieve this, trained educators were imported from Germany who of course spoke and taught in High German. Later, traveling German evangelists visited Russia and added their weight to the switch to High German in church. (They were also influential in the formation of the Mennonite Brethren.) By the end of the nineteenth century Plautdietsch was regarded, if not exactly with scorn, then at least condescension. Among the more educated, or those that considered themselves to be the "elite", Plautdietsch was considered somewhat crude when compared to the "fineness" of High German and thus not suitable for use by their kind. B. H Unruh wrote, "Das Plattdeutsch gilt durchwegs als eine minderwertige Sprache." (Low German is generally regarded as an inferior language.)

As in Germany, Plautdietsch as a written language disappeared among Russian Mennonites to such an extent that virtually no literature was created in that language, nor were there dictionaries to control correct spelling. Later, J.H. Janzen in Russia and Harry Loewen, Al Reimer, Jack Thiessen, Reuben Epp and others in Canada would make an attempt to preserve Plautdietsch as a written language, but with only limited success. Nevertheless, in many Mennonite homes in Russia, and through the first generation in Canada, Plautdietsch was still the most common, if not the only, form of speech within the family. They would use High German only at church, at school, and for correspondence.

Does it matter if Plautdietsch disappears as a written, or even a spoken language? Many have said no. For them it is too earthy, maybe even vulgar, to be "Christian," and therefore not suitable for use in worship services. This alone, was reason enough to say, "Good riddance." Others, like my parents, took a more pragmatic approach. They reasoned that since we now lived in an English-speaking country whose language would be quite pervasive, it would be hard enough to maintain our High German--this, of course, was considered vital because High German was the only language suitable for religious observances. How many times did I hear, "We maintained our German language for 125 years in Russia and will not lose it in a mere 15 years in Canada!" (Some of my parents' generation probably truly believed that God only understood German.) To ensure that we children would be able to participate in church activities my parents decided that we would only speak High German at home. At the same time they continued to speak Low German to each other. As a result, I can understand Low German perfectly, but speak it only haltingly. A third group of Mennonites continued to treat Plautdietsch as an almost sacred mother tongue and ignored all opinions to the contrary.

All of the above opinions have been rendered moot over time as the English juggernaut swept all aside in Canada.

It may be difficult to make an intellectual argument for the continuing survival of Plautdietsch, but its complete disappearance would be a loss. For almost two hundred years it has been an intrinsic and defining element of our Mennonite ethnic heritage. Its wonderfully colorful and expressive tongue allows a skilled practitioner to make a statement more vividly descriptive than any other I have ever heard. Some of these expressions defy translation into English. How does one translate Dommsage? A comparable English idiom would be "to tell someone off." But that does not have nearly the same cachet. When some country cousins first came to town during the 1940's they translated Dommsage, as "tell him crazy", much to the amusement of my pseudo-sophisticated friends and me. Another expression used when referring to someone driving too fast was, "He always has to chase." He mot ema joage. (Low German is not the only language that lends itself to humorous translation. Many an elder child has been expected to be a Front Picture (Vorbild) for his or her younger siblings. Also most have visited that small town named Glockenschinken, just south of the American border.)

Reuben Epp estimates that the 10 million speakers of Low German in the world today include about 300,000 speakers of Plautdietsch. Some 80,000 of the latter live in Canada. I suspect the figures would look less optimistic if demographics were taken into account. Plautdietsch speakers I know are all in their 60's, 70's and 80's--those under 50 are few and far between. In fact, most of these younger Mennonites, second and third generation Canadians, do not even speak High German. The first wave of Russian Mennonites immigrating to Canada in the 1870's maintained their German language for several generations. The next wave in the 1920's began losing the language after the first generation. The third wave, arriving in the 1940's, seem to be losing their German language even faster. Younger recent immigrants from Paraguay and elsewhere still speak both High German and Plautdietsch. But it is fair to predict their descendents will lose these languages at an ever accelerating pace.

The Mennonite ethnic community may still be alive and well in some remote parts of rural Canada, or in Paraguay, or some other country. But in most of Canada Mennonite dress is indistinguishable from others, Mennonite manners and mores have blended with their Canadian equivalents, and Mennonite cookery has either disappeared from our kitchens or become an occasional specialty. If Plautdietsch also disappears, the Mennonite Ethnic community may soon become just another quaint footnote of history.

The Story of Low German & Plautdietsch by Reuben Epp is published by Readers Press, Hillsboro, Kansas.

One day the refugee watchman, whom Elfrieda had placed at the gate of Ringstrasse 107, reported a puzzling scene. People were slowly walking by on the opposite side of the street, always looking at him and the house. In half an hour or so they would return on his side of the street, still carefully scrutinizing everything. He thought they might be refugees from Russia, like himself. What should he do?
“Greet them in Plautdietsch,” Elfrieda instructed. “If they don’t understand it, they’re not our people. If they do, bring em in.”
Peter and Elfrieda Dyck. Up From the Rubble, Herald Press, 1991, p. 144