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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Thank's Susan; The religion in which you were raised is not one of the Amish 
religions ?  I remember you telling about it once; maybe I misunderstood.

  There are no Amish, to speak of, here, of which I am aware.  In other 
places, mainly VA, I saw Amish communities.  The one in VA that I remember , 
they were considered very affluent, though they kept to the old ways, no cars 
-- buggys instead; but their buggies cost more than a luxury vehicle.  I have 
no idea if this is common, or specific to that one group.  

I have never actually met an Amish person, other than to say hello in  a 
store, that I can remember.  Thanks for the information


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--- On Wed, 12/3/08, sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net> wrote:

> From: sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] It's almost over
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 3:52 PM
> bob ford wrote:
> >  ....* Note, I'm not as educated on the history of
> the Amish as you, I thought they considered themselves
> "German".  German history is filled with great
> warriors.  I don't know much about the Swiss ?  They
> ski, and make cheese and watches and chocalate; and guard
> the Pope, I don't really know if they have ever been
> dominant
> >
> >   
> And indeed they do often refer to themselves as
> "Gutch", from the German 
> (Deutsch) language, and by extension, the Pennsylvania
> Dutch, which 
> includes, actually many groups, some of them Anabaptist,
> but not all. 
> 
> Early Swiss formers, contemporaries of Luther in the north,
>  involved in 
> what became the Anabaptist groups were German-speaking
> Swiss in 
> nationality and residence.  Some of the early groups went
> to the 
> Alsatian areas, where one presumes French might have been
> at least the 
> local language, however, I've never heard an Amishman
> refer to himself 
> as a 'frenchman' which even sounds funny.  I'm
> not aware that they 
> generally have, over the years, spoken any language other
> than German 
> other than picking up languages where they've moved
> (English in this 
> country, Portugese and Spanish is South and Central
> America, for 
> example) and most Old Order Churches, plus many Beachy and
> other 'less 
> strict" groups hold services in German, speak at home
> in German, and use 
> German bibles.  There is considerable attempt to maintain
> German as 
> their first language, some who leave still feel strongly
> enough about it 
> that they teach their own kids 'the old way'; my
> kids in fact are 
> trilingual, via this route.  But their peoples of origin
> were Swiss 
> initially. 
> 
> I've never gone along, but a lot of  folks I know have
> been on a 
> "Berne-to-Bern" tour, from Berne, IN, to Bern,
> Switzerland, and they 
> report that except for words added since (probably not many
> astronauts 
> in 1600, I guess), they can speak without
> misunderstanding/s to 
> German-speaking residents in that region, a fact in which
> they seem to 
> delight, since that group in IN came pretty directly from
> the region of 
> Bern and many can cite fairly close relatives still there.
> 
> SJ
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