Amish Proverbs - Baker Publishing Group

Introductionthe book of Proverbs in the Bible. Proverbs were used in monasteriesto teach novices Latin. Often colorfully phrased, at times evenmusical in pronunciation, proverbs served as teaching tools forilliterate populations that relied on oral tradition.Interestingly, the proverbs have played a surprisingly prominentrole in the speech of the Pennsylvania Germans, which includes—thoughisn’t limited to—the Amish. “It is natural that thePennsylvania Germans should use the proverb extensively,” writesDr. Edwin Miller Fogel in his book Proverbs of the PennsylvaniaGermans, “because of the fondness of the Germanic peoples forthis form of expression. The proverbs are the very bone and sinewof the dialect.” 2“The ones that are common in the community are most likely inthe oral tradition,” says Dr. Donald B. Kraybill, senior fellow at theYoung Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at ElizabethtownCollege, Pennsylvania. “Not particularly Amish, but part of thebroader rural tradition of the area.” 3The Pennsylvania Deitsch dialect (which is called “Penn Dutch,”though it has no relationship to Holland) originated in the Palatinatearea of Germany over four hundred years ago and was broughtto Pennsylvania in the 1700s with a wave of immigrants: Lutherans,Mennonites, Moravians, Amish, German Brethren, and GermanReformed. Penn Dutch was, and is, an oral language; even today,people from different states can understand one another since thelanguage has remained close to its origins.“Most of what they [German immigrants] knew, they broughthere from the Old World,” explains C. Richard Beam, retired fullprofessor of German at Millersville University. “The proverbs werean integral part of Pennsylvania German culture. The further backyou go, the richer the language.”12Suzanne Woods Fisher, Amish Proverbs, expanded editionRevell Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2012. Used by permission.