Amish

The Amish are a denomination of Anabaptists and noted for their restrictions on the use of modern devices such as automobiles and electricity. The Amish are a tight-knit cultural and ethnic group, descending from predominately Swiss German immigrants. Most Amish speak at home a distinctive High German dialect (Deitsch or "Pennsylvania Dutch)", although the so-called "Swiss Amish" speak an Alemannic dialect which they call "Swiss". Note that the Amish are just one group of the "Pennsylvania Dutch," who are generally of German descent; the word "Dutch" being an archaism. Finally, more "progressive" Beachy Amish, especially those who were born roughly after 1960 tend to speak predominately in English at home.

Other

People who are not well acquainted with Mormonism and the Amish sometimes confuse the two, despite the vast differences between them. These misconceptions can sometimes be perpetuated in the mass media. For example, the film Witness is centered on an Amish community. However, the Spanish and French versions of this film mistranslated "Amish" as "Mormon". Roseanne Barr has played on this misconception by referring to Mormons as "Nazi Amish". Perhaps this confusion arises in part from the similarity between the words "Mormon" and "Mennonite."

Related Topics:
Mormonism - Mass media - ''Witness'' - Mormon - Roseanne Barr

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The 2002 documentary The Devil's Playground is another film about the Amish community, focusing on the Amish tradition of Rumspringa.

Related Topics:
2002 - Documentary - The Devil's Playground - Rumspringa

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The Amish have, on occasion, encountered discrimination and hostility from their neighbors; in some places, this has taken the form of systematic harassment, particularly claipping, the act of pelting the horse-drawn carriages used by the Amish with stones or similar objects as the carriages pass along a road, most commonly at night (claip is apparently a derogatory term directed at the Amish in some localities; its origin is uncertain). A 1988, made-for-TV film, A Stoning In Fulham County, is based on a true story involving one such incident, in which a six-month-old Amish infant girl was struck in the head by a rock and died from her injuries. In 1997, a young Amish woman in Milverton, Ontario, Canada was struck in the face by a beer bottle believed to have been thrown from a passing car; she required thousands of dollars' worth of surgery to her face (which was paid for by an outpouring of donations from the public). It was later found that this was not a case of 'claipping', as the bottle had been thrown by another group of Amish youth in a passing buggy.

Related Topics:
1988 - A Stoning In Fulham County - 1997 - Milverton - Ontario, Canada

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On July 28, 2004, UPN began airing Amish in the City, a reality television series which involved five Amish teenagers being installed in a house in the Hollywood Hills to experience "American" culture and to decide at the show's end whether to rejoin their own culture (a variant of the Amish tradition of Rumspringa).

Related Topics:
July 28 - 2004 - UPN - Amish in the City - Reality television - Hollywood Hills - Rumspringa

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Amish enjoy a special legal status, as proved in Yoder vs. Wisconsin, which stated that Amish adolescents can be exempt from the state law prescribing compulsory education until the age of 16 because their religion requires them to live apart from society. To compel them to visit school would therefore violate their rights under the Free Exercise Clause.

Related Topics:
Yoder vs. Wisconsin - Free Exercise Clause

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Sociology professor John A. Hostetler (1918-2001), who was born into an Amish family, wrote several books about the Amish, Hutterites, and Old Order Mennonites, and was considered one of the foremost academic authorities on the Amish.

Related Topics:
John A. Hostetler - Hutterites - Old Order Mennonites

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