Re: Mennonites in Russia
Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 6:23 am
Thank you Erika for the link to that article.
I noticed that the woman's name is Sperling - I am also a Sperling - my Great Grandmother Buller was Maria Sperling, the daughter of Abraham Sperling.
There is a lot of confusion about the ethnicity of the "Russian Mennonites" (of whom I am one). We are primarily Dutch, not German. Before immigrating to the Russian Empire under invitation from Catherine the Great, we/they lived in what is now a part of Poland, an area known to us as "Prussia". It was there that the Dutch dialects spoken by the Dutch Mennonites mixed with one of the Low German dialects, what at least some linguists call Middle Low German. (It is my understanding that this mixing involved both grammar & vocabulary, essentially producing a new language, what is referred to as a Pigin in linguistic circles.) Middle Low German is no longer spoken anywhere in a form not influenced by the Dutch Mennonites. (According to most sources, it ceased to be spoken some time in the 1600's. The new form of Low German that resulted from the contact with the Dutch dialects spoken by the Mennonites is sometimes referred to as Mennonite Low German, and I have been told that it is also spoken by some non-Mennonite descendants of the native people of that area of Poland, even today.
I noticed that the woman's name is Sperling - I am also a Sperling - my Great Grandmother Buller was Maria Sperling, the daughter of Abraham Sperling.
There is a lot of confusion about the ethnicity of the "Russian Mennonites" (of whom I am one). We are primarily Dutch, not German. Before immigrating to the Russian Empire under invitation from Catherine the Great, we/they lived in what is now a part of Poland, an area known to us as "Prussia". It was there that the Dutch dialects spoken by the Dutch Mennonites mixed with one of the Low German dialects, what at least some linguists call Middle Low German. (It is my understanding that this mixing involved both grammar & vocabulary, essentially producing a new language, what is referred to as a Pigin in linguistic circles.) Middle Low German is no longer spoken anywhere in a form not influenced by the Dutch Mennonites. (According to most sources, it ceased to be spoken some time in the 1600's. The new form of Low German that resulted from the contact with the Dutch dialects spoken by the Mennonites is sometimes referred to as Mennonite Low German, and I have been told that it is also spoken by some non-Mennonite descendants of the native people of that area of Poland, even today.