| 1. | the descendants of 17th- and 18th-century settlers in Pennsylvania from southwest Germany and Switzerland. |
| 2. | Also called Pennsylvania German. a dialect of High German with an admixture of English spoken mainly in eastern Pennsylvania, developed from the language of these settlers. |
| 3. | the folk style of applied and decorative art developed by the Pennsylvania Dutch. |
| Pennsylvania Dutch n.
[Alteration of German Deutsch, German; see Plattdeutsch.] |
The German and Swiss settlers of Pennsylvania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their descendants. “Dutch” is a version of the German Deutsch, meaning “German.” The Pennsylvania Dutch are known for their tidy farms and their distinctive crafts and customs. A considerable number of them belong to strict religious denominations, such as the Amish.
Pennsylvania Dutch
17th- and 18th-century German-speaking settlers in Pennsylvania and their descendants. Emigrating from southern Germany (Palatinate, Bavaria, Saxony, etc.) and Switzerland, they settled primarily in the southeastern section of Pennsylvania, where they practiced any of several slightly different forms of Anabaptist faith, mostly Amish and Mennonite. Their descendants, some of whom participate only reluctantly in modern life, live mainly in Northampton, Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Bucks, York, and other counties of Pennsylvania, as well as in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Virginia, West Virginia, and Florida
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