But from the description in the article, it is clear they are at the liberalising end of the Amish.

And one thing that almost certainly follows from their liberalisation, is their TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is going to gradually converge with mainstream society – not necessarily with the very low levels associated with the completely secular, but at least with the levels associated with mainstream conservative evangelicalism – modestly above the secular average, a lot lower than the Old Order Amish average.

By contrast, groups at the most conservative end of the Amish–e.g. the Swartzentruber–have a very high TFR, and it seems unlikely it is moderating to any significant degree; and also I'm sure their Pennsylvania Dutch is much healthier as a language.

Comparing Pennsylvania Dutch to Yiddish, I think the fact that Yiddish-speaking Hasidic communities (e.g. Kiryas Joel) use it as a written language, e.g. for their newspapers and community notices, and also a language of instruction in schools, puts Yiddish on a much more secure footing. I wonder why the Amish have never made much effort to write their distinctive language down? As far as I know, there isn't any theological objection, just a cultural habit they've stuck with. (They could keep standard German for their liturgy, just as the Hasidim use Hebrew not Yiddish for theirs.) I wonder if at some point, any of them will realise that investing in their distinctive language would be conducive to their long-term prospects of surviving the forces of assimilation.

I read about Amish people and I have very high respect for their traditions. Sometime I believe that's exactly how the society should be guided. It's not about getting harder and harder to keep refusing the modern practices. It is about slowing the adoption of such practices to ensure that the community still stays above the individual. I hope they can slow it down as much as possible.

"Individualism is frowned upon" - that's a great way to keep the community stronger. I experienced this in my community from South India. People are hardly known by their own names. Everyone was called by their family name only or something like "grandson of XYZ".

"Too much education causes separation" - another true observation, affects Indian families a lot. Each generation is alienated from its previous generation, only because of education, jobs and foreign living.

> I grew up using this term, but upon encountering Louden’s work, I learned that “dialect” often functions more as an insult than a linguistically useful designation.

A shprakh iz a dyalekt mit armey un flot!

I'd recommend giving it a squiz. (I assume Amish has a large corpus)

I wonder what it says about a community that its language has no word for "love".

Funny. That's how (swiss) german gen z sounds to me.

This reminds me of the famous saying, "A language is a dialect with an army and navy."

It was also originally uttered in a German-adjacent language, Yiddish: "a shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot."

I wonder whether locals in the German Palatinate region can still understand Pennsylvania Dutch, given that it supposedly originates from their dialect.