Pennsylvania German language

Pennsylvania German
Pennsylvania Dutch
Deitsch, Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch
Native to	United States, Canada
Region	Pennsylvania; Ohio; Indiana; Ontario; and elsewhere
Native speakers	130,000 (1995–2010 census) to 350,000 (2012) (L2 speakers: about 3,000)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic High German West Central German Rhine Franconian Palatine German Pennsylvania German
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	penn1240
Linguasphere	52-ACB-he
Blue: The counties with the highest proportion of Pennsylvania German speakers. Red: The counties with the highest number of Pennsylvania German speakers. Purple: The counties with both the highest proportion and highest number of Pennsylvania German speakers.
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Pennsylvania German (Deitsch, Pennsylvania Deitsch, Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch, Hinterwäldler-Deutsch,  listen ; usually called Pennsylvania Dutch) is a variety of West Central German spoken by the Amish and Old Order Mennonites in the United States and Canada, closely related to the Palatine dialects. There are possibly more than 300,000 native speakers in North America.

It has traditionally been the language of the Pennsylvania Dutch, descendants of late 17th- and early 18th-century immigrants to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina from southern Germany, eastern France (Alsace and Lorraine), and Switzerland. Although for many, the term 'Pennsylvania Dutch' is often taken to refer to the Amish and related Old Order groups exclusively, the term should not imply a connection to any particular religious group.

In this context, the word "Dutch" does not refer to the Dutch people or their descendants. Instead it is probably left over from an archaic sense of the English word "Dutch"; compare German Deutsch ('German'), Dutch Duits ('German'), Diets ('Dutch'), which once referred to any people speaking a non-peripheral continental West Germanic language on the European mainland. Alternatively, some sources give the origin of "Dutch" in this case as a corruption or a "folk-rendering" of the Pennsylvania German endonym "Deitsch".