Plautdietsch language

Plautdietsch ( [ˈplaʊtditʃ] ), or Mennonite Low German, was originally a Low Prussian dialect of East Low German, with Dutch influence, that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia. The word is the form, in that language, of Plattdeutsch ([ˈplatdɔʏtʃ]) (Low German). Plaut is the same word as German platt or Dutch plat, meaning 'flat' or 'low' (referring to the plains of northern Germany), and the name Dietsch corresponds etymologically to Dutch Duits and German Deutsch (both meaning "of the Tribe" i. e. "German"), which originally meant 'vernacular language' in all the continental West Germanic languages.

Plautdietsch, an East Low German dialect, was a German dialect like others until it was taken by Mennonite settlers to the south west of the Russian Empire starting in 1789. From there it evolved and subsequent waves of migration brought it to North America, starting in 1873, and mostly from there to Latin America starting in 1922.

Plautdietsch is spoken by about 400,000 Russian Mennonites, most notably in the Latin American countries of Mexico, Bolivia, Paraguay, Belize, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as in the United States and Canada (particularly Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario).