Amana German

Amana German (Amana-Deutsch or Kolonie-Deutsch, lit. Colony German) is a regiolect based on West Central German that is still spoken by several hundred people in the Amana Colonies in Iowa.

The Amana Colonies were founded in 1856 by Inspirationalists of German origin who came from West Seneca near Buffalo in New York. Amana is derived from the Hessian dialect, which is a West Central German dialect. There are seven villages in Amana with slightly different dialect features.

Even though the use of the language is in decline, it is far from being moribund. There are several major studies about the language of Amana.

Literature

 * Philip E. Webber: Kolonie-Deutsch: Life and Language in Amana. Ames, 2006. (Originally 1993; expended ed., University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 2009)
 * Michael T.  Putnam: Anaphors  in  contact:  The  distribution  of intensifiers  and  reflexives in Amana German in "Studies on German-language islands". Amsterdam et al., 2011.
 * Lawrence L. Rettig: Grammatical structures in Amana German. Dissertation at the University of Iowa, 1970.
 * Joan Liffring-Zug: Life in Amana: reporters' views of the communal way, 1867 - 1935. Iowa City, 1998.