Amish

Within Amish scholarship, the topic of Amish language use has the highest quantity of publications second only to health research. The Amish have been of interest because they not only use English but also two variants of German: Pennsylvania Dutch (or Pennsylvania German), which is primarily spoken, and an historic High German, which is primarily sourced from written texts. This they maintain after 200–300 years since they migrated from Germanic Europe to North America. Yet, a synthesis of Amish language publications is lacking. In this chapter, two major theoretical approaches are employed to achieve an understanding of the Amish language situation and change. The domain-isolation theory emphasizes a dichotomy between the Amish and the surrounding world. The world threatens to assimilate the Amish by drawing them into regular contact. The consequence of regular contact is that English overtakes Amish social domains, where the German variants would normally be used. The functionalist-role theory approaches language survival from the understanding that languages survive when they have functional uses. The Amish languages are functional because they are associated with roles that express community values. Functions and roles do change, as does the language. Hence, the borrowing of English forms into German is not a corruption from the world but rather demonstrates the adaptation of the German variants, especially Pennsylvania German, to new demands. This theory is used to try to understand the Amish culture producing the language situation as is rather than in opposition to an outside world. The chapter also briefly reviews a small body of literature addressing Amish naming patterns for people.

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: SLC30A8 encodes a zinc transporter in the beta cell; individuals with a common missense variant (rs13266634; R325W) in SLC30A8 demonstrate a lower early insulin response to glucose and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. We hypothesised that zinc supplementation may improve insulin secretion in a genotype-dependent manner. METHODS: We evaluated the early insulin response to glucose (using frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance testing) by R325W genotype before and after 14 days of supplementation with oral zinc acetate (50 mg elemental zinc) twice daily in healthy non-diabetic Amish individuals (N = 55). RESULTS: Individuals with RW/WW genotypes (n = 32) had the lowest insulin response to glucose at 5 and 10 min at baseline (vs RR homozygotes [n = 23]). After zinc supplementation, the RW/WW group experienced 15% and 14% increases in the insulin response to glucose at 5 and 10 min, respectively (p ≤ 0.04), and, compared with RR homozygotes, experienced a ...

To evaluate the heritability of choroidal thickness and its relationship to age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Cohort study. Six hundred eighty-nine individuals from Amish families with early or intermediate AMD. Ocular coherence tomography was used to quantify choroidal thickness, and fundus photography was used to classify eyes into categories using a modified Clinical Age-Related Maculopathy Staging (CARMS) system. Repeatability and heritability of choroidal thickness and its phenotypic and genetic correlations with the AMD phenotype (CARMS category) were estimated using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) approach that accounted for relatedness, repeated measures (left and right eyes), and the effects of age, gender, and refraction. Heritability of choroidal thickness and its phenotypic and genetic correlation with the AMD phenotype (CARMS category). Phenotypic correlation between choroidal thickness and CARMS category was moderate (Spearman's rank correlation, rs =...

Alpha-carotene is a provitamin A carotenoid present in fruits and vegetables. Higher serum concentrations of α-carotene have been associated with lower risk of cancer and all-cause mortality. Previous studies have suggested that genetic variants influence serum concentrations of provitamin A carotenoids, but to date no variants have been robustly associated with serum α-carotene concentrations. The aim of this study was to identify genetic associations with serum α-carotene concentrations using the genome-wide association study (GWAS) approach. A GWAS of serum α-carotene concentrations was conducted in 433 Old Order Amish adults who had consumed a 6-day controlled diet. Linear regression models adjusting for age, gender, and family structure were utilized to evaluate associations between genetic variants and serum α-carotene concentrations. Genome-wide significant associations with α-carotene concentrations were observed for loci on chromosome 1q41 between the genes CAPN2 and CAPN8 ...

Feminist ethnographic methods stress the role of empathy for research subjects and researchers’ willingness for their work to be useful to their subjects. When the research subjects are “unloved groups,” though—people whose actions or beliefs are hateful or harmful—some ethnographers argue that such empathy and empowerment is misplaced or leads to uncritical scholarship. In this reflection on the author’s ethnographic study of Westboro Baptist Church, a small Kansas-based congregation infamous for preaching its anti-gay theology at funerals, including the funerals of fallen servicemen and -women, she questions the usefulness of denying an emotional connection with “hatemongers.” Instead, she argues for compassion for both the victims and, more challengingly, the
perpetrators of hate in order to protect researchers from the threat of desensitization.

“Amish Mennonite” is a movement properly understood as a stream of Amish that parallels, but is independent of, the Old Order Amish. One main group within the movement, the Beachy Amish Mennonites, arose in the 1920s as Amish with automobiles, but moved out of the Old Order stream by the 1950s when automobile ownership became a firm boundary delineating the Old Order. What exactly bounded the Beachy movement from then on became contested in each successive generation. The influence of external ideologies, varying levels of emphasis on continuity with previous generations, and population growth all contributed to the rise of alternative movements within this Amish Mennonite movement. Today, several Amish Mennonite denominations and several loose networks exist. Each has developed symbolic boundaries and intercongregational institutions with which to define their movement. The history of the Amish Mennonite movement is one of redefining and retracing boundaries as new groups continued to emerge. This article attempts to clarify the place of Amish Mennonites within the broader taxonomy of North American Anabaptists groups.

This book addresses the relationship between religion and knowledge from a sociological perspective, taking both religion and knowledge as phenomena located within ever changing social contexts. It builds on historical foundations, but offers a distinctive focus on the changing status of religious phenomena at the turn of the twenty-first century. Including critical engagement with live debates about intelligent design and the ‘new atheism’, this collection of essays brings recent research on religious movements into conversation with debates about socialisation, reflexivity and the changing capacity of social institutions to shape human identities. Contributors examine religion as an institutional context for the production of knowledge, as a form of knowledge to be transmitted or conveyed and as a social field in which controversies about knowledge emerge.

Multiculturalism gives preference to group rights over individual rights. This may challenge democratic values. This paper focuses on the Amish denial of education from their adolescents. Criticizing Wisconsin v. Yoder (Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205 (1972)), the paper analyses the power of the Amish community over its members. The main questions are: Is it reasonable to deny the Amish adolescents' standard American education? What are the limits of state interference in norms of illiberal communities who invoke separatism as a mechanism of cultural and religious preservation?

Revivals of the 1950s and 60s spawned a movement of spiritual and practical change within the Amish community of Lancaster County, PA. Out of those changes came an unusual Amish gang called the Goodies. They were thus named because of refusing to engage with their old friends in the Amish tradition of Rumspringa. This article describes the beginnings of the Goodie gang and the consequential divisions that sprang out of this movement, including four new Amish-Mennonite congregations in Lancaster County. In conclusion, the paper reflects on some mission activity spawned by those within the Goodie gang in the years following.

Reformation era martyrdoms in Zürich marked the beginning of the Anabaptist movement (Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites).  From around the globe, members of these groups travel to Switzerland in search of a better understanding of their history, theology and family origins.  In 2004, reconciliation events took place wherein the Zurich city council and the Reform Church in Switzerland formally requested forgiveness, which was given, of a group of Anabaptist church leaders. Then in 2007, the Swiss government tourism authority in Emmental organized a year-long series of reconciliation events. This paper will examine the impact of the events in 2004 and 2007 on inter-group relations in the light of some relevant aspects of conflict resolution theory.  An interface with tourism and pilgrimage research is suggested through the concept of reconciliation tourism.