Are the Amish RUDE?

[Music] what are you doing this afternoon a man's voice came over the line on the telephone I didn't know if I was being harassed or this was someone friendly he sounded friendly but a harasser can sound that way too who is this I asked I'm wondering if you could run me into the doctor in town the field was narrowing it had to be one of my honish neighbors I hadn't lived in my place in Old on Schoolhouse for more than a year I knew some of my neighbors but not all of them and I certainly didn't know them by the sound of their voices who is this I asked again Moses oh Moses sure I'll run you into town I was stumped by the way the Amish seemed to lack manners they were a very polite culture but they didn't have the niceties I was used to they never introduced themselves on the phone they never said please or thank you they might finish a conversation by just walking away does that sound familiar to you uh you may have noticed the same thing if you've dealt with Amish people in some capacity before whether it's in business or other interactions that was in from an article by Mary swander in the Iowa capital dispatch and that article was the inspiration for this video you may have noticed the same thing yourself especially if you compare the way Amish communicate with the way non-amish Americans communicate I think there's less polite pack ing around Amish speech than there would be a non-amish speech I personally think that the way non-amish Americans communicate is probably over polite too polite sometimes it's definitely in contrast to the more direct and to Theo manner that's typical among the Amish there may be less small talk to warm up a conversation when you're talking with an Amish person uh more abrupt transitions between topics when you when you speak with an Amish person uh you may be left guessing if there was more uh to be said in the conversation in some cases and again I should say the typical disclaimer the Amish is a generalization of course Amish people are individuals and you know people can be different but talking about the culture in general here now if that's been your experience you might be nodding your head right now um and if that's the case well what might be the reason for that uh looking at the Amish as a culture know generally speaking I think Amish may be more about getting to the point in they speaking simply as a matter of practicality you know especially if you think about their large family sizes you know typical household you've got to manage communication between not just you know not just two or three people but 8 10 12 uh you know or more people and there's maybe less space or less time or maybe just less reason for being overly polite in those cases common example would be if you sit down with homage at the dinner table there's not a lot of hey excuse me could you please pass the ketchup to me uh it'll it'll be one word ketchup whoever's closest to the ketchup needs to reach out and hand it down to you it's that's very practical and people aren't getting offended in those cases because that's just part of the culture another reason that the Amish might seem rude and I need to say here I'm not saying that the Amish are rude it's an interesting question but another reason the Amish might seem rude is that it may be true that they're simply more comfortable with silence uh having uh silence uh you know in a conversation for many people that's awkwardness indicates that you know you need to fill that space up with more speech that silence in turn can be interpreted as rudess or lack of manners but if you look at silence in an Amish context um it it it functions in a different way and there's a quote here I want to share with you from the book The Amish way uh patient faith in a perilous world the authors discuss silence uh throughout the book and to just to give one example uh they write that silence exemplifies glassen heit which is a person's willingness to accept things without demanding an answer to why they happened the way they did okay they see that as representative of that quality or general trait of the Amish they also quote in that book uh The Scholar John Hostetler who described silence in Amish life as an active Force used in a variety of contexts okay so not to go too deep in that direction but it may Simply Be they more comfortable with silent spaces in speech I've also thought perhaps this could be uh a just a residual from their Germanic European cultural backgrounds generally I think uh European cultures maybe not not all of them but there is more direct speech and less politeness especially again compared to American culture okay uh maybe leading out like the UK of course so maybe there's another reason though and Mary swander who wrote this article I read from you at the beginning looked into it a little bit deeper and this is what she found she wrote then why did the Amish a religious Society bound together through custom and tradition skip over manners at first my interactions with the Amish seemed Curt abrupt and a bit disconcerting maybe they didn't have words for please and thank you in their German dialect and so the sentiment didn't translate into English maybe they weren't sure about me a single English woman maybe they didn't want to interact with me but I hadn't contacted them they' called me from one of their own Shacks in the middle of a cornfield maybe they just wanted to do business and not socialize at all she continues these interactions remained a mystery I still took their calls and gradually got better at recognizing their voices but they continued to speak without identifying themselves and seemed happy to let me guess then I did some research about their linguistic patterns and found out the Amish cut out the niceties in their speech for a reason they thought that manners were an elitist construct the use of such phrases as please and thank you would make them sound like the upper class a class that was on a higher Social rung than others and one that might condescend to others i' never heard that explanation before reading that uh in in Mary swander article and uh I think there might be something to that explanation and you know especially when you consider that Amish in previous eras were're more you know we're we're conscious about how uh you know their ways contrasted with uh other ways and when you reject you know the ways of a more Progressive group a faster group um that's way that's one way of establishing your own group's identity okay so so possibly uh things like you know manners you also see this in things like the clothing or the hairstyles or other indicators of Lifestyle uh more kind of more obvious things like that um so that may also have applied to manners of speaking as well not to go too far down the historical sort of speculation but I found it to be an interesting explanation uh now I also want to just add one more thing here I think there have been some changes over time uh within the Amish but that would be due to uh one of the really big societal changes among the Amish and that would be the development of businesses among the Amish development of Entrepreneurship which would mean that more Amish are in businesses that interact with the non-amish public now uh than than were in the past uh so in the past you had you know 100 years ago the majority of Amish were farmers right uh nowadays in some communities the majority of Amish can be small business people you may have some church districts that have no farmers at all in them uh so these changes have drawn Amish into closer contact with non-amish people and that hasn't influenced their ways of communication so you definitely will find Amish that are polite that you know especially if you go into a store where they're selling products especially in more tourist areas uh you're going to find that and and again I'm not saying that Amish people aren't polite there's certainly certainly plenty of polite Amish people uh just speaking in sort of broad Strokes about the culture okay and of course if it's in a business contacts and you're trying to sell to a customer and uh you know it's just natural that you'd want to be polite to that customer to get them to leave with happy memories and want to come back and do business uh with you again so I think interactions with non-amish people over time through business may have changed some of the patterns of I don't know what you call it courtesy patterns or communication patterns among some Amish but back to the original question uh are the Amish rude uh what do you think are the Amish rude what has been your experience what do you think about these explanations uh as to why uh Amish ways of speaking may be different from non-amish ways let me know in the comments I'd love to hear what you think uh hit subscribe hit like and I will see you next time [Music]

Channel: Amish America

Views: 10,417

Keywords: Amish culture, Amish speech, Amish friends, Amish business, Amish customs, Amish communication, Manners, Direct speech, Politeness, Courtesy

Id: ADmC4pPcE-M

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023