Editing Plautdietsch (section)

==Migration history==
Plautdietsch speakers today are mostly the descendants of [[Mennonites]] who fled in the 16th century to escape persecution and [[Vistula delta Mennonites|resettled in the Vistula delta]]. These refugees were Frisians and Saxons from East Frisia, people from Flanders (now part of Belgium) and central Europeans.<ref name="Cox-2015">{{cite web|language=en|author=Christopher Douglas Cox|title=Quantitative perspectives on variation in Mennonite Plautdietsch|publisher=Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta|date=2015|accessdate=2023-04-02|url=https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/54ae60d4-a104-48bf-99a4-7fde5aa54af7/view/8e1e655a-71a9-4b2b-b724-0ed48ccb1089/Cox_Christopher_D_201501_PhD.pdf}} [a doctor's thesis], p. 26ff.</ref> They settled in West Prussia mostly in the three local areas of ''Nehrung'' (on the Baltic Sea), ''Werder'' (islands in the Vistula delta) and ''Niederung'' (south of the Werder), where they adopted the respective local Low German dialect as their everyday language.<ref name="Cox-2015" />
As Mennonites they kept their own (primarily Dutch and Low German) identity, using [[Dutch language|Standard Dutch]] as the language of the church well into the 18th century. As a written language, they took up High German.
At the time of their migration to the Russian Empire, their spoken language resembled the dialects of the region with only some few Dutch elements.<ref>De Smet (1983) {{page needed|date=September 2023}}</ref>
Their East Low German dialect is still classified as Low Prussian.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}
[[Russian Mennonite]]s trace their genealogical roots mostly to the [[Low Countries]].
Beginning in the late 18th century, the expanding [[Russian Empire]] invited Germans and many from the [[Kingdom of Prussia]], including many Mennonites, to create new colonies north of the [[Black Sea]] in an area that Russia had recently acquired in one of the [[Russo-Turkish War (1768–74)|Russo-Turkish Wars]]. This is now part of Ukraine as well as other countries. Beginning in 1873, many Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites migrated from the Russian Empire to the United States and Canada.

In 1922, Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Canada started to settle in Mexico, and in 1927 in Paraguay. In the 1930s, Mennonites emigrated mainly from Soviet Ukraine directly to Brazil. The first Mennonite settlement in Bolivia was founded in 1957 by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Paraguay. Soon, conservative Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Canada, Mexico, and Belize also relocated to Bolivia, settling together. In 1986/7, a settlement was founded in Argentina by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from other Latin American countries. Plautdietsch-speaking [[Mennonites in Peru|Mennonites]] have also recently begun colonies in the jungle of [[Peru]].