Editing Pennsylvania Dutch language (section)

== Speaker population ==
{| class="wikitable floatright"
|+ Sectarian speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in 2015<ref>Simon J. Bronner, Joshua R. Brown (eds.): ''Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia'', Baltimore, 2017, page 109.</ref>
|-
! Group ||  Population
|-
| [[Amish]]* || align="right" | 278,805 
|-
| [[Groffdale Conference Mennonite Church|Old Order Wenger Mennonites]] || align="right" | 22,610
|-
| [[Ontario (Old Order) Mennonite Conference|Old Order Mennonites of Ontario]] || align="right" | 6,500
|-
| [[Stauffer Mennonite]]s || align="right" | 4,260
|-
| [[Kauffman Amish Mennonite|Tampico Amish Mennonites]]  || align="right" | 3,260
|-
| [[Noah Hoover Mennonite|Hoover Mennonites]] || align="right" | 1,815
|-
| [[David Martin Mennonites|Old Order David Martin Mennonites]] || align="right" | 1,760
|-
| [[Orthodox Mennonites]] || align="right" | 1,580
|-
| [[Reidenbach Old Order Mennonites|Old Order Reidenbach Mennonites]] || align="right" | 740
|-
| [[Old Beachy Amish|Amish Mennonites (Midwest Beachy)]] || align="right" | 705
|-
| '''Total''' || align="right" | '''322,035'''
|-
| <small> * Includes all Amish horse and buggy groups<br /> except the speakers of Alemannic dialects<br /> ([[Bernese German]] and [[Alsatian dialect|Alsatian German]]).</small>
|-
|}
[[File:Pennsylvania German distribution.png|thumb|Map showing the U.S. counties with the highest proportion (blue) and highest number (red) of Pennsylvania German speakers as of 2006]]
In the United States, most Old Order Amish and all "horse and buggy" Old Order Mennonite groups speak Pennsylvania Dutch, except the [[Virginia Old Order Mennonite Conference|Old Order Mennonites of Virginia]], where German was already mostly replaced at the end of the 19th century. There are several Old Order Amish communities (especially in Indiana) where [[Bernese German]], a form of Swiss German and [[Low Alemannic]] [[Alsatian language|Alsatian]], not Pennsylvania Dutch, are spoken. Additionally, English has mostly replaced Pennsylvania Dutch among the car driving Old Order [[Weaverland Old Order Mennonite Conference|Horning]] and the [[Ohio-Indiana Mennonite Conference|Wisler]] Mennonites.

Other religious groups among whose members the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect would have once been predominant, include: [[Lutheran]] and German Reformed congregations of Pennsylvania Dutch background, [[Schwenkfelder Church|Schwenkfelders]], and [[Schwarzenau Brethren|Schwarzenau (German Baptist) Brethren]].<ref name=reed-bbf>{{cite web|last1=Reed|first1=Frank L.|title=Pennsylvania "Dutch"|url=https://biblicalbrethrenfellowship.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/pennsylvania-dutch/|website=Biblical Brethren Fellowship|access-date=December 17, 2015|date=March 3, 2013}}</ref> Until fairly recent times, the speaking of Pennsylvania Dutch had absolutely no religious connotations.

In Ontario, Canada, the Old Order Amish, the members of the [[Ontario (Old Order) Mennonite Conference|Ontario Old Order Mennonite Conference]], the [[David Martin Mennonites|David Martin Old Order Mennonites]], the [[Orthodox Mennonites]] and smaller pockets of others (regardless of religious affiliation) speak Pennsylvania Dutch. The members of the car driving Old Order [[Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference]] have mostly switched to English. In 2017, there were about 10,000 speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in Canada, far fewer than in the United States.

There are also attempts being made in a few communities to teach the dialect in a classroom setting; however, as every year passes by, fewer and fewer in those particular communities speak the dialect. There is still a weekly radio program in the dialect whose audience is made up mostly of the diverse groups, and many Lutheran and Reformed congregations in Pennsylvania that formerly used German have a yearly service in Pennsylvania Dutch. Other non-native speakers of the dialect include those persons that regularly do business with native speakers.{{Citation needed|date=February 2015}}

Among them, the Old Order Amish population was probably around 227,000 in 2008.<ref name="Scolforo">{{cite news |title=Amish population nearly doubles in 16 years|url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-20-3770622862_x.htm|author=Mark Scolforo|date=August 20, 2008|access-date=February 3, 2011|newspaper=USA Today|agency=Associated Press}}</ref> Additionally, the Old Order Mennonite population, a sizable percentage of which is Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking, numbers several tens of thousands. There are also thousands of other Mennonites who speak the dialect, as well as thousands more older Pennsylvania Dutch speakers of non-Amish and non-Mennonite background. The Grundsau Lodge, which is an organization in southeastern Pennsylvania of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, is said to have 6,000 members. Therefore, a fair estimate of the speaker population in 2008 might be close to 300,000, although many, including some academic publications, may report much lower numbers, uninformed of those diverse speaker groups.{{Citation needed|date=February 2015}}

There are no formal statistics on the size of the Amish population, and most who speak Pennsylvania Dutch on the Canadian and U.S. censuses would report that they speak German, since it is the closest option available. Pennsylvania Dutch was reported under ethnicity in the 2000 census.<ref>US Census Bureau, [https://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-35.pdf Ancestry: 2000, Census 2000 Brief C2KBR-35] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040920132346/http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-35.pdf |date=September 20, 2004 }}</ref>

There are also some Pennsylvania Dutch speakers who belong to traditional Anabaptist groups in Latin America. Even though most Mennonite communities in Belize speak [[Plautdietsch]], some few hundreds who came to Belize mostly around 1970 and who belong to the [[Noah Hoover Mennonite]]s speak Pennsylvania Dutch.<ref>[[Stephen Scott (writer)|Stephen Scott]]: ''Old Order and Conservative Mennonites Groups'', Intercourse, PA 1996, page 104.</ref> There are also some recent [[New Order Amish]] immigrants in [[Bolivia]], [[Argentina]], and [[Belize]] who speak Pennsylvania Dutch while the great majority of conservative Mennionites in those countries speak Plautdietsch.<ref>[http://amishamerica.com/2016-amish-population/ 2016 Amish Population: Two New Settlements In South America] at amishamerica.com.</ref>