Wilmot-Tavistock-Milverton Deitsch/Wie Geht’s Tavistock
Beginning in the 1820s, German-speaking Amish Mennonites from diverse regions in Central Europe under the leadership of Christian Nafziger migrated to what was then Upper Canada, today Southern Ontario. They first settled in the communities of Wilmot, East Zorra, and Tavistock, which are located in Waterloo and Perth counties. The Amish Mennonite pioneers were supported by Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking Mennonites who had already established communities to the east and were descended from migrants who had moved to Upper Canada from Pennsylvania starting in the 1780s.
The migration of Amish Mennonites to Southern Ontario continued until the 1870s. Most came directly from Alsace, Bavaria, and Hesse-Waldeck, however what they spoke was a form of Palatine German owing to the fact that the communities they immediately hailed from had been founded one or two generations earlier by migrants from the Palatinate. The Amish Mennonite newcomers to Ontario were able to communicate easily with their Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking Mennonite neighbors in the Kitchener-Waterloo region, as well as their coreligionists in the United States.
Girls from the Milverton Amish and Ontario Mennonite communities. © Mark Burr. All rights reserved.
The Amish Mennonites of Wilmot, East Zorra, and Tavistock later moved farther north in Perth County to Milverton, where the largest number of speakers of this Palatine German-descended speech variety live today. Wilmot-Tavistock-Milverton Deitsch is thriving among the Milverton Old Order Amish. The total estimated number of Milverton-affiliated Amish is 2,180. In addition to approximately 1,350 who live in Perth County, there are Milverton Amish in four other settlements in Ontario (Chesley, Greenbush/Harriston, Kincadine/Tiverton, Manitoulin Island/Tehkummah) and one in Prince Edward Island (Cardigan/Dundas) (source: Amish Studies website, Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College). There are also several older (70+) Mennonite speakers of the language, however it has not been passed on to younger generations and soon will be spoken exclusively by the Milverton Amish.
This map, which may be clicked to enlarge, shows the distribution of Anabaptist congregations founded by Mennonites of Pennsylvania ancestry in Waterloo County, to the east of the yellow line, and churches in Waterloo and Perth counties that trace their history to the Amish Mennonite migrants of the 19th century, to the west. Base map source: Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online
In 2021, a retired Mennonite pastor and fluent speaker of Wilmot-Tavistock-Milverton Deitsch, Fred Lichti, began video interviewing other speakers of the language for a project in conjunction with the Tavistock and District Historical Society and the Mennonite Archives of Ontario titled Wie Geht’s Tavistock. Below are clips from the recordings made by Fred, with English subtitles added. Each speaker gave their permission to be recorded and to have clips from their interviews, along with biographical information, posted to this site.
Fred Lichti was born in 1954, the son of Mervin and Geneva (Schumm) Lichti. He had two brothers and one sister. Fred’s first language was English, but he learned the Deitsch that his parents, extended family, and community spoke. His family were members at the East Zorra Mennonite Church. Fred attended S. S. No. 7, Facey’s Public School, and graduated from the Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School in 1973. In 1976, he graduated with a B.A. in history from the University of Waterloo, becoming the first in his extended family to attend university. A few years later, Fred earned his MDiv from the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. In 1980 he married Rosemary Zehr and they were blessed with three children. Beginning in 1979, Fred served for 41 years as a pastor in three Mennonite congregations (Steinmann, Listowel, and Elmira). He used Deitsch in pastoral visitation with some seniors in these congregations who preferred speaking that language. Fred retired in 2020.
Fred is dedicated to researching and telling the story of the Amish Mennonites in Ontario. He launched the Wie Geht’s Tavistock project as a way to document the Deitsch language as it is spoken in the East Zorra-Tavistock, Wilmot, Wellesley, and Milverton communities. Fred also teaches classes in Deitsch and volunteers at The Mennonite Story museum in St. Jacobs. Fred and Rosemary live in Elmira, where he tends his backyard orchard and works part time for Whiffletree, a fruit tree nursery.
To mark the bicentennial of Christian Nafziger’s initial visit to Upper Canada, I was invited to deliver the 2022 Bechtel Lecture in Anabaptist-Mennonite Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, on the topic “Reconstructing Linguistic History: What Did Ontario’s Earliest Amish Speak?”
Wilmot-Tavistock-Milverton Deitsch/Wie Geht’s Tavistock clips
Delmer Bender, Helene (Bender) Eicher, Hilda (Bender) Roth
Howard and Ada (Schlegel) Gerber
Glen and Lydia (Wagler) Schumm
Hilda (Brenneman) Swartzentruber
Herb and Shirley (Roth) Wagler
Sam and Elda (Schlegel) Wagler