Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[marcos]

There's a place in Sonora [or Chihuahua?] where the language is plattsdeutsch .... they speak a little spanish, a little english, but not much, only enough to function as absolutely necessary ..... they're a group of mennonites who emigrated to the canadian west about an hundred years ago, on the condition that they could teach their children themselves without any legislated curriculum .... one canuck guvmint agreed to this, another reneged later and tried to impose english, so they moved to México where the guvmint made the solemn promise to let them do their own thing for all time .... they come north to Ontario each year to work on farms, this is the major source of cash income as the lands in which they settled have become much more subject to drought over the years .... they are considered excellent neighbours wherever they go, completely honest and trouble-free, good workers, just a little odd is all, and their presence where they settled in México is said to have calmed down tensions between groups of indigenous, and between indigenous and others with claims on territory ..... fine people, still on meeting one i would emphasise to him - c'mon, teach your kids english and spanish, give them a chance