Amish Girls Gone Wild? There is a tradition in Amish communities to allow young adult members to experience the outside world and to decide if they will join the church for life. This Rumspringa period is a time to taste the forbidden fruit of beer, cell phones and dancing. It has spawned a movie and book and I find personally fascinating.
posted by UseyurBrain on Mar 18, 2007 - 36 comments

Griko is a language used by the descendents of ancient Greek colonists in southern Italy that still has thousands of speakers. Pennsylvania Dutch, the only German language native to North America, was used as a first language until well into the twentieth century. Ladino ia a variant of medieval Spanish written in the Hebrew alphabet that florished among refugees from the Spanish Inquisition in modern Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece. Welcome to the world of ethnolinguistics.
posted by huskerdont on Jul 20, 2006 - 22 comments