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Göz Kaufmann: Eine Gruppe – Zwei Geschichten – Drei Sprachen. Rußlanddeutsche Mennoniten in Brasilien und Paraguay

This article describes the linguistic development of two Mennonite communities in Brazil and Paraguay which were founded by immigrants from the Soviet Union in 1930. Canada was the original destination chosen by this group of Mennonites, but, on account of the difficult economic and political situation at the time, she was not prepared to take all of them. For this reason, the group had to split up and founded three colonies in the New World, in Canada, Brazil, and Paraguay, respectively. Since the founders of the two South-American colonies analyzed here shared an identical background, all the differences noticeable today must be the result of the differing circumstances they have experienced over the last seventy years. This gives us the opportunity to study the linguistic consequences of two different linguistic, social, cultural, and political contexts. In the present article, the sociolinguistic role of the contact varieties involved and certain structural changes in the major group language of the Menno­nites, Low German, are analyzed. The different types of interaction between these two levels, especially when related to the informants’ age and gender, allow conclusions to be drawn which could be useful in the development of sociolinguistic theory.