ELL: Cultural production

deekonda narsingarao deekonda_nr at REDIFFMAIL.COM
Fri Nov 23 15:48:15 UTC 2001


THANK U FOR SHARING VALUEABLE IDEAS
deekonda_nr

On Thu, 22 Nov 2001 Julia Sallabank wrote :
> Dear everyone
>
> I take Mauro's point, and I am ambivalent myself about
> the link between
> language and culture - I've spent a lot of my life
> trying to escape from
> some of the narrower strictures of traditional culture,
> but am still
> committed to the language. But given a choice between
> McDonald's and
> Guernsey culture, I know which one I would choose!  The
> juggernaut of
> "global" (plastic and unsustainable) "culture" is
> itself part of the
> problem, and it's not only minority language speakers
> who object to it (and
> not all of them do object anyway, which is one reason
> for language shift).
> I'll take modern comforts such as indoor bathrooms but
> not the plastic food
> thanks. But this may be rather hypocritical given the
> reliance on
> international banking in Guernsey's economy (yes, we
> are trying to get
> sponsorship from them).
>
> Diversity in language, culture, politics, religion,
> etc. is a good thing to
> uphold. On the one hand, people have a right to
> celebrate traditional
> culture - but on the other hand, I agree that minority
> languages need
> modernising and to lose the image (often forced on them
> by outsiders) of
> being 'only for peasants' and looking backwards at the
> 'good old days' (so
> good that people shifted language to escape from them).
>
> The advantages of diversity (including multilingualism)
> need to be
> promoted - a lot of people abandoned the old language
> because they thought
> that it would hold back their children in education
> (which was/is in English
> of course). The concept of 'new culture in old
> language' is also difficult
> to put over.
>
> In fact, there were Guinness adverts in Guernsey French
> in the 1950's - at a
> time when more people used the language, but attitudes
> towards it were more
> negative than nowadays. Adverts in the language are
> just
't do anything in themselves to
> make parents speak the
> language with their children, but they raise its
> profile.
>
> Another point is that in the absence of any mass media
> in Guernesiais,
> cultual festivals are the only chance for many people
> to hear any of the
> language. And it's by no means only traditional culture
> that is presented at
> them - e.g. new plays and sketches are also produced.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Julia
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lars v. Karstedt" <lkarstedt at uni-hamburg.de>
> To: <endangered-languages-l at cleo.murdoch.edu.au>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 9:40 AM
> Subject: Re: ELL: Cultural production
>
>
> > Speakers of a minority are sometimes socially
> isolated from other speakers
> > (e.g. because all their relatives who speak it are
> deceased). In such
> cases,
> > cultural events are at least an opportunity to meet
> other speakers and
> 'come
> > out' as speakers of a stigmatised language. They are
> social occasions and
> > offer an opportunity for the audience too, not only
> the performers, to
> speak
> > the language.
> >
> > I think that regaining pride in a language (as well
> as practising it!) is
> an
> > important step in promoting it in all domains.
> >
> > Yours
> >
> > Julia
>
> [second post]
>
> > I think this discussion started with revitalization
> strategies and
> reversal
> > of language death. So, stable multilingual societies
> are not germane here.
> > But you are certainly right there.
> > I also take it for granted that the discussion was
> centered around modern,
> > Western-like societies, not hunter-gatherers in the
> Kalahari desert.
> There,
> > again, things may be different.
> > But if a language is threatened in Europe, US, and
> the like, I guess it is
> > because its speakers are shifting to another language
> for most "high" uses
> > of the language. "Traditional" culture is not one of
> these; "modern" life
> > is. To stress

> to
> > reverse the tendency: if you want to revitalize
> Guernesiais (Guernsey
> Norman
> > French) do not do a poetry-festival, try to have
> McDonald's or Coca-Cola
> do
> > ads in it. This is a PRACTICAL encouragement to use a
> language, because it
> > makes the language "trendy", appealing, etc. (well,
> maybe not to
> > everybody...).
> > Best,
> >
> > mauro
> >
>
> I think both, Mauro and Julia have a point here. But
> the most
> important factor in saving a threatened language is the
> number of
> first language speakers and that is, naturally, the
> number of
> children who learn the language (be it as mono- or
> bilingual
> speakers). I may add some personal experience from
> Amrum, a
> German island off the North Sea coast, where I
> conducted fieldwork
> on the island's dialect of Frisian called Öömrang.
> There are only a
> very few Öömrang-speaking children (probably about ten)
> . The only
> situation where Öömrang is spoken is at home, basically
> with
> parents/grandparents. There where two cases when kids
> (in both
> cases pairs of siblings) where brought up
> Öömrang-speaking but
> ceased to use the language as soon as they entered
> (monolingual
> German) kindergarten. Even at home they wouldn't speak
> Öömrang
> anymore. I think this illustrates Mauro's point:
> Speaker's home as
> linguistic environment is too limited to give children
> the idea that
> Öömrang is something that really matters in the outside
> world. It
> doesn't even need to re-design McDonald's signs (by the
> way, in
> Quebec it's "poulet frit à la Kentucky" instead of
> "Kentucky fried
> chicken") but an Öömrang-speaking storekeeper, teacher,
> bank
> teller etc. would probably do. These people are there,
> they just
> don't practice their language publicly and this is
> where Julia's point
> gets in: the attitude towards minority languages
> matters as well. A
> person being proud of his mother-tongue will more
> likely practice

> being primitive, un-modern, un-educated etc. and
> therefore rather
> uses the (official) majority language.
>
> Best, Lars
>
>
>
>
> Lars Karstedt
> Bredeneschredder 7
> 22395 Hamburg
> Germany
> lkarstedt at uni-hamburg.de
> (040) 604 54 53
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