LL-L: "Specialized terms" LOWLANDS-L, 25.OCT.1999 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L Administrator]

 =========================================================================
 L O W L A N D S - L * 25.OCT.1999 (03) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
 Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/~sassisch/rhahn//lowlands/>
 User's Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
 =========================================================================
 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic
 =========================================================================
 You have received this because your account has been subscribed upon
 request. To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l"
 as message text from the same account to
 <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or sign off at
 <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
 =========================================================================

From: Ian James Parsley [parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Language maintenance" LOWLANDS-L, 24.OCT.1999 (04) [E]

Mark,

Well, it is not entirely unsurprising that people view Scots (and other
minority languages such as Low Saxon) in the way you describe. In the
"developed world", for want of a better term, we are quite used to defining
a language by political rather linguistic boundaries, which ultimately means
that if a language does not have a written standard it is not considered a
language at all, but rather an "obscure" or, worse still, "vulgar" dialect.

The difficulty comes in deciding what to do about it - as linguists we can
argue the case that a language is not defined by having a written standard,
but rather on the basis of literary of historical distinctiveness. Or we can
simply accept that non-linguists will always view it so, and get on with
developing a written standard.

That latter option is the one usually taken up, but is also fraught with
difficulties. Generally it means that people who were presenting a united
front for the minority language end up falling out with each other over
spelling (a most recent and tragic example of that being Cornish, which had
few enough speakers anyway). In Scots' (and Ulster-Scots') case I think the
idea is to follow the Frisian model in the Netherlands, and actually pass
spelling standardisation/reform through legislation. Even this can be
tricky, however, since it means such legislation is drawn up by Civil
Servants who may know nothing about language development and very often may
not actually speak the language in question (the relevant Civil Servants in
Northern Ireland certainly do not speak Ulster-Scots, for example).

Best,
-------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"
REPLY NOT WORK? TRY:
parsleyij at hotmail.com

==================================END======================================
 * Please submit contributions to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
 * Contributions will be displayed unedited in digest form.
 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
   to be sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or at
   <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
 * Please use only Plain Text format, not Rich Text (HTML) or any other
   type of format, in your submissions
 =========================================================================