LL-L: "Plautdietsch" 06.JUL.2000 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 06.JUL.2000 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Plautdietsch at aol.com
Subject: LL-L: "Plautdietsch" 06.JUL.2000 (02) [E]

Dear Ron, Georg, Criostoir and other Lowlanders,

since I don't read my Lowland-L mail on a daily basis I was surprised to
read
so "much" about Plautdietsch - great! As Reuben Epp already mentioned,
there
are MANY Plautdietsch speaking Russian German Mennonites here in Germany.
But, they are just a tiny part of the more than 2 million "Aussiedler" who
emigrated from the former Soviet Union, I'm one of them.

Almost all the "Aussiedler" get the chance to (re-) learn German in
language
courses paid for by the state run "Arbeitsamt". In one of my German classes

(with only Aussiedler) are two Plautdietsch speakers (father and daughter)
from the Altai region. The father (about 50) still speaks Plautdietsch and
Standard German, besides Russian. The daughter (about 20) only knew Russian

when she and her family came to Germany a few moth ago. This is a typical
situation.

Georg, you also asked about a "centre where they are concentrated". In
Ostwestfalen/Lippe (around Bielefeld) e.g. are about 50 Mennonite
congregations with a majority of Plautdietsch speakers. That's one of the
reasons why I had the idea to found an association (Verein) for
Plautdietsch
interests in this area, the Plautdietsch-Freunde e.V. Please take a look at

our web site:

www.plautdietsch-freunde.de

These pages are still under construction and only in German so far, soon
they
will also be in Russian, English an Spanish. We plan to document as much as

possible of Plautdietsch in Germany. One of our projects is the production
of
video tapes with people talking about their biography in Plautdietsch.

In case someone here should be interested in getting our newsletter - just
let me know! I'll be happy to send it to you.

Regards,
Peter Wiens
www.uni-bielefeld.de/pwiens/paita.html

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