LL-L: "Language conflicts" (was "Loanguage politics", "Language maintenance", "Language planning") LOWLANDS-L, 24.JUL.2000 (04) [E]

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 From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
 Subject: Language planning

 Dear all,

Thank you, Henno, for addressing all the points I
raised concerning Frisian.

I think the issue of "linguistic purism" when creating
a literary/spoken standard depends largely on what
outcome one is intending.

Clearly the situation of many minority languages is
one where they are labouring under a linguistic sword
of Damocles, with a more powerful neighbour
encroaching - or seeking to encroach - upon 'minority'
territory all the time. In most situations the larger
language seeks in entirely or near-entirely
extirpating the smaller one. It seems that in
countries where the larger language has something of a
global or economic application - as in the case of
English, French and German - the smaller speech
resists harder and seeks to underline its distinctive
identity by distancing. This is entirely
understandable.

In the example of these islands, Cornish, Welsh, Scots
Gaelic, Lallans, Ulster Scots, Manx Gaelic, Irish
Gaelic, Channel Island French, Norn, Shelta, Romani,
Angloromani and Polari are all under pressure from a
global language, and some have succumbed. To those
languages that have been more fortunate, the prospect
of destruction at the hands of English is a very real
daily fear. Consequently, it seems two schools of
thought have emerged concerning language planning and
maintenance.

The first school is one which links intimately the
issue of language to that of nationality and
self-determination. As has been pointed out, it is
often the case that if the language comes from a
similar stable to the oppressor tongue, distancing
elements are chosen lest the two languages are seen to
be too close for comfort and the minority nation
subsumed into the larger one. Of course - as was
mentioned with regards to Lallans - this radically
alters the nature of the speech by seeking overly
'pure' or conjectured elements. To self-determinists,
this is often desired: it lends a greater mandate to
notions of nationhood, national difference in language
and aspirations to independence. I would assert that
linguistic self-determination has long formed the
backbone of nationhood: the idea that the Irish nation
should speak Irish, that the Frisian nation should
speak Frisian and so forth. It trades upon the notion
of a 'golden age' that existed prior to contact with
the oppressor nation and which needs to be resurrected
that the nation might fulfil its potential once more.

This idea of 'liberation linguistics' has a number of
beneficial factors - it enables a people to regain
their self-esteem, to motivate themselves, to create
literature, to resist oppression. I point to the
example of the Faroe Islands where it was assumed that
Faroese was a peasant dialect deserved of replacement
with Danish: this was reversed in the late 19th
Century and now the Faroe Islands and Faroese have a
fine literature, self-government and one of the most
prosperous economies and social structures in Europe.
It is difficult to imagine that the Faroe Islands
could have seen such a harmonious existence had they
continued their relegation to a Danish county;
increasingly they would have been peripheralised and
their intellectual life stifled by having to exist
through a purely Danish mileau whilst Faroese was the
best-known language in the Islands.

Similarly, whilst the notion of a 'golden age' of
linguistic purity is unlikely, nonetheless there is no
sane reason why a minority language should be forced
to give way to its truculent neighbour or encroacher.
Take for an example Irish: parts of Ireland are as far
away from London as the Netherlands are, and yet it is
still argued - often by Irish themselves - that
Ireland's proximity to England meant that Irish HAD to
give way to English. This ignores the fact that Irish
was made illegal by the English, and is of course
based on the assumption that economics should rule
everything: if this ideal is taken to its (il)logical
conclusion, there is no need for any language other
than English, as English is the main language of
commerce of the planet. Patently absurd.

However, in mitigation, 'liberation linguistics' can
itself birth illogical situations, such as ridiculous
extremist purism, where all 'foreign' terms are purged
or otherwise eschewed. The French seem to be quite
fond of this isolationism, but both the Icelanders and
the Faroese have chosen this course. One of English's
strengths is that it has been a ready borrower of
terms that it has found itself insufficient to
realise, and this has led to a useful triplicate of
terms - i.e., rise/mount/ascend - that not only
broaden the language's versatility greatlty, but also
enable an English speaker to read most Romance
languages if they have a good knowledge of Latinate
terms within English.

Similarly, the notion of linguistic purism fails to
recognise that whether a term is sanctioned or not, it
may nonetheless be used in everyday speech. The
'Franglais' syndrome infuriates extremist purists, but
it fails to recognise that the people are the final
arbiters or what a language is; not linguists nor
economists, not extremists nor apathetic pragmatists,
but the people who have to use the language every day,
who make it what it is through its articulation and
its communication.

Which brings me to the final option: communication. A
language is nothing if it cannot communicate
sufficiently, and, as I have noted, in informal speech
words, phrases or terms that fail to take account of
this will be dropped and become mere literary
curiousities, scholarly specials to be taken out and
dusted off only out of curiosity. Take for example the
two Cornish language camps: one - Unified Cornish - is
interested in reviving Cornish from Middle Cornish,
and creating excessively 'pure' elements that are
neither English nor Latinate but loans from Welsh and
Breton. It would rather be like recreating English
from a Shakespeare play, but replacing Latinate terms
with borrowings from Frisian, Dutch and German. This
is intended to 'Celticise' Cornish, based on the
assumption that the Late Cornish vernacular was
'bastard' Cornish due to contact with English. Hence
such modern words as 'telephone' are discarded in
favour of conjectured contrivances. The Unified
Cornish for 'telephone' is 'pellgowser' (from pell
'far' + cows 'hearing' + er), and I rest my case.

In Late Cornish however, Latinate terms that occurred
are retained, and international usages maintained.
Hence the Late Cornish for 'telephone' is 'telephone',
etc. It is also ironic that Late Cornish - which is
Cornish as a vernacular - is more distinctive in that
it uses the pre-occlusion of the last speakers (i.e.,
'pedn' for Middle Cornish 'pen', 'mabm' for Middle
Cornish 'mam' and so on) and other native terms that
have survived into the Cornish English dialect;
further, Late Cornish actually has fewer English
loanwords than Middle Cornish - largely because Middle
Cornish is attested from miracle plays written in the
east of the country where English was already in use,
whereas Late Cornish is attested from the extreme
west, where English was last to penetrate.

Therefore the issue of purism depends very much on
what you intend to achieve when you create the
standard. If one wishes to create a 'national'
language as far removed from the tongue of the
oppressor as is possible, one may choose to scour
isolated dialects for divergent 'purisms' and to
conjecture 'native' versions. If one is seeking a
communicative language, it is best to be pragmatic:
but not so pragmatic that the language might as well
not exist, so beholden it is to the economy. If one
follows extremist purism, one creates a ridiculous,
unreal language that is not that of everyday speech;
but, conversely, if follows extremist pragmatism, one
ends up foregoing the minority language in favour of
the language of the oppressor "to get ahead".

Is this a sound assessment or am I entirely incorrect?

I'm very surprised that Frisian language television is
only available on cable. I assumed - naively,
evidently - that the Netherlands were fairly
enlightened when it came to minority issues, but if a
language that is spoken by the majority of Fryslan
(55%) is not broadcast so that majority can enjoy
television in its own language, that comes very close
to linguistic hegemony and intolerance. Very
disappointing.

Even in Ireland there is now an Irish-language
television service (Telefios na Gaeilge or TnaG),
which is similar in development to Sianel Pedwar Cymru
(S4C): it broadcasts one channel, entirely or largely
in Irish, and fills its schedules with general
interest programmes in the language rather tan just
the tiresome "ethnically relevant" programming that
results in an unhealthy self-awareness of minority
status and linguistic desperation. In fact, the
Welsh-language soap opera Pobol y Cwm enjoys an
audience share significantly greater than the number
of Welsh speakers in the population, which can only be
a Good Thing, as opposed to the 'token' programming
that seems to be favoured by the Scottish television
stations for Scots Gaelic. However, I fear Sandy and
John might have to help me out on this one seeing as
though I don't have access to Telefios, Telefios na
Seachdainn, Tir is Mara, na hEileanan nor Nodaidh,
Meusaidh or Alba. I noted in the schedules Na Ceiltich
(The Celts) which looked quite interesting... if
another instance of tiresome "ethnically relevant"
ghettoisation.

Has there been any Lallans-language television
programming there in Scotland? And what are other
Lowlanders experiences of minority language media
(including print media)?

----------

From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Language maintenance" LOWLANDS-L, 21.JUL.2000 (07) [E]

Dear all,

Henry wrote:

> I think we should stop waiting on them to
> acknowledge our rights, and give us "permission"
> (what an ugly word to use actually, who the hell are

> they we have to ask them for permission???) We
> should just take our right to use our language. And
> we should promote our culture ourselves. So who will

> set up a tv station in their mother tongue? Who will

> do the newspaper? Who a radio station?
> And in general: anything language related. If we can
> do that, then we have a renaissance. "They" don't
> even have to like it, let alone support it or make
> an effort for it. [...]
> My point is, we have to stop waiting on them to take
> action, and take action ourselves. Nobody will work
> for free in your graden, you shall have to work it
> yourself. It's your garden, not theirs...

Well, I agree entirely with all the sentiments here
expressed. The idea of "permission" is fairly
offensive when you think about it. It's all part of
turning a culture such as west Frisian - which is
spoken by a majority of those in Fryslan - into a
'minority' culture within a larger, externally
differentiated entity. Thus Frisians, despite being
the larger group in Fryslan, become a minority group
within the Netherlands. It's a dishonest techninque
that seeks to minoritise ways of thinking too: hence
the notion of 'permission' to speak one's language in
one's own territory. The more the minority can be made
silent, be made ineffective in its protests and
tolerant to linguistic oppression, the easier it is to
engender 'Netherlandisation' or 'Germanisation' or
'Anglicisation' policies with little chance of
opposition.

It's interesting to note how minority 'protest' is
distorted into being considered 'intolerant' or
'unwarranted' by the average member of the oppressor
culture. I take as my example standard English (and
indeed local variants) when they visit non-English
speaking areas of Europe. Very, very rarely does this
group make any effort to learn the host language,
particularly if within the United Kingdom, and seems
outraged at the merest intimation that they should
speak anything other than English.

I visited Carmarthen in Wales recently, which is
approximately 55-60% Welsh-speaking. I taught myself a
crash course in Welsh (I already knew a little) and
proceeded to use the language when asking directions,
etc. I noticed that people were significantly more
helpful when I did this, even though they indulged me
a little to give me directions in English (I having
not learnt them in Welsh).

However, I noticed a number of English who were being
very belligerent to Welsh-speakers: for example, I was
in a Welsh-speaking newsagents, having a stilted
conversation in the language when a couple of
English-speakers burst in and said "Oi! You got any
milk?" without waiting for our conversation to finish.
Whilst we were still speaking in Welsh, they
interjected "Oh, for God's sake don't tell me you
don't speak English." They were served (in English),
and on the way out one said to the other "See, they do
know English, you've just got to make them use it."
Similarly, when I walked about the town a little, I
noticed that a pair of Welsh-speakers were walking
past an English-speaking group, apparently (from what
I could ascertain) having a mundane gossip about the
weather. As they passed the English, one of the group
raised his voice (so that the Welsh speakers could
hear) and asserted "I bet they're talking about me in
that fucking language of theirs." to which the other
countered, "Well, that's why they use it, so they can
talk about people behind their backs."

However, in contrast, when I visited the
Welsh-speaking university the next day, I managed to
get by without speaking a word of English: I had a
conversation in Cornish, and a longer one with a
history tutor in Irish. But blissfully free of
"Saesneg"!

What we should remember when discussing whether or not
we should wait for government assistance in setting up
minority language radio/television stations is that
speakers of minority languages pay their taxes too,
and there is, therefore, an obligation on the
government of whichever province, state or country to
realise the existence of minority language and to
facilitate the possibility of existence within an
entirely Frisian, Lallans, Limburgs (for example)
mileau if that is what the mass of speakers desires.
To do otherwise is frankly offensive, exploitative and
imperialistic. Not to say that personal initiatives
shouldn't be enacted - they should indeed.

As for education and language: doesn't it appear
ridiculous that a pupil may receive her or his entire
verbal education through the minority or local
language, and yet when it comes to written assessment
the pupil is suddenly supposed to use the 'standard'
(i.e., the 'greater' language)? I remember a great
number of fellow pupils in my college in Long Eaton
(near Nottingham) who could argue effectively and
intelligently in the local language but who ended up
failing the course because they could not articulate
these same ideas in the alien idiom of written
standard English. It's very sad, and one that forces
hundreds of thousands of working-class students
throughout England to fail - and, of course, one that
conversely allows those who have RP as their home
language (mainly the middle and upper classes) to
succeed on paper. But when I mention this people call
it a "meritocracy" not a "murder machine"!

Until next time,

Criostoir.

----------

From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 23.JUL.2000 (02) [E]

Dear all,

> As I have always understood it, Lowland Scots - and
> this is very much true of Shetlanders - pride
> themselves on their hospitality towards incomers,
> and are very critical of the Welsh especially, and
> to some extent of the Gaels, for their attitudes to
> outsiders. I have heard Scots complain bitterly of
> the Welsh attitudes to Scottish holidaymakers in
> Wales; Inverness is often cited as an unfriendly
> city by Aberdonians (mind you, so is Aberdeen by
> Glaswegians), and I've lost count of the number of
> times people have told me that they've come into a
> pub where everyone was speaking English and everyone

> has immediately switched to Gaelic or Welsh.

This is an interesting assertion. In Cornwall we used
to abhor English tourists because of their horrendous
ignorance, belligerence and insistence on Cornwall
being English, etc. However, we used to love Scottish,
Welsh or Irish visitors because of a sense of
community born not just out of over-sentimental Celtic
romanticisms but out of a shared sense of injustice at
the hands of the English. For instance, most Scottish
and Welsh tourists used to mention how ashamed they
were to go on holiday anywhere outside the United
Kingdom because of the associative reputation of the
English; this particularly affected the Welsh who were
invariably seen as English outside of the United
Kingdom and Ireland.

The issue of Gaelic/Welsh lacking in hospitality is a
strange one. I've never felt it myself, but then I've
always known a few bits of Welsh to supplement my
Cornish and so I may not have been readily perceived
as an 'outsider'. I feel perhaps the notion of
inhospitable Welsh speakers may have developed out of
shock: that an English speaker could visit a part of
the United Kingdom (which is of course monoglot
English-speaking so far as the English would seek to
portray it) and not have English spoken to them. They
tend to see it as linguistic impudence, and further
the height of insolence to suggest that they might
wish to learn a touch of Welsh or Scots Gaelic to add
a little respect to their demands. These are the same
English-speakers who can't be bothered to learn
Catalan when they visit the Islas Baleares "because
everybody speaks English there anyway."

I point to the examples of two English-speaking
friends: one was a Greek who had learnt English and
the other was an English monoglot. They both wanted to
go to university in Wales, and, when they were
preparing to visit the universities there I suggested
- ever the pan-Celticist and minority conscience that
I am - that it may be thoughtful of them to learn a
little Welsh... say, the Welsh for 'How are you',
'Please' 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry'. My Greek friend
said, "Why should I? I learnt English, didn't I?" and
the monoglot retorted similarly "Why should I? They
all speak English too, don't they? I don't have to
learn Welsh, and I really can't be bothered to."

Thus there seems to be a sense of Welsh and Gaelic
being 'secret' languages rather than idioms of
everyday life, and I feel this assumption contributes
significant to English-speakers' disaffection when
they visit non-English speaking areas. There is also
the belief that Welsh and Gaelic speakers really use
English as their language between themselves, which is
patently ridiculous. I would put it down to English
ignorance rather than Welsh or Gaelic isolationism or
offence. In addition, we must recognise that for years
Welsh and Gaelic were willed not to exist, and this
may account for the feelings of protectionism
articulated by the above informant.

As for the English in Welsh-speaking Wales, well,
there hangs a thread. For a long time monoglot
English-speakers have been buying up cottages in
Welsh-speaking areas (with the heartland being the
Lleyn peninsula) and refusing to learn any Welsh
whatsoever, and indeed demanding that English be used
as Welsh is officially English-speaking as well as
Welsh-speaking. This has created great antagonism and
a number of resistance acts by Welsh speaking groups -
some paramilitary - that have burned English holiday
cottages and destroyed English-language signs in
Welsh-speaking areas. Thus Welsh-speakers often
associate English-speakers (rightly or wrongly) with a
threat to the Welsh language, and take direct action -
often violent - to counter this.

When I visited Carmarthen I noted that almost all
native Welsh there spoke the language, but all the
English immigrants there knew not a word. Each of the
shops I visited I greeted the proprietor in Welsh; in
each of the English shops this was replied with "I
don't know what you're saying... I only speak
English."

And just out of interest, if the informants said that
the pub spoke English but changed to Welsh when they
walked in, how did they know what language was being
used if they were outside?

Criostoir.

----------

From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 23.JUL.2000 (02) [E]

Dear all,

I agree that in part it's not important what English
speakers think about Scots. Certainly in the home
environment this doesn't matter. However, what we must
not forget is that English is the language of
authority, administration and, consequently,
government and education throughout the United
Kingdom. Therefore if Lallans is seen as an "aberrant
dialect of English" by the English, then the chances
are this is how the language will be seen by authority
within the country, leading to the language's
extirpation. Consequently, therefore, it is of the
utmost importance how the English see Lallans: because
they run the country - whether we Cornish, Scots,
Welsh et al like it or not - and their parliament in
London (where Cornish, Scots and Welsh member are by
slight of numbers impotent to act upon the English
will in the assembly there) passes the laws which
control the propogation of languages in the United
Kingdom.

The Scots Parliament is largely staffed by the same
collaborationist MPs as sit in Westminster, and
therefore they have - with the exception of the SNP,
the SSP and certain Liberal Democrat elements - thrown
their lot in with the monoglot English-speaking
hierarchy. To them, Lallans is not so much a dialect
even as a pronunciation, and the quicker they can
reduce the aberrant factors of it the easier it will
be to consolidate English hegemony within Scotland.
They are fully aware that Lallans is the primary
articulation of national sentiment in Scotland and
with Scots Gaelic forms a united front of Lowlander
and Highlander. Therefore, only English can be used to
keep Scotland within the union - or, better still:
Scottish English.

As for minority languages and ethnic minorities, John
Feather adds little to the debate by implying that
only bilingualism can prevail, with the 'standard'
language (i.e., English, German, Dutch etc.) alongside
the minority's own ethnic languages of Turkish,
Panjabi, Cantonese etc. This is an incredibly narrow
description and understanding of the situation with
reagrds to ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom at
least. John implies to begin with that ethnic
minorities are conversant in only one language outside
say 'standard' English, with it being Cantonese,
Panjabi etc. This is not the case. I have a very great
number of Asian friends, and most of them know Urdu,
Panjabi and Hindi as well often Arabic. It seems
multilingualism in Asian languages is the norm, and
amongst members of the British Chinese community most
appear to have a knowledge of standard Chinese,
Cantonese as well as Hokkien in some cases.

>From the few examples I know of ethnic minorities in
minority language areas, it appears that the
communities there have no difficulty whatsoever with
being multilingual in say, Gaelic, Urdu, Panjabi and
English (the example here cited is that of a family of
Pakistani origin in Steornabhagh in na hEileanan an
Iar), and I can see no conceivable reason why John
should limit instruction to the Asian language and the
'standard'. Indeed, our own experiences have shown
that if bilingualism is good, multilingualism is even
better, and the scope for including Gaelic and English
as well as Urdu and Panjabi in a child's cirriculum is
particularly useful for the child both culturally and
economically. The idea that ethnic minorities should
not learn minority languages such as Welsh and Gaelic
for "economic" reasons is something of a stereotype:
it implies the "grasping, indifferent immigrant" who
has no time for "native" cultures whilst "greedily"
protecting their "own culture". In my experience,
members of the Asian community have leapt at the
chance to learn languages other than English, and I
have instructed a small number in conversational
Irish.
There is no reason, therefore, that ethnic minorities
should not be encouraged from learning minority
languages if they have not already chosen to do so
(which is most unlikely).

In addition, I can't quite understand how teaching
Lallans is "linguistic imposition" of a "white
majority", John, given that if there were any language
most guilty of that moniker it would be 'standard'
English. There is also the implicit intimation there
that members of the Asian or black community don't
already learn Lallans as of rote. Is there any proof
for this? From my own experience I am certain that
ethnic minorities do learn local languages - indeed
all my Asian friends speak Nottingham English, not
that wonderful catch-all 'economic' asset of
'standard' English. The issue that should be addressed
most, therefore, is maintenance of ethnic minority
languages themselves, as they are most likely to be
discarde in favour of the 'standard' or the local
language.

To take another personal example, my friend Satinder
is a monoglot 'standard' English speaker, although
both her parents and her older and younger sisters
speak Panjabi as well as 'standard' English and the
local language. Unfortunately she was raised at a time
- Thatcher's bloody eighties - when Asians were told
that Panjabi, Urdu etc. were "Paki languages" that
were dirty, secretive and exclusive and
"anti-assimilation". Thus her parents out of
desperation resolved never to speak the language in
front of her and she herself actively opposed learning
Panjabi. As a result she is linguistically crippled
because she can't communicate with the older members
of her family nor take part in Sikh services at her
gurdwara. By the time her younger sisters appeared the
situation had changed and they learnt Panjabi: Sat,
however, was by this age (approximately twelve) by her
own admittance - "too old to learn it properly."

The assertion that cirricula can be overcrowded is
also a curious one. When I attended school we were
forced to take part in classes that "bulked out" or
"padded" the core subjects of English, Maths, Science
etc. These courses were of the type of Personal and
Social Education, Religious Education etc. all of
which were completely irrelevant and lessons we could
"piss about" in. If these had been replaced by
Cornish, Gaelic or whatever perhaps more of us would
have left school vaguely educated and interested in a
world beyond staring at a wall.

Until next time,

Criostoir.

----------

From: Colin Wilson [lcwilson at iee.org]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 23.JUL.2000 (02) [E]

At 21:52 23/07/00 -0700, john feather wrote:
>
>Not only do curricula get overcrowded but there is a danger that teaching
>Scots may be seen as a means of imposing the culture of the white majority

>on minorities.

There's no risk of that, of course, if it's taught only to children whose
families want them to learn it.

Colin Wilson.

*********************************************************************
                               the graip wis tint, the besom wis duin
Colin Wilson                   the barra wadna row its lane
writin fae Aiberdein           an sicna soss it nivver wis seen
                               lik the muckin o Geordie's byre
**********************************************************************

----------

From: Colin Wilson [lcwilson at iee.org]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" 15.JUL.2000 (04) [E/S]

At 18:55 15/07/00 -0700, Sandy Fleming wrote:
>(I, Colin Wilson, previously wrote)
>>Perhaps this is a first step that we ought to take, a survey of public
>>attitudes to the official promotion of Scots.
>
>And how is this going to be done?

I think the most obvious way is for the SLS to pay for someone to
do it, someone who has the relevant expertise. As far as I know,
the SLS could afford it.

>What's the point in doing a survey on a population who are
>deliberately kept
>in ignorance of their heritage by an educational system that
>constantly
>drums into them the fact that English is their first language even
>although
>it's clearly at odds with the way they speak at home? Where these
>days it
>isn't even always at odds with the way they speak at home any more,
>because
>their parents have been through a system that's taught them that
>their
>children should be spoken to in English? The authorities have already
>won on
>the public opinion stakes thourgh their educational system.

I'm not sure that this is entirely true. From social contacts I
know that there is a good deal of resentment here in the north-east
that people can receive programmes in Scottish Gaelic, but not in
their own tongue.

The resentment is misdirected, of course, but it does tend to show
that that the battle for public opinion isn't won entirely.

Colin Wilson.

*********************************************************************
                               the graip wis tint, the besom wis duin
Colin Wilson                   the barra wadna row its lane
writin fae Aiberdein           an sicna soss it nivver wis seen
                               lik the muckin o Geordie's byre
**********************************************************************

----------

From: John M. Tait [jmtait at altavista.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Language maintenance" LOWLANDS-L, 21.JUL.2000 (04) [E]

Criostoir wrote:

if an
>inhabitant of the United Kingdom is competing and they
>are Scottish, Welsh, Irish, black or Asian and they
>win they are "British" but if they do something wrong
>they revert to being Scottish, Welsh etc. In contrast,
>however, whenever an English person is competing they
>remain "English" - it's then called "A great day for
>England" - except when they do something wrong in
>which case they become instantly "British".
>
>Similarly, the past experience with English football
>hooligans has been to refer to them as "British
>football hooligans" - especially when they stab
>somebody, riot or smash up the continent. This ignores
>the hard fact that Scottish football supporters are
>reknowned for their good behaviour and their ability
>to get a poor game going by joining in singing with
>their opponents. I recall the wonderful sight in the
>1994 World Cup where at every game the Scottish
>supporters were integrated and mixing with their
>foreign counterparts, laughing and cheering with them.
>English fans, on the other hand, have to be segregated
>from their foreign counterparts unless somebody is
>kicked to death, stabbed, etc. But Scottish football
>supporters strangely always become "British football
>supporters" when they're setting a good example...
>

I agree with John Feather here - and Sandy has made the same point in the
past - in that my perception is just the opposite. Commentators nowadays
are usually extremely careful _not_ to make the above error - in fact, if
anything, it is the English identity which is played down, with successful
English athletes being referred to as 'British', and others as 'Scots' etc,
in deference to Scottish etc. feelings. This, of course, leads to a
resurgence of English identity, in that they feel - perhaps with some
justification - that they are being under-represented. I think the above is
a myth which has become ingrained due to some tendencies in the past
(probably exaggerated even then), and which has persisted in spite of the
facts.

I also remember that the English football hooligans were _always_ referred
to in broadcasting (I don't know about the tabloids) as English - certainly
in any channel which I can receive in Scotland. I can't imagine where the
opposite perception has come from.

>Scottish national identity has always been a drag to
>England and the English Empire, except when a
>stereotype to demonstrate supposed English superiority
>to everyone else is required. Hence the drunken,
>truculent Glaswegian or the token Scot to add a little
>"Britishness" to an English landscape. And Lallans has
>suffered as a result. It has been classified along
>with any other language spoken in the islands outside
>RP as a "peasant dialect" and accordingly stifled,
>hobbled and harrassed.

I repeat that this attitude is not so much English (whose opinions about
Scots don't matter anyway) as Scottish. For an example, look at the book
(reproduced on Sandy's website) written by a Scot in order to extirpate
Scottish expressions from Scottish English.
>
 In my
>experience, far more "native speakers" of minority
>languages are indifferent to the deplorable state of
>their rights than those who have lost their ancestral
>language. One should not knock anyone who supports a
>minority language. One may knock their reasons and
>their motives, but not their effort.

This is quite true. There is, however, a problem in that the 'translation'
Scots produced by what are effectively learners is then (because there is
so little Scots written by Scots speakers) represented as examples of Scots
writing. It also seems to be the case that many of those who produce Scots
of this sort see no reason why their Scots should not be regarded as as
authentic as Scots written by those who can also speak it.
>
The sad
>fact is that so many languages have been lost to
>cultural imperialism that there are far more "aspirant
>speakers" than "native speakers" of almost every
>minority language in Europe.

Certainly not true of Scots, of which there are many native speakers and
hardly any aspirant speakers. It is notable that most of those English
speakers who write in Scots for literary purposes never appear to even
attempt to speak it. There are also those who can write literary Lallans,
but cannot put together a letter in Scots.

I resolved then to combat this aggressive
>centralisation, so much so that I had my own chair in
>detention etc. But of course politics in
>schoolchildren and principles contrary to sucking up
>to authority are "disruptive". Indeed, whenever I hear
>about the latest increase in exclusion at school, I'm
>certain 90% is down to a reaction to the all-out
>attack working-class students face on their esteem,
>their politics, their desire not to follow orders
>blindly etc. Education education education?
>Indoctrination, eradication and neutralisation, more
>like.

As a father of two schoolchildren and husband of a teacher, I have to
disagree with this. In my opinion, the current government concern about
exclusions from school is due mostly to a reluctance to provide proper
resources for dealing with difficult pupils, the philosophy that they
should be integrated, while appearing to be liberal, actually being a
cost-cutting exercise. (It is interesting to see that the deaf community
also regards ostensibly liberal integrationist policies as oppressive,
because they deny deaf people the opportunity to become proficient in their
own natural languages, often producing people who are proficient in neither
BSL nor spoken English).

Moreover, as someone who comes from a working class background (and having
worked mostly in 'working class' jobs myself, one reason why I can speak
Scots as well as write it) I resent the impression that the working class
as a body are to be identified with a general attitude of
'anti-whatever-you-mention'. The message is plain: if the working class are
a.k.a. football hooligans, then I don't want my children to be working
class. If Scots is a working class language, used by football hooligans,
then I don't want my children to speak Scots. It is - as Sandy says -
people power, not only educational bias, which creates this situation; and
the attempt - greatly in favour with the literary establishment - to
characterise Scots as the language of agin-the-government fuck-you-ism
simply leads to a situation where it is exploited by writers (few of whom
probably speak it themselves) who wish to represent the speech of a social
underclass.
>
>There will never be an effective renaissance of
>minority cultures until the obstructionary
>collaborators who form the vast majority of local
>government in minority areas stop thinking about
>consolidating "national" culture and promote local
>culture.

But who votes for the collaborators? The present MSP for Shetland may have
been chosen primarily because he is a career politician seen as a future
asset to the Lib Dem party, but this doesn't stop the people of Shetland
for voting for him.
>
>
>> A new question: we know it can be sad when a
>> language or some aspect of a culture dies out, and
>> it can also be an intellectual loss in the
>> linguistic sphere. But is there any _ethical_ reason
>> why languages should be kept alive if the native
>> speakers no longer bother with it?

Replying to Sandy here, the problem is that the assumption that it is ok to
allow a language to die because its native speakers are no longer
interested is effectively to underwrite as ethical the circumstances which
led both to the decline of the language and to the lack of interest. There
is also a major question over the apparent assumption that ethics and
intelectual loss are not connected.

Ron wrote:

>(I am not including Switzerland here, where in the Germanic-speaking
regions
>"High" German is an official language but the native language of very few,
and
>many Swiss German speakers would like their varieties to gain independent
>status and acquire a common orthography independent from the German one.)

I heard that there was a recent referendum in which the Swiss rejected this
idea. Is this true?

John M. Tait.

----------

From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language conflicts

Dear Lowlanders,

As far as I know, a "minority" person (either "indigenous" or "foreign")
learning minority languages of countries or regions in which they live is
most certainly not unheard of, though it may be rare.

A friend of mine occasionally teaches Westerlauwer ("West") Frisian to
residents of Fryslân who were born outside the Netherlands or just outside
the province and whose first language is not Dutch, such as people from
Netherlands-dominated American regions and from Southern Europe.
Apparently, these people *elect* to learn the language of the region in
which they live, since there is no legal requirement to learn it.

I have spoken with a native Panjabi speaker who was born and raised in
Scotland and speaks Scottish English.  She told me that she also speaks
Scots.

Reportedly, there are cases of speakers of Turkish, Italian, etc.,
acquiring proficiency in Low Saxon (Low German) in Northern Germany.  Our
own Ms. Clara Kramer-Freudenthal
(http://www.geocities.com/sassisch/rhahn/kramer/) refers to one of these
cases in her story "Plattdüütsch leevt" ("Low German is Alive") at
http://www.geocities.com/sassisch/rhahn/kramer/plattdueuetsch.htm.  Of
course, there is the fairly well-known case of Maron C.Fort, an
African-American, who has acquired Northwestern Low Saxon of Germany at
what to me seems like perfect, native level
(http://www.bis.uni-oldenburg.de/medien/radio/literaturtelefon/literaturtelefon.html).
(I understand he wrote his dissertation on Sater Frisian, but I do not know
if and how well he can use that language himself.)

I have casually gathered that the main factor that motivates such people is
a social one, e.g., intermarriage with speakers of the minority language,
or use of the minority language predominating in the certain social and
work situation, learning it thus being perceived as a requirement for
inclusion.  (Of course, there will always be those who stury a minority
language because of academic interest.)  If this is so, then this would
suggest that the more the minority language is permitted to come out of
hiding and to predominate in certain social situations the likelier it is
for speakers of the majority language and "foreigners" to learn it.  In
other words, there need to be social incentives at the very least.
Assumedly also, making proficiency in a given minority language a
requirement or at least a desirable skill in employment offers (as is
increasingly the case with French in Canada and Spanish in the United
States) would also help generate more interest of this sort.  However, none
of this can even be seriously considered as long as the  native speakers
themselves do not openly and widely use their language and insist on using
it among other speakers.

I think it would be very interesting to conduct a scientific study trying
to identify incentives for minority language learning among "outsiders."

Finally a word of warning.
As we know from past experience and as is beginning to become apparent this
time around also, discussions in this thread tend to stir up great passion
and knee-jerk reactions in some.  Therefore, I appeal to everyone to use
restraint and to conduct the debates with courtesy and compassion.   On
this list we do not condone things like ethnic, national or sexual
generalizations and most certainly not personal attacks or put-downs.  We
all have our interests, passions, missions, convictions and "agendas," and
some people's postings may irk us; yet, we have to find ways of expressing
this with restraint, if at all.  Occasionally it is a good idea to think
twice or sleep on it before expressing opposition to what someone else has
written, especially where one feels personally attacked, be it directly or
by way of statements about ethnicities or nations with which one
identifies.  Ours is a very diverse group in every regard.  It is important
that we are constantly mindful of this.

Best regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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