LL-L: "Language maintenance" LOWLANDS-L, 04.MAR.2001 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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  L O W L A N D S - L * 04.MAR.2001 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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  A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
  LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic, Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language maintenance

Dear Lowlanders,

I have been following the recent exchange between Críostóir, Colin and
Sandy with great interest, but I have not been able to participate until
today because things have been a bit messy and busy at this end.  I think
that Críostóir, Colin and Sandy have made some really eloquent and
thought-provoking comments.  They all made good points.  It seems to me
that their respective positions are not all that diverse and could be
brought together given a bit of clarification and flexibility.

I agree with Críostóir in that a interdialectal lingua franca (synthesized
or not) could come to be seen as yet another superior variety, certainly if
traditional European elitist thinking modes are allowed to continue, namely
this idea that a language is only a real language if it is a
_Kultursprache_, a "culture-bearing language."  Of course, most of us know
that all language varieties are culture-bearing and that oral literature
deserves as much respect as written literature.  However, "culture"
according to entrenched elitist ideals is only worthy of respect if it is
written, dominant and "classical."  However, this does not *have* to be
perpetuated or recreated given the right approach.  We do not have to
create Scots and Low Saxon (Low German) "educated" varieties and promote
them as superior (like "High" German or "Queen's English").

As far as I am concerned, any move that brings closely related varieties
together while respecting their individual integrity is a move in the right
direction and is likely to be empowering.  The alternative would be
perpetuation of current disintegration, segregation and disunity, which are
the main causes of weakness and thus are the main threats to the survival
in the case of Low Saxon at least.  Even if these varieties continue to
exist for a while longer without any sort of unification, many, probably
most, of its speakers would continue to believe that their languages are
not worthy of being written, are not good enough for "serious" literature,
are really just stunted, inferior, low-class varieties of the dominant
languages, of *foreign* languages, namely that the "superior" register of a
Low Saxon speaker must be Dutch or German (depending on which side of the
border she/she happens to live) and that of a Scots speaker must be
English.

Furthermore, we need to define what we mean by "standardization."  Are we
going to appoint a panel of "experts" in charge of engineering a new
standard language variety?  This would be extreme, but it has been done,
for instance in post-colonial Africa.  This would mean handing a lot of
power to a few people.  Or are we content with merely "kick-starting" a
unification process in a concerted effort, with openness to input from
anyone?  I would be quite happy with no more than the latter.

For instance, a great start would be if we could create a standardized
spelling system that is simple and inter-dialectally applicable, without
aiming at obliterating individual dialectal characteristics.  As Colin
explained:

> One example that I often like to offer is that of Scottish Gaelic,
> where a common orthographic convention is used (previously based on
> a translation of the Bible from the 18th century, now based on a
> document issued by the Scottish Education Department in 1985) but
> in other respects speakers are free to use local forms at EVERY
> level of discourse.

If I understand it correctly, this is also the case with Nynorsk, the
alternative to the majority Dano-Norwegian Bokmål in Norway.  Over time, a
written language with definite orthographic rules but with somewhat lax
grammatical and lexical rules has been evolving and keeps on evolving.  In
most cases, people's dialects show through in their writing or oratory,
dialects that are used at home or with people who easily understand them.
Written or formally spoken Nynorsk thus plays a unifying role, may
influence spoken varieties but does not kill them.

This type of facilitated inter-dialectal communication would create a
situation in which people find it easy to read not only works in their own
dialects but also works in related dialects, while the use of different
spelling systems on top of dialectal differences creates inter-dialectal
barriers, which reinforces isolation and isolationism and thus accelerates
disintegration and extinction.

While I am all for people being allowed the choice of staying within the
confines of their own dialects and to be purist about it, I would be happy
if this unification effort would include some liberalization, namely if it
would permit the alternative choice of borrowing from other dialects if one
so desires, for instance in creative writing.  This latter choice has been
exercised by many writers in other languages before, and some of them, such
as Martin Luther, came to be lauded as language unifiers.  In the case of
Low Saxon (Low German) we currently have a situation that one might call
"dialectal apartheid," where speakers and writers are criticized for not
sticking to their native dialects.  In other words, these critics, in the
name of promoting their minority language, help to drive the nails into its
coffin, and they tend to be same people that have no problem lauding Martin
Luther for his great service to the German language.

Yes, I do dislike, even hate, any form of elitism and chauvinism, but I
dislike any form of segregation or apartheid just as much.  If we all had
to be confined to our own home dialects and were not allowed to
linguistically mix and gradually create common ground, would this not be a
case of linguistic segregation, of language apartheid?  Is Críostóir not at
least indirectly advocating it with his argument against standards?  Should
we shoot ourselves in the foot and let our powerless languages disintegrate
further and thus let them fritter away into oblivion because of our
political knee-jerk reactions, because "standardization" sounds like
"statism" sounds like "domination," etc., etc.?

Críostóir has a lot of interesting and thought-provoking things to say, and
I certainly appreciate this, his fervor and the time and effort he puts
into it.  However, I do not agree with his statement that written standards
are by definition "an instrument of statism."  How can they be in the case
of minoritized, suppressed and disenfranchised languages, languages that
are dominated, themselves dominate nowhere and cannot be expected to ever
dominate anywhere, if they can even be expected to survive?
Language-internal elitism does not have to arise if we do not allow it to.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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