LL-L: "Low Saxon" LOWLANDS-L, 04.OCT.2001 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 04.OCT.2001 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachian, 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: Low Saxon

Dear Lowlanders,

It was good to be away for a while (on vacation), but it is just as good to be
back, also on Lowlands-L, which Sandy Fleming ran so ably in my absence.

My visit to Northern Germany coincided with the terrorist attacks in the
United States.  More precisely stated, we had arrived in my native city of
Hamburg four days before it happened, and we watched much of the live reports
on CNN.  We had just managed to get tickets to a concert of music written by
the native son Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and other baroque composers,
featuring the trumpet virtuoso Ludwig Güttler in the baroque cathedral of St.
Michael (St. Michaelis, Hamburg's landmark, affectionately called "Michel").
After some deliberation we did attend the concert, despite the day's grim
happenings.  There were speeches, a minute of silence, bell ringing, and the
event had been changed into a memorial concert with only somber music and no
applause.  For the rest of our stay in Hamburg and environs, there were
various types of expressions of sympathy and support for the United States
everywhere.  The day's events felt awfully close, especially when we found out
that one of the terrorists had lived and studied only a few blocks from my
brother's place and when increased security measures and changed flight
schedules made our return to Seattle a lengthy, grueling undertaking.

Linguistic Observations:

Since I was visiting Northern Germany primarily for family reasons, and only
briefly so, I was unable to do as "thorough" an "assessment" of things Low
Saxon (Low German) as I usually do on my visits, although none of my visits
ever consists of much more than a series of glimpses by a quasi-outsider.
However, this time around I did at least manage to search for Low Saxon
material in a number of bookstores in Hamburg and Lunenburg
(Lüünborg/Lüneburg), talk with several people of different ages and with
different levels of interest about the language, and received some in-person,
in-depth information from Clara Kramer-Freudenthal (who is also a LL-L
subscriber) and from Jürgen Hebold, a common friend and language activist, who
sent me off with a large bag full of recent publications.  (I will list some
noteworthy titles at the end.)

My overall assessment is that at least in the large metropolis Hamburg the
situation of Low Saxon (Low German) does not seem particularly promising,
despite recent official recognition of it as a regional language in Northern
Germany and the Eastern Netherlands.  The average person does not really know
about the change of status or does not really understand it.  At least, it
makes little or no difference to them and their attitude toward the language,
although now there seem to be more people who come out and say things like "I
sure love listening to it" and "I wish I had grown up 'platt'," and you will
find Low Saxon used more frequently for commercial gimmicks.  (The period
between World War II and the early 1980s is now generally considered "the dark
age" of the language.)  City people above the age of forty who do not speak
the language themselves report that they understand it anywhere between
"pretty well" and "hardly at all."

At least in Northern Germany's larger city, and probably also in smaller ones,
Low Saxon continues to lead a mostly closet existence where it does survive.
People use it if clearly given the green light, where there is no danger of it
being interpreted as crass or uneducated, where there is no doubt about the
speaker's acceptable level of formal education and "High" German proficiency.
I was surprised when some elderly neighbors, with whom I had always spoken
German, felt encouraged enough to suddenly switch to Low Saxon while speaking
to me, because they had heard about my Low Saxon interests and activities.  In
all the years I had known them I had been unaware that they were proficient in
the language, and they had always assumed that I was not, because I grew up in
the "dark age" of the language.  For them the language is still a private
thing.  They use it with certain people in relative privacy and seem to assume
that it will disappear with their generation, like a traditional, thoroughly
unfashionable costume that they take out of their inheritance chest and don
only on special occasions.

The only place where on my brief visit I heard the language being used openly
was in the weekly farmers' market in Lunenburg.  Most vendors are at home in
rural areas, and even some "younger" ones (in their 30s and 40s) have Low
Saxon "accents" and will speak Low Saxon if the customer does so first.  (This
is the result of my rather unscientific test.)

There is much ignorance with regard to Low Saxon -- certainly in Hamburg.
Only people who are well read about the subject may understand what you mean
by "Low Saxon" (_Neddersassisch/Niedersächsisch_).  Even the name
_Nedderdüütsch/Niederdeutsch_ ("Low German") is not understood by all.  It is
considered a more "learned" version of the common name
_Platt(düütsch)/Platt(deutsch)_.  When I was talking with a couple of
neighbors (in Low Saxon) and used the name _Nedderdüütsch_, one of them asked,
_Wat is dat denn?_ ("What on earth is that?"), and the other answered, _Dat is
ook so 'n Aard Platt_ ("It's a type of 'Platt' too."), and I had to explain
that it was only an alternative name for the same thing.  On two occasions,
when I asked young bookstore sales assistants where their _niederdeutsche_
books were, they asked, _(Meinen Sie) plattdeutsche?_  In one store, the owner
did understand and, assuming my ignorance, gave a mini-lecture, saying among
other things, _Das ist ja eigentlich auch eine Art Fremdsprache_ ("Actually,
that's some sort of foreign language too."), to which I replied, _Ja, leider_
("Yes, unfortunately.").  I asked why in that case she shelved the books under
_Heimatkunde_ together with books of local interest instead of under
_Sprachen_ ("Languages").  She explained that she was merely following
tradition and that it was assumed that the average customer was not ready for
such a "radical" reclassification.  This type of explanation -- "We have to
keep things traditional and simple for the average, ignorant Jo" -- is the
usual excuse for treating the language as a "down home" topic and thus for
perpetuating the image of it as _Mundart_ ("dialect") rather than as _Sprache_
("language"), as a language among other languages.

Low Saxon book offerings vary greatly from store to store.  Even in store
chains it seems to depend on the individual book buyers' personal choice.
Thus, I found radically different offerings in two downtown branches of
Thalia, no more than a ten-minute walk's distance from each other.  The
better, wider choice was found at the smaller of the branches.  Parochial and
comedic works predominate by far, and some stores stock no "serious" titles at
all, not even dictionaries.  I did not find any copies of serious literary
works at all, such as those by Waltrud Bruhn.  The smaller Thalia branch did
offer the readers for schools in Schleswig-Holstein.  (See below.)  I found
better selections in Lunenburg than in Hamburg, Lunenburg being a much
smaller, provincial city.  Serious students of the language would need to rely
on libraries (especially Hamburg's Carl-Toepfer-Bibliothek) and would need to
research offerings and order books through certain stores.  In other words,
ordinary bookstores do not usually represent what is really available.  They
tend to stock only what they believe to be demanded by the public, and thus
they dictate by way of imposed limitation.  As a result, the ordinary
interested person who relies only on local bookstores and does not conduct any
research beyond that will be made to believe that light, trivial entertainment
is all that is available in the language, and this serves to perpetuate the
image of the language and its literature as provincial and inconsequential.

By and large, the electronic and print media also help to perpetuate this
image.  Where Low Saxon is included in local newspapers it tends to be
relegated to small, chatty columns.  Its use in television tends to be minimal
and limited to light entertainment.  Hamburg's Ohnsorg Theater, which
specializes in Low Saxon plays, still adapts its plays for TV: in German
translation with an "accent."  It is only on the radio that you hear "serious"
news in Low Saxon, usually in abbreviated form, and once in a while serious
radio plays are broadcast.

In short, I came away with the impression that, despite recent political
gains, marginalization of Low Saxon in Northern Germany continues, that most
of its speakers continue to use the language mostly outside public arenas,
that most people still do not think of it as a legitimate, independent
language, that those who are seriously interested in it must still go out of
their way, must join marginal minority networks to gain access to the full
range of publications and performances in the language.  I assume that the
situation is not quite as dire in certain areas, such as Eastern Friesland,
but I also assume that the trend is still a general one.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

***

Here are some of the books I brought with me, which I have added to our list
at http://www.geocities.com/sassisch/rhahn/lowlands/low_saxon_offline.htm:

Bartsch, Dietrich, & Claus Schuppenhauer, _Platt för di un mi : Ein
niederdeutsches Lesebuch für Schleswig-Holstein_, vol. 1, published by the
Stiftung Mecklenburg in collaboration with the Institut für Niederdeutsche
Sprache, Husum: Husum Druck, 1997, 212 pp., ISBN: 3880428220, DM 24.80, EUR
12.68 (The first of a series of three readers [poetry and short prose] for
school grades 3-5 in a variety of Schleswig-Holstein dialects)

Bartsch, Dietrich, & Claus Schuppenhauer, _Platt för Land un Lüüd : Ein
niederdeutsches Lesebuch für Schleswig-Holstein_, vol. 2, published by the
Stiftung Mecklenburg in collaboration with the Institut für Niederdeutsche
Sprache, Husum: Husum Druck, 1999, 255 pp., ISBN: 388042899, DM 24.80, EUR
12.68 (The second of a series of three readers [poetry and short prose] for
school grades 5-10 in a variety of Schleswig-Holstein dialects)

Bartsch, Dietrich, & Claus Schuppenhauer, _Platt för hüüt un morgen : Ein
niederdeutsches Lesebuch für Schleswig-Holstein_, vol. 3, published by the
Stiftung Mecklenburg in collaboration with the Institut für Niederdeutsche
Sprache, Husum: Husum Druck, 1999, 212 pp., ISBN: 3880428999, DM 24.80, EUR
12.68 (The third of a series of three readers [poetry and short prose] for
school grades 10-13 in a variety of Schleswig-Holstein dialects)

Cyriacks, Hartmut, & Peter Nissen, _Sprachführer Plattdüütsch : Ein Lehr- und
Lernbuch_, Hamburg: Quickborn, 1997, 93 pp., ISBN: 3876512042, DM 12.91, EUR
6.60 (introductory Low Saxon textbook with an emphasis on conversation)

Cyriacks, Hartmut, & Peter Nissen, _Zweitausend (2000) Wörter Plattdüütsch :
Ein Gebrauchswörterbuch_, Hamburg: Quickborn, 1998, 102 pp., ISBN: 3876512069,
DM 12.91, EUR 6.60 (selection of Low Saxon words and their usage)

Herrmann-Winter, Renate, _Neues hochdeutsch-plattdeutsches Wörterbuch für den
mecklenburgisch-vorpommerschen Sprachraum : Phrasen und Redensarten_, Rostock:
Hinstorff, 1999, 280 pp., ISBN 3356008110, DM 19.79, EUR 10.12 (A German-Low
Saxon dictionary of the dialects of Mekelnborg/Mecklenburg and Western
Pomerania)

Herrmann-Winter, Renate, _Plattdeutsch-hochdeutsches Wörterbuch für den
mecklenburgisch-vorpommerschen Sprachraum_, Rostock: Hinstorff, 4th ed., 1999,
400 pp., ISBN 3356003755, DM 19.79, EUR 10.12 (A Low Saxon-German dictionary
of the dialects of Mekelnborg/Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania, a remake of a
classic, this one printed in Finland)

Müns, Heike, ed., _Dat du mien Leewsten büst : 200 plattdeutsche Lieder aus
Vergangenheit und Gegenwart_, Rostock: Hinstorff, 1998, 440 pp., ISBN:
3356007874, DM 24.00, Euro 12.27 (200 Low Saxon songs with musical notation
and guitar chords)

Nissen, Peter, _schellen, schafutern un schanderen : Schimpfwörterbuch für
Schleswig-Holstein_, Leer: Schuster, 1996, ISBN 3796303285, 227 pp., DM 26.79,
EUR 13.70 (An index of colorful expressions with explanations, in part rather
on the profane side)

Also, I am now the proud owner of the following, which has long been out of
print, a four-volume dictionary of a Lower Elbe dialect:

Teut, Heinrich, _Der plattdeutsche Wortschatz des Landes Hadeln (Niederelbe)_,
vol. 1, A-F, 1960, Neumünster: Wachholz, 610 pp.

Teut, Heinrich, _Der plattdeutsche Wortschatz des Landes Hadeln (Niederelbe)_,
vol. 2, G-K, 1959, Neumünster: Wachholz, 507 pp.

Teut, Heinrich, _Der plattdeutsche Wortschatz des Landes Hadeln (Niederelbe)_,
vol. 3, L-Z, 1959, Neumünster: Wachholz, 499 pp.

Teut, Heinrich, _Der plattdeutsche Wortschatz des Landes Hadeln (Niederelbe)_,
vol. 4, S-Z + addenda, 1959, Neumünster: Wachholz, 702 pp.

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