LL-L "Low Saxon" (was "Plautdietsch") 2002.03.26 (07) [E]

Tue Mar 26 21:55:55 UTC 2002

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 26.MAR.2002 (07) * 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 Eldo,

Sorry about not replying earlier to your inquiry about Plautdietsch.  I
enjoyed the splendid weather and scenery in British Columbia over a long
weekend, as I am sure so did you, riding your bike while trying not to
get hit by drivers from Seattle and by even more aggressive Vancouver
drivers.

I am by no means an actual specialist of Low Saxon, though I know a lot
about it and understand all its dialects that are spread from the
Danish-German border in the north to about the Harz Mountains in the
south and from the Eastern Netherlands in the west to today's
German-Polish border in the east.  Originally, the territory extended as
far as today's Russian Kaliningrad (German Königsberg).

Low Saxon (Low German) is a descendant of Old Saxon, which is usually
seen as a sister sub-branch of Low Franconian (Dutch, Zeelandic) on a
branch named "Low German."  In Germany, the name "Old Saxon"
(Altsächsisch) is commonly used in academia, while the old Germanization
movement dictated using "Old Low German" (Altniederdeutsch) when
addressing common mortals.  Medieval Low Saxon (Middle Low Saxon ~
Middle Low German), especially the dialect of Lübeck, was used as an
international lingua franca of the Hanseatic Trading League that
dominated most of the North Sea and Baltic coasts from about the 10th to
the 17th centuries; thus it was used as a language of commerce as far
away as Antwerp, Bergen, Tallinn and Western Russia.  It was mostly
after the Protestant reformation that German (High German) began to
encroach from the south upon Northern Germany's Low-Saxon-speaking
areas, beginning with the upper urban classes, and the original language
of the land began to undergo suppression and denigration.  In the
Netherlands' eastern provinces, a similar situation exists with regard
to Low Saxon, in this case being overshadowed and in large measure
replaced by Dutch.  Low Saxon in both countries began a long life as a
closet language, and it has been declared virtually extinct for about
three hundred years now, but extinct it is not yet.  A revival movement
in the 19th century breathed some life back into the language by showing
that it can still be written and used creatively, this giving quite a
few speakers the courage to keep using it and passing it on.  This was
soon followed by what is now known as "the dark age" of the language, an
era that was darkest from the end of World War II until about the 1980s,
an era of neglect and discouragement, especially in the larger cities.
Low Saxon is now officially recognized as a regional language of
Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands within the framework of the
European Language Charter.  There are some encouraging signs lately, but
then again, much turns out to be little more than fads and patronizing,
and there is still much resistance and disdain on the part of
officialdom.  There is a good deal of Low Saxon literature being
written, and some of it even gets published, but most publishers still
shun modern and experimental works and instead publish the tried and
true hoom-papa-good-old-times stuff.

The classification of Low Saxon in what is now Northern Germany is at
first glance straightforward.  Please take a look at simplified maps:
http://www.geocities.com/sassisch/rhahn/low-saxon/lowsax-engl.htm
http://nedersaksisch.cjb.net/

The older language territory in the west of Northern Germany is divided
into three dialect groups: North Saxon (or Northern Low Saxon/Northern
Low German), Westphalian, and Eastphalian.  It becomes a little more
complicated as you cross the border into the Netherlands' eastern
provinces.  My rough guess is that the northern Low Saxon dialects
(Groningen, Drenthe) are extensions of North Saxon and the southern Low
Saxon dialects are extensions of Westphalians.

Things get really complicated once we turn eastward.  Low Saxon (Low
German) is basically divided into "Western Low Saxon" and "Eastern Low
Saxon."  Eastern Low Saxon (whose border roughly coincides with
Germany's postwar East-West division) is really a rather complex jumble
of dialects and dialect groups.  The surviving dialects of Northeastern
Germany can be roughly divided into Mecklenburg-Pomeranian in the north
(with Mecklenburgish and Pomeranian as sub-groups), and
Mercian-Brandenburgish (Märkisch-Brandenburgisch) in the south (with
Mercian and Brandenburgish as sub-groups).  The east-west borderline is
rather "soft."  Thus, the Mecklenburg and North Saxon dialects are
really on a quasi-continuum (and mutually very well comprehensible), and
there is not all that much of a difference between the eastern
Eastphalian dialects and the western Mercian dialects.  What
distinguishes the eastern dialects is that they have West Slavic more
substrates and ("High" and "Central") German as well as some Dutch
influences.  These areas used to be dominated by speakers of West Slavic
languages (mostly Polabian, Pomeranian) that had been conquered by
"Germans" and had been converted not only to Christianity but also to
the "German" of the invaders, colonizers and clergy.  Those languages
are extinct and little-know, but Slavic features remain in the eastern
Low Saxon (and German) dialects, for instance lexical ones, (e.g.,
_Dööns_ 'living room', 'parlor' < Polabian *_dörnitse_ < *_dvornica_
"room by the door," "front room") and morphological ones (e.g.,
diminutive _-ing_ ~ _-ink_ < Polabian *_-inke_ < *_inka_; e.g.,
_Mudding_ 'mommy').  I also suspect that _j-_ for _g-_ in the east
(including Plautdietsch) and the unrounding of front rounded vowels (/ü/
> /i/, /ö/ > /e/) are due to Slavic substrates.  They are also a feature of the ("High") German dialects of the same areas.  In the northeast, immigrating Saxon speakers came into contact with German speakers much earlier than in the west, and immigrants from what are now the Netherlands and Belgium added to the complex linguistic mix that was heavily influenced by Slavic and in some areas also by Baltic.

Farther east, in areas that were once dominated by Germany and are now
parts of Poland and Russia, Low Saxon used to be used but is now
virtually extinct.  (There may be a few remaining speakers, especially
displaced persons, emigrants and some of their children.)  Plautdietsch
(Mennonite Low Saxon/Low German) is a dialect (or sub-dialect group) of
"West Prussian" Low Saxon from the delta of River Vistula (Weichsel).
Mennonite immigrants from Northwestern Germany and various parts of what
are now the Netherlands (including Fryslân) settled there and adopted
the local dialect.  I do not know if they spoke the dialect exactly as
their non-Mennonite neighbor did or if already in the early days they
spoke a distinct sub-dialect with Dutch, Frisian and Northwestern Low
Saxon substrates.  Later on they took this dialect with them when they
emigrated to "New Russia" (Ukraine) and later farther on into Siberia,
Central Asia and the Americas, with time creating sub-dialects.  The
fact that they took this dialect with them saved this form of Low Saxon
among them, whereas in its homeland it came to be extinct.

I hope I have answered your question, at least basically, Eldo.  As you
probably know, our own Reuben Epp has described the history of the
language very well in one of his books: (1993); _The Story of Low German
& Plautdietsch: tracing a language across the globe_; Hillsboro (USA):
The Reader's Press (psdirect at southwind.net).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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