LL-L "Language survival" 2002.10.02 (04) [E]
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L O W L A N D S - L * 02.OCT.2002 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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From: Mike-club <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2002.10.01 (03) [E]
Hi Ron, hi George, hi all Lowlanders,
If I may summarize Ron´s answer to my (admittedly) militant call for action:
Lots of good people do lots of good things behind the scenes for our
languages.
(I agree.)
There are lots of more good things we, you, me, everyone can do, should do
(I agree.)
Languages have, and always will, emerge, florish, change, deteriorate, die -
it´s a
fact of life. (I agree.) My point though was that nowadays, in the age of
universal human
rights, these processes are FORCED upon us with a violence hitherto unheard
of, at least in the area of languages. A sovereign even as late as the 18th
or 19th century in general didn´t care too much what his subject spoke. Yes,
I agree, all through the age evolution took its course. Sometimes evolution
was violent. But, the systematic, state-ordered violence towards languages
(and the cultures they carry) is a recent phenomenon, triggered by the
emergence of the so-called "nation" states. I was raped, culturally,
linguisticly, when I was denied access to my culture, deprived of my
childhood language, and a foreign language was forced upon me for the rest
of my days. I feel that I was denied a basic Human Right. And that´s what my
militant feelings are directed to. If I belonged to an ethnie, there clearly
was ethnocide.
George Gibault writes:
"...don't start with the politicians and lawyers..."
Whom else can I address my grievances about state-ordered violence to but to
state institutions, the justice system in this case? What are the
alternatives? Extra-judicial (but for heaven´s sake no violent) actions,
I proposed some in my posting.
George continues:
"Start with the kids - it is their brains and mouths which form the field on
which the campaign will be won or lost!"
And:
"If local young people don't have a major role in formulating local language
policy its chances for success are dim."
Right you are George, oh so right!
If you knock someone down in the street and police arrives, can you point to
him and say: "Look he doesn´t even WANT to get up."
Who was there when little Mike Wintzer was a receptive kid??? The almighty
state with its mandatory school system that knew (and still does know) only
one language - its own official "national" language, foreign to the land.
Who gave young Mike a chance to
"formulate local language policies"??
Better late than never, now he wants
his voice to be heard. And I am sure that many of the
Lowlanders, if they look at it this way, if they really become aware of
their ethnic affiliation and what happened to it, will want their voices to
be heard , too. That was the sense of my wake-up call.
Mike Wintzer
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From: Mike-club <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2002.10.01 (07) [E]
Hi all,
What Kevin mentions there is an interesting phenomenon. He is deeply
involved in our list and its languages, but concedes not (yet I hope) having
giving much thought to the languages in his own FL.
This reminds me
1. of a man named Kremnitz, a brilliant scholar of the Occitan language. He
was (still is, I met him 30 years ago when I got first interested in
Occitan) professor at the University of Münster (Westphalia). When I asked
him about the respective positions of Occitan vis-à-vis French and L-Saxon
(platt I said in those days) vis-à-vis German, I drew a complete blank, and
I found impossible to make him understand what I was talking about.
2. A bit further back in time still, of myself. When I first came to
Occitania and discovered the language, it took me some time (albeit only a
few days) to start drawing the parallels with my own tongue. Like Kevin, I
clearly saw what was the situation of another "minority" language, but
failed to grasp, at first, the situation in my own home country.
Tschüß, Mike
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From: Mike-club <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2002.10.01 (05) [E]
Thank you all for your enlightening discussions about the
Baltic/Slavonic/Germanic interactions. I learnt a lot I didn´t know about my
former
close neighbors.
Now can anyone enlighten me on this:
Does the name "Russia" have anything to do with "Prussia", etymologically
speaking?
I remember from my childhold the word "Reußen" which sounded like "Preußen"
without the P. Cannot recall at all what "Reußen" .was used for.
Tschüß, Mike
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language survival
Mike,
I'm sure other have more enlightening things to say about the name
"Russian," but let me just quickly add that _russ_ or something of the sort
started off being the name for Swedes, or at least for the tribe of Vikings
from somewhere in Sweden that navigated the rivers of Russia and Ukraine all
the way down to Byzantine Constantinopel (today's Istanbul). First they
traded and established settlements along the way (and this is why Arabic
coins of that time were unearthed in many parts of Eastern Europe, Northern
Germany and Scandinavia). Then, according to old Scandinavian sources, the
local Slavs "asked us to come and rule over them" (which I take with a huge
grain of salt). The ruling class of those area thus consisted largely of
Scandinavians for a while, and they were eventually absorbed into the
general population. Unearthed Viking settlements and boats, personal names
such as Ol'ga (< Helga), and the ethnonym "Russ" are among traces of their
one-time presence.
The Finnic peoples of the Baltic Sea region (who also call Germany "Saxony")
still call Swedes and Sweden by this old name:
Swede/Swedish Sweden German Germany Russian Russia
Finnish: ruotsalainen Ruotsi saksalainen Saksa venäläinen Venäjä
Karelian: ? ? ? ? ? ?
Estonian: rootslane Rootsi sakslane Saksa venelane Venemaa (?)
Livonian: ? ? ? ? ?
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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