LL-L "Language survival" 2002.09.29 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 29.SEP.2002 (08) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic
               V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: erek gass <egass at caribline.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2002.09.29 (02) [D/E]

I specified FRANCE.  Frankish has, of course, evolved (and in that sense,
survived) outside of France.

Erek

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From: Nigel Smith <rnigelsmith at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2002.09.29 (02) [D/E]

While we are on the subject of language survival/extinction, list
members may be interested to know that BBC Radio 4 (the 'serious' or
'factual' BBC radio channel, covering the UK) is broadcasting a new
series, _Lost for Words_, about imminent language death/extinction. The
first programme, which I haven't heard yet, and which is not to the best
of my knowledge directly relevant to the Lowlands languages (but may
nevertheless be of interest) is available from the BBC's website at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/lostforwords.shtml. The programme is
broadcast on Wednesday mornings at 11.00 BST (10.00 GMT).

Nigel Smith
rnigelsmith at hotmail.com

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From: Mike-club <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: language policies

Dear Lowlanders,

After I longish absence I managed in a few of days to wade through, or
rather fly over, a two-months backlog of LL-L messages. Fascinating reading.
The LL-L archive must be a gold mine for linguists.

I came across such poignant and also disturbing statements as «A revived
language IS an island» (in the sense of having lost its cultural context,
couldn't find it back to quote literally or to give credit to the author).
Daniel Prohaska writes: «A language movement almost requires the absence of
a traditional linguistic community, otherwise its loss would not be felt.»

These 2 statements taken together should be of greatest concern to us all.

Languages are much more than putting words to things and actions, they are
an expression of culture, they reveal each a unique way of looking at the
world. (Any need to explain this to Lowlanders?) Losing a language is losing
an aspect of humanity. We are witnessing, in the Lowlands and worldwide a
rapid loss of languages, a slaughtering of local cultures at an accelerating
rate. We all know it, we all see it, are conscious about it.

In the postings of the last two months I have seen

Ross Ahlfeld witnessing to this: «If a school pupil was to speak [Scots]
he...would be disciplined...[Languages are] actually slaughtered by
attrition.»

Erek Gass witnessing to this: (quoting an American school book) «Catalan is
a mixture of Spanish and French.» to then draw the obvious conclusions.

Fiete Neumann witnessing to this: «...pupils...were forced to
learn...German.»

Ole Stig Andersen witnessing to this: «90% of the World's araund 6000
languages are moribund and will disappear within this century...Lowland
languages are among them.»

All of us witnessing to this with every posting or just by taking an
interest in LL-L.

So what are we doing about this?? Let me review the situation. There is a
dozen or so European-Union member states, soon there will be two or three
dozen, with roughly as many official languages (some have several, others
share one), which are enforced as the sole languages of education,
administration, media, public life in general, at the expense of literally
hundreds of other European languages with tens of millions of speakers. The
European Charter (or is it Charta?) only reinforces and cements the
domination of the official languages by sanctioning the status of the other
languages as «lesser», «minor». I ask myself: What gives the right to
London, Den Haag, Berlin, Paris to enforce their languages as the official
ones over the entire territories they exercise power over by the respective
constitutions. There is the answer: Power. Which justifies violence (?).

I put it to you that what Ross Ahlfeld, Fiete Neuman, we all are witnessing
are acts of violence. I put it to you that human rights are constantly
violated in all but a few countries (such as Iceland or Malta).

What are we, 400 Lowlanders, who we realize this, going to do about it? Are
we going to let them get away with it? Are we not going to take our
governments to court over it? Are we 400, or the 4000 or 40 000 who share
our grievances, not strong enough to take legal action? Is there no lawyer,
or someone knowing a lawyer, with guts enough to take our cause to the
international courts? With the moral and financial help of thousands of
supporters this should just be a question of getting our act together and
getting the ball rolling.

Take an example: There are some 25 million L-Saxons. Many of them cannot
take a case to court anymore, because it was their parents or grandparents
whose human rights were violated. Many of those who still could, will not
want to, because they have been denied their identity by the very same
process, the state-ordered patoisation of their culture and language. But
the «thousands» sufficient to initiate and support legal action should be
possible to assemble, if not Europe-wide, then world-wide.

Let me consider this from another angle: Which minorities get international,
world-wide attention and get anywhere? The Lowland so-called minorities
don't. The Inuit, the Tibetans, the Australian aborigines, the hill tribes
of Indochina and Indonesia, the Indians of the Americas, the L-Saxons and
the Frisians don't. The Sioux did a few decades ago, the East-Molukkans did
in the 70s. The Corsicans, Basques, Northern-Irish, Kurds, Palestinians have
the quasi-continuous attention of the World. The Blacks of South-Africa, the
East-Timorese got their rights. What is the common denominator of all this?
The answer is: Only spectacular, media-efficient action will get the
attention of the world and thereby, eventually, lead to corrective action.

I put it to you that spectacular doesn't necessarily mean violent. Few will
disagree that throwing bombs, killing hostages is not the way to go. There
are counter-examples, the life of Gandhi probably being the most spectacular
(sic!) one.

The Landes-government in Hannover has recently granted the Sater-Frisians
the right to put up their own road signs. No not in Frisian - no, biligual
would be «tolerated». And only as a matter of «exceptional lenience»,
because it remains «unconstitutional», to quote the government decision. The
majority L-Saxons in the Land governed by Hannover are still fighting in
vain for the right to put up their Saxon-language road signs. And fighting
they are, but not in a sufficiently spectacular way to get the attention of
the local, let alone the world-wide media.

What if L-Saxon activits would have blocked the entrance to the
Landesparlament building? In such a way that police could not have cleared
them away in just 5 minutes. I would be a volunteer, given activists'
support, to spend hours, days, weeks chained to the gates of the parliament
building in Hannover. This is a public pledge.

Here is what I propose:

That we drum up those inside and outside LL-L, inside and outside the
Lowlands, inside and outside Europe who are conscious of their identity as
member of a linguistic or cultural so-called minority and as such feel their
rights violated, in order to plan actions in two directions:

1. Legal actions to claim our rights,

2. publicity-efficient actions to get attention.

Think out-of-the-box, focus, react, act!

Mike Wintzer

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language survival

Dear Lowlanders,

As those of you who know me are no doubt aware, far be it from me to dampen
anyone's enthusiasm or to discourage anyone's calls for or plans of
"splashy" action.  Furthermore, far be it from me to deny that there are
grounds for sadness, indignation, outrage and anger about language death or
threat thereof and about what many of us believe to be its preventable
causes.  And, yes, I empathize with those who feel helpless, even guilty.
However, my personal view these days is that, while, as Ole Stig pointed
out, there is reason to feel quite pessimistic about the survival chances of
many or most of the world's languages and cultures, including some, if not
most Lowlandic ones, surrendering to fatalism is no more advisable than
abandoning reality for wishful thinking.

First of all, let us not forget that not everyone on this list is terribly
interested in minority language issues, though it is fair to assume that
most members are, even if "only" with regard to apparently sound languages
(such as Dutch) losing ground to English.  Also, in this gathering of
intelligent, thinking people I assume there is a high percentage of those
that are aware of the fact that *any* language can and probably will
eventually become threatened (or "menaced," to quote a mistranslation from
French at the EBLUL website) and ultimately extinct, albeit not necessarily
without a trace in the languages that will "smother" them.

I feel there are things each one of us can do, even if none of these things
will make newspaper headlines or will be featured in TV documentaries.
Seemingly small things may add up to a lot with time and may create ripples
like the proverbial drops do.

Quite a few of our members have already done remarkable things, such as
Colin who recently published a Scots textbook, Reuben who published several
books about Mennonite Lowlands Saxon (Plautdietsch), Sandy, John Magnus,
Andy, Mathieu, Luc, Holger, Herman and several others who have been creating
and expanding splendid web resources, Anja and Sandy and others who publish
belles-lettres in the languages of their lands, Fiete and others who take
our discussions to their non-wired relatives, neighbors and friends, and
outside the Lowlands arena Mike's and Roman's engagements on behalf of
Occitan and Ukrainian respectively, and a couple of members who speak up on
behalf of Basque.  These feats do not go unnoticed.  I can only talk for
myself: I get responses to my publications on the web and in periodicals
almost daily, and there are indications that there is a by-word-of-mouth
ripple effect.  I have been told that, unwittingly, I have given others the
courage to create their own presentations, to choose a certain language as
their study focus, to pursue a certain line of research, to think about
orthography issues, to dare to write unconventional types of literature in
Lowlands Saxon (Low German), and I now receive unsolicited reviewer copies
of new books on Lowlands languages.  I do not intend to blow my own horn
here, and I suffer from no delusions of grandeur.  I just want to hammer
home the point that doing *something* is better than wallowing in misery,
that even relatively small efforts, or relatively small gatherings like
Lowlands-L, can make a difference.  They help create attention, awareness,
knowledge, interest, appreciation and encouragement, and they help distroy,
bit by bit, the age-old belief that some language varieties are more
beautiful or more important than others.

Not every one of us may feel they possess the knowledge, creativity and
skills to make much of a difference, much though they wish they could.  To
them I say, "There's plenty you can do!"  Informing oneself is one thing,
and making connections with similarly interested and minded people is
another, and you have already done so by joining us.  Keep learning, and
keep following your passion!  Seek contacts with native speakers, tell them
you are interested in their languages and cultures, want to learn them and
learn about them and their cultures, and do other things to encourage them
by expressing your appreciation without patronizing.  Collaborate with
native speakers on creating documents in or about their languages, or if you
are speakers yourselves (native or otherwise), record and collect even bits
of narrative and make them available to others so they can enjoy them and be
encouraged, especially where low prestige is an obstacle.  If you do not
have the skills of recording and publishing (for instance on the web),
acquire the skills or collaborate with people who have them.  The more
activity there is, no matter how modest, the more it is likely to engender
more activity by spreading ideas and encouragement.  And, yes, complain to
unsupportive administrators and politicians, and complain to media people
who spread misinformation and help perpetuate detrimental images.  If you do
not think you are eloquent or informed enough, get the help of someone who
is.

Oops!  Sorry about pontificating so!  This may be Sunday, but it ain't Hyde
Park Speakers' Corner, so I'd better get off my soapbox now.

In a nutshell, I meant to say that language death, like the death of living
beings, may be inevitable, but that we all can do our parts in slowing down
the process and in creating records so there will be at least vivid
memories.  One of the most important steps is to get together (or "to
network," to use one of those fashionable nominal-derived verbs),
collaborate and encourage.

Despite some administrative irritations, each day I gather strength and
courage from being in touch with all of you -- yes, also with the lurkers --
not only because I am quite fond of those among you I have the privilege of
knowing, but also because we keep on exchanging and spreading information
and encouragement about something that is important to us, even though most
of the world is still oblivious to or indifferent about it.

Kindest regards!
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.: By the way, how about adding yet another (though smaller) presentation
to our website: Lowlands-L members' presentations (with links), projects,
involvements and other pertinent activities and achievements?  Just a
thought for you to ponder ...
Oh, and, please let's not forget about Appalachian, Sater Frisian, North
Frisian and other Lowlands varieties we have not mentioned much lately!

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