LL-L "Language survival" 2003.01.04 (01) [D/E/German]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Reuben Epp <repp at silk.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2003.01.03 (01) [E]

> From: Thomas Byro <thbyro at earthlink.net>
> Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2003.01.02 (01) [E/German]
>
> Ron
>
> How thorough was the ethnic cleansing of the east German population after
> World War Two?  I recall reading in Der Spiegel during the communist era
> that some 2 million Germans were living in Poland but were considered to
be
> east German citizens.  I remember Konrad Adenauer arguing that some
millions
> more were ethnic Germans and should be allowed to emigrate to West
Germany,
> but the Polish government maintaining that they were ethnic Poles.  Are
> there any Plattdeutsch speakers left in current polish and Russian
> territory?
>
> Tom Byro
>
Dear Tom and Lowlanders,

Ron Hahn has already dealt appreciably with the questions raised
above by Tom. So, what I shall add deals primarily with the
Plautdietsch dialect(s) of the Mennonites in and from West
Prussia who, at least formerly, mostly spoke the Low Saxon
dialects of the Vistula Delta.

I quote from a report presented by Tomasz Wicherkiewicz of the
Adam Mickiewicz-Universiteit of Poznan, Poland, to a symposium
convened at the Rijksuniversitiet Groningen (Netherlands) on 24
Oktober 1992. The subject of the symposium was "De Taal der
Mennoniten." The presentation from which I quote was presented
in Dutch:

"De aanleiding tot het onderzoek was een fragment, dat ik in een
artikel van W.W. Moelleken gevonden heb. In dit fragment gaat
 et over toonbandopnamen von Mennonitische informanten die
nog tegenwoordig in de Weichseldelta zouden wonen ("...Es
handelt sich hierbei um im Weichseldelta geborene und noch
heute [1981} dort wohnende Sprecher aus Junkeracker und
Fischerbabke  [...]  und aus Brunau..." (Moelleken 1987:92).

Helaas leverde mijn veldonderzoek in 1991 geen positieve
uitkomst op. Ik heb geen Mennoniet gevonden die nog in
Noord-Polen leeft. De enige nog in leven zijnde Mennoniet in
Polen schijnt to zijn Franz Thgahrt uit Poznan..."

Then I quote an excerpt from an article that I wrote years
ago and subsequently revised and updated in 2002. It is in
English about the status of Plautdietsch, entitled: "The
History of Plautdietsch," by Reuben Epp, Thorneloe Road,
Kelowna, British Columbia:

"Plautdietsch Worldwide Today.
The various countries where Plautdietsch is spoken do not
produce official tallies of the numbers of such speakers.
Consequently the following figures are drawn from
unsubstantiated estimates obtained from various sources
and persons. Those estimates deviated considerably from
each other, therefore the tallies shown here must be
regarded as approximations only:

Belize                       10,000
Bolivia                      35,000
Brazil                         9,000
Canada                     50,000
Germany                 150,000 (See note 14)
Mexico                     50,000
Paraguay                  38,000
Russian Federation     5,000
USA                         20,000

The figures for the aforementioned countries add up to
a worldwide total of 367,000 speakers of Plautdietsch.
Allowing for a probable margin of error, this figure could
approach or exceed 400,000. Of these speakers,
approximately one half speak Plautdietsch habitually and
daily, except in Latin America, where it is spoken quite
consistently by most Mennonites.

Note 14: Peter Wiens, chairman of Plautdietsch-Freunde
e. V. and editor of Plautdietsch FRIND, both of
Oerlinghausen, Germany, suggests that there are well
over 100,000 current speakers of Plautdiesch in Germany,
probably approaching 200,000 or more. Peter projects
these figures on the basis of information found in Horst
Gerlach’s "Die Russlandmennoniten - Ein Volk
Unterwegs" and the fact that there are now about 300
Mennonite/Baptist churches in Germany with average
memberships of 300 "Mennonite" immigrants from
Russia in the last 3-4 decades, not including many
thousands of speakers who are not church members."

Cheers!

Reuben Epp

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