LL-L "Language use" 2004.07.03 (02) [D/E]
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Sat Jul 3 17:38:21 UTC 2004
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L O W L A N D S - L * 03.JUL.2004 (02) * 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) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Pat Reynolds <pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2004.07.02 (04) [E]
In message <008b01c46065$19e4e090$1c0d5f80 at dental.washington.edu>,
Lowlands-L <lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net> writes
>On a related note, Brussel is officially bilingual. However, it has been my
>experience that even officials of the federal government refused to speak
>Dutch (and they certainly must have known it to be hired). In my particular
>case, I had to have some paper work stamped by the Ministry of the Interior
>before I was allowed to marry in Belgium. The clerk who was "assisting" me
>and my fiancée (who is Flemish) would not speak Dutch *at all*. Now if I
had
>been by myself I really would have been stuck since I don't know French.
I have had just this kind of experience in Brussels. My spoken and
listening Dutch is awful, but my reading Dutch is quite good now. My
French I learned in school, and have found adequate for making small
talk with colleagues from Francophone Africa, and central and eastern
Europe, but not used for research... I have no idea what the vocabulary
is for 'issue desk', 'restricted borrowing rights' or 'please ask a
librarian before photocopying this book'. The librarians were all,
baffled by having to deal with someone who really did need to have it
said to them in Dutch! But they coped, and invariably, with politeness.
I think they put it down to English eccentricity.
A fair number of Dutch people must visit Brussels - what do they do? Do
most Dutch people speak French, or do both French Belgian and
Netherlander switch to English as an acceptable compromise? I have
found it very useful in France to switch to Italian rather than English.
Best wishes to you all,
Pat
(who found typing her password into a French keyboard very hard)
--
Pat Reynolds
pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk
"It might look a bit messy now,
but just you come back in 500 years time"
(T. Pratchett)
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Language use" [E]
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language use
>
> You will find linguistic chauvinism or even "linguistic suspicion"
anywhere
> in the world. On my travels in many countries I have come across people
> scolding immigrants and even visitors for speaking foreign or non-local
> languages in their presence.
I can add an extra level of incredulity to this. When I'm speaking to
someone in BSL in public I find there's no shortage of English-only speakers
who will interrupt the conversation to complain that they can't understand
what's being said. I suppose the feeling of being excluded from something
can quickly become so painful that a person will start to act quite
irrationally.
BSL, eh? I wonder if I should just start calling it "British" - couldn't be
confused with any other language, could it? :)
Sandy
http://scotstext.org/
----------
From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2004.07.02 (03) [E]
> From: denis dujardin <dujardin at pandora.be>
> Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2004.07.02 (01) [E]
>
> Let me put things clear. I am not a extreme language activist.
> As I pointed out, I AM interested in learning other languages. I speak
> and write French in an upmost degree. And I LOVE to speak it also.
> I can not understand that some Flemish people tolerate, the lazyness
> (or
> highharted mentality) of french-spoken people into the Flemish speaking
> area.
> I am sorry Luc, but your argument works against you.
> I underlined that I speak 7 languages. French speaking people in
> Belgium
> tend to speak only ONE, whereas most flemish ar bi-lingual.
> So why the remark, that people moving abroad wouldn't be able to cope
> with a local language, whereas the Brussels residents do not even know
> or refuse to learn a language which surrounds them.
> This has nothing to do with extremism, but with courtoisie or respect.
> I remain convinced by the fact that people living in a city where the
> outskirts speak another language ( -they are surrounded-), that the
> least you can do, is to learn that language.
> The other way up in towns like Mouscron shows how that works. How
> people
> even get discriminated by asking their simple language rights.
> Our Kings, Queens and princesses do not even speak the language of the
> majority properly, whereas princess Maxima, being Argentinian, in
> Holland was able to do it in a short while.
> So!??
>
> denis dujardin
Hi denis,
I fully subscrive your point of view regarding the languages in
Belgium. Every belgian kid should be imposed to learn the tree
official languages . The freedom to choose in what language one is
willing to speak would remain. I would have no problem if the whole of
Belgium would be bi-lingual, but with our history i doubt very much
if the Walloons would co-opperate. For the moment a Flemich inhabitant
just has the choise to switch into French (in most of the cases). We
have had already enough etnocides in our regions. And yes, i am not an
extremist, just a realist, with respect for all the folks that are
willing to live in mutual respect for each other cultures.
Groetjes
luc vanbrabant
oekene
----------
From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2004.07.02 (04) [E]
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language use
> I do not know how representative this guy is for Flemish-background
> residents of Brussels. I can simply not understand how anyone can
> view his
> own heritage with so much disdain. (I have not even come across such
> an
> extreme attitude of what almost seems like self-loathing among
> Israelis that
> were born and raised in Germany.) If this is not uncommon, the fate of
> Flemish seems grim indeed, at least in Brussels, if disdain for and
> disregard of it is not confined to French-speaking Belgians but has
> spilled
> over to Flemish-speaking ones as well.
>
> Regards,
> Reinhard/Ron
Beste Ron,
Ik denk dat je alles kan vergelijken met mensen die zich bekeren tot
een andere godsdienst. Alles wat dan van vroeger was, wordt hardnekkig
afgezworen en bestreden. Een protestant bij voorbeeld, moet niets meer
weten van zijn vroegere katholieke godsdienst, enz... Vlaamse mensen
uit Brussel hebben zich laten verfransen om wat hoger op de sociale
ladder te kunnen staan en willen niet meer herinnerd worden aan de tijd
ervoor!
Groetjes
luc vanbrabant
oekene
----------
From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2004.07.02 (06) [E]
First of all:
Henry, the piece you quoted was written by me, nor Ron. I'm always willing
to let him take the blame for me, but since you agreed with what was said, I
insist that I was the author! :-))
Ron, I put "American" attitude in quote marks for a reason - I didn't mean
to make a sweeping generalization, but needed some kind of an "anchor
point". Still, I would say that in 95% of second or third generation
immigrant families that I met, the "original" language had disappeared.
often deliberately. Of course this tendency is much stronger among German
families who fled their country during the Third Reich and wanted to quickly
lose a language that wasn't very popular in the world back then, and that
maybe they had come to hate.
Very often, it is also the children who refuse to speak their parents'
language in another country, sometimes for fear of being ostracised and
sometimes because they're embarrassed or don't see the point. I think I
mentioned before that my own youngest daughter, born in the States, spoke
only German until she was three, although she understood English just fine.
Once she entered daycare/kindergarten, she switched to speaking nothing but
English, even though I spoke German to her all the time. We moved back to
Germany when she was five, and she practically didn't speak at all for a few
weeks - until her younger cousin bothered her no end, and she suddenly
opened her mouth and really let him have it - in fluent German, which she
has been speaking again ever since. She is now ten and currently reading the
Lord of the Rings in English, so she hasn't lost that either.
I know several families in the States where the children are embarrassed to
speak anything but English, and several families in Germany with at least
one foreign parent where the children will speak German only, except to
their grandparents, usually. In the village where I grew up, none of the
local children emmed to be interested in learning Saxon from their parents
which was considered "way uncool" and outdated; on the other hand, I don't
recall any parents who spoke it to them (Sollinger Platt is a really strong
flavour where you don't understand a word if you know only High German),
although they spoke it with their own parents all the time.
Coming to think of it: for the motivation of both parents and children to
keep the "other" language alive, it makes a big difference whether the
family is isolated or lives within an entire foreign community within
another country. That would also explain why Hispanics, for example, are
more likely to raise their children bilingually in the States.
Now why a parent wouldn't want his child to learn the language of a country
where it may be living later in life is really beyond me. Maybe your Flemish
friend is one of those people who will never make it back, griping to the
last...
Another thing I will never understand is how many people marry a foreign
partner and never bother to learn their language. Although there is nothing
I cannot express in English, it made a big difference to me when my American
husband became fluent in German and I could say just spontaneously say
anything to him which entered my mind without first having to make sure it
was in English (this is even more important because in our family, we love
to torture each other with bad puns and wordplay).
Gabriele Kahn
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language use
Gabriele (above):
> Another thing I will never understand is how many people marry a foreign
> partner and never bother to learn their language.
I agree with regard to cases in which this person lives among people that
speak the partner's language. Basically, I agree with regard to *all*
cases. However, where the partner's language is relatively remote it can be
difficult. I myself am guilty of insufficiently helping my wife improve her
high school German. I have never gotten over the discomfort barrier when I
tried to speak German with her. While in English we are equals, so to
speak, when we try to speak German with each other it feels like she is the
child and I am the parent talking down to her, keeping my language very
simple and being unable to discuss complicated subjects. Plus, she feels
intimidated for some reason. (Hey! Why on earth would she?! ;-) ) While
visiting Germany I have on a couple of occasions inadvertently eavesdropped
and heard her converse fairly well in German with older relatives while
believing I was out of earshot ... I know that this works better where
people know the language of a spouse who is not very confident and is
grateful that the person they married speaks their language. I have
observed this particularly among East Asians married to "Westerners" who
know their languages.
Luc (above):
> Ik denk dat je alles kan vergelijken met mensen die zich bekeren tot
> een andere godsdienst. Alles wat dan van vroeger was, wordt hardnekkig
> afgezworen en bestreden. Een protestant bij voorbeeld, moet niets meer
> weten van zijn vroegere katholieke godsdienst, enz... Vlaamse mensen
> uit Brussel hebben zich laten verfransen om wat hoger op de sociale
> ladder te kunnen staan en willen niet meer herinnerd worden aan de tijd
> ervoor!
Dat is een heel prima vergelijking! Bedankt, Luc!
Luc, referring to my description of a Fleming from Brussels who has nothing
but disdain for Flemish, Dutch, etc. (and to a degree for France, by the
way), compares it to a person converting to a different religion and then
going overboard by rejecting everything vaguely associated with his or her
religious past.
I remember another case, a guy from Brussels with a "thoroughly" Flemish
first and last name I met in Taiwan. Once, in a bit of a jocular mood, I
said something to him in Dutch. He looked at me as though I had just called
him the worst name you can imagine. It can't have been *what* I said or the
tone in which I said it, and his wasn't an expression of surprise either,
just of dismay. He did understand what I said, because he acted on it, but
he answered in English and later told me that he doesn't speak Dutch if he
can help it. It seemed like an uncomfortable topic to him, and he dropped
it quickly, just had to clear up to me this supposed case of "mistaken
identity," as if to tell me, "Never do that to me again!" He can't have
been disgruntled for too long, for he kept me on his mailing list, and a few
months after my departure from Taiwan I received from his parents an
invitation to his wedding, *in French and English, without Dutch*, although
the names of all the people mentioned were Flemish ... (By the way, both
families were aristocrats, going by some of the titles I saw. I don't know
if that had any bearing on the matter.) I had had a couple of similar but
less glaring experiences before that. Since then, and remembering reports
about street battles concerning language in Belgium when I was a child, I
have learned not to touch this Belgian language thing with a ten-foot pole,
also to try not to pass judgment (because I try to cultivate compassion, and
I don't know how I myself would feel and act if I had grown up in Brussels).
I am only discussing this here in the presence of members of this list,
because I assume you all are more broad-minded and more enlightened.
Regards,
Reihard/Ron
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