LL-L "History" 2004.05.14 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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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: Stella en Henno <stellahenno at hetnet.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Names" 2004.05.14 (01) [E]

> > Should I be patriotic & go for the
> > Danish, Slesvig-Holsten?
>
> Uh-oh!  Careful where you put your foot!  Not that I care, mind you.  I
> would have happily been born a Danish citizen, or whatever citizen for
that
> matter.  (In my way of thinking, the only thing borders are good for is
> crossing them.)  However, this back and forth of the Danish-German border
> can be a sensitive subject, given the presence of so many ethnicities and
> languages in a small strip of land.  If the area were now under Danish
> administration, the downside would be that the Frisian and Lowlands Saxon
> (Low German) varieties of the area would by now be extinct, because
Denmark
> has a way of "loosing" indigenous minority languages (namely North Frisian
> and LS), German (imported and imposed on the originally LS-speaking
"German"
> minority) being the only survivor (because of a Danish-German agreement
> guaranteeing Danish and German minority rights).
>
> Groete,
> R(h)einhard(t)/Ron

There is no information that North Frisian was ever spoken in what is now
Danish territory.
Of coure, most parts of North Frisian speaking areas have one time or other
been under Danish rule, but in the old days they had a relative freedom, and
were free to use their language
(the Danish king invited the Frisians to come to Sleeswyk-Holstein in the
first place (in the Midde Ages) to build dikes and help with the irrigation,
and subsequently the Old Frisian they brought along heavily influenced
Jutish dialects of that region (especially wrt terminology regarding those
areas). And of course these dialects also influenced Old North Frisian, and
most of these loans are old and integrated completely into the language.
There must have been considerable bilinguality and intermarriage, it is
assumed. But of course, those days were not as centrally governed as
nowadays, and since those days the Danish have indeed had a (IMHO
regrettable) tendency to try to discourage people from using varieties
different from Rigsdansk (standard Danish), and with considerable "success",
mostly, seen the bad state of modern Jutish...
But in the days when they did rule the North Frisian islands (even including
Helgoland) and the main land areas, they have not been unfriendly towards
the North Frisian varieties. There are two main lines in the North Frisian
political movement, and the direction that was favourable towards Danish
rule (last time there was a referendum on this) was also the most
pro-Frisian (foriining for nationaale Friiske), and they seemed to expect
better treatment for their language from the Danish than from the
Germans.....

Med venlige hilsene,

Henno Brandsma

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

Great, Henno!  Thanks.

But what about place names like Husum, Ballum, Løgum/Lygum (German "Lügum"),
Karlum, Forballum and Ellum in Southwestern Jutland?

By the way, I did not intend to say that Danish rule was ever unfriendly
toward any of the minorities and their languages.  A "disappearing act" does
not rely solely on hostile acts and attitudes, as far as I know.  In fact,
the opposite might even do the trick, in this case theoretically the
embracing of Danification due to incentives of whatever kind, or due to
deliberate dissociation from Germany.  This certainly applies to many people
of earlier "German" classification on both sides of the border, particularly
those that intermarried with ethnic Danes and/or live(d) in predominantly
Danish/Jutish communities and are/were bi- or trilingual: they deliberately
chose to become ethnically and linguistically Danish, especially since World
War II.  Even on the German side of the border, many Danish schools have
more applicants than they can admit, some of them with entirely non-Danish
backgrounds (in large part because of reputedly higher academic standards).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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