LL-L "Language use" 2004.11.03 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 03.NOV.2004 (06) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
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)
=======================================================================

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Language varieties" [E]

Reinhard/Ron wrote:
>
> P.S.: I just ordered some flowers online for Clara Kramer-Freudenthal's
> (http://www.sassisch.net/rhahn/kramer/) 85th birthday tomorrow after
having
> bad experiences with four other Hamburg florists.  Since some additional
> data were needed, the owner called me right back (from Hamburg to
Seattle!)
> and spoke to me in Lowlands Saxon (Low German) because the card I had sent
> was in that language!  She didn't seem to think of any of this as strange.
> The times, they are a-changing.  :-)

The times they are a-changin' for BSL too, though perhaps more dramatically
since until relatively recently, having to sign in public was considered
something to be ashamed of.

Something I've noticed particularly this year is how many people in public
life actually know BSL, even if they're not deaf.

In the summer I was in a pub signing with a friend, and a man came up to us
and said we ought to be careful as his girlfriend could understand
everything we were saying! I went to speak to her and she was someone who
had been training as a sign language interpreter before getting into work
with deaf children. There were also two other people who understood enough
BSL to be able to communicate with me in a sort of pidgin BSL/English. I
collected mobile numbers and email addresses to help them to keep in touch
with events where they could improve their signing.

This gave me the idea of operating a BSL dragnet - going out with another
signer and signing in areas where people were socialising to see if it would
bring other signers out of the woodwork. However, I never got as far as
trying this.

But this weekend has set me thinking again. At a weekend in Whitby on the
North Yorkshire coast, I spent a lot of time signing with a hearing friend,
and throughout the weekend two other hearing BSL users and one hearing ASL
user (from New York) introduced themselves to us. Then on the way home I
stopped off to visit a friend in Sheffield. Ordering drinks in a bar, my
hearing friend, who also knows BSL, was signing to me what she wanted, the
barmaid asked me if I wanted ice. I said yes and I started talking to my
friend again... and suddenly I realised that the barmaid had asked me in
BSL! My friend didn't believe it and I wasn't sure if I hadn't just imagined
it, so I signed to the barmaid, "You sign, don't you?" and she signed, "Yes,
a little bit". But there was clearly a certain amount of modesty involved as
she had no hesitation in signing and didn't need anything repeated.

The number of BSL users in the UK is usually quoted as 70,000, but this is
only people who are actually deaf - and, if I've read the reports correctly,
doesn't even include those hard of hearing or deafened people who have
learned BSL by going to classes. It seems to ignore the fact that often a
culturally deaf BSL user has a whole family of hearing signers around them,
and that BSL classes are often packed out, many of the hearing students
passing exams and taking their BSL to higher and higher levels.

I wonder if any of the sociolinguists here could explain, or recommend some
reading on, how to research how many users of a minority language there
actually are by a more scientific approach to the sort of statistical
sampling that I've been doing more or less accidentally with these
incidents? It would be interesting to get a figure representing the actual
number of BSL users, however approximately, rather than just the core of
culturally deaf users.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================