LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.10 (01) [E]

Fri Sep 10 16:05:38 UTC 2004

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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: Andrys Onsman <Andrys.Onsman at CeLTS.monash.edu.au>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.09 (06) [E]

>From: Andrys Onsman
>Subject: Language politics
>Roger Verhiest wrote:
>
>> <>It has been and will always been the goal of political power to
>> create uni-lingual states
>
> John Feather replied:

>> <>
>> I'm not sure what the situation along the border between the
>> Netherlands and Germany is supposed to be evidence of. One might
>> reasonably believe that there are always going to be political
>> borders which don't correspond to linguistic boundaries. If states
>> had and successfully exercised the power to create monolingualism
>> this situation would not exist.
>
Perhaps the fact that Britain is an island made it less important for
its administrators (political and religious infrastructures) to instill
a nationalism that would cohere the nation: the nation wasn't going to
go anywhere anyway. It does seem that where several countries were
rearranged to form a new political state a common language was usually
insisted upon - even if it was ultimately unenforcable. When I went to
school in Fryslan in the sixties, we were not allowed to speak Frisian,
it had to be Dutch. That story is similar to France, Spain and Germany,
not to mention Yugoslavia (although they didn't have to speak Dutch,
which may be the reason why it never gelled). In Britain, when Scotland
was subsumed into the union, wasn't English the official language with
the various Scottish languages denigrated? Wasn't it the same in
Ireland? (This is not rhetoric - just ignorance). I think Roger was
saying that the one people-one language demand is the usual manner in
which governments envisage nationalism will grow. In practice, it
doesn't often happen. When it is ruthlessly enforced you end up with the
linguistic imbroglio that is China. Blame it on that crazy tower of Babel!

Andrys Onsman

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From: Mark Brenchley <lagrandefenetre at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.09 (06) [E]

>From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
>Subject: Language politics
>
>Roger Verhiest wrote:
>
> >It has been and will always been the goal of political power to create
>uni-lingual states - the linguistic border between the Netherlands and
>Germany is a fine example : on both sides of the state border one will find
>dialects which are very related ; people from over the border can perfectly
>converse with each other in their dialects - but as soon as they begin to
>speak the "common" language ie German and Dutch they don't understand each
>other anymore.<
>
>It seems to me that the first statement is unequivocally untrue. There was
>no thought of monolingualism in England for around three centuries after
>the
>Norman conquest, for example. The nobs spoke first Norman French, then
>Anglo-Norman and after that French. The Church used Latin. Hoi polloi used
>English. C L Barber writes in "The Story of Language": "In 1362 the king's
>speech at the opening of Parliament was made in English, and in the same
>year an Act was passed making English the official language of the law
>courts instead of French, though their records were to be kept in Latin."
>Most of the great empires of history have not aimed at monolingualism, even
>though the language of the conquerors may have been used exclusively for
>administration and communication.

Agreed. In England, about the twelfth/thirteenth century, there are
interesting examples of macaronic sermons, delivered primarily in Latin but
also incorporating English words (i.e. just dropped in in place of the
relevant Latin word) in attempt to speak to both sections of the audience
("high" and "low"). This phenomenon of multilingualism in English seems to
continue until very recently, at least until just after Shakespeare's time.
G. L. Brock in "The Language of Shakespeare", gives a remarkably simple
explanation for the use of three nouns/adjectives in succession in many of
the plays (One Latinate, one "Teutonic", one French (if I remember
correctly)) - to ensure that all sections of the audience would have at
least some idea of what was going on.

Similarly, up until the end of the seventeenth century, most people with
some kind of education would have been reasonably versed in Latin, which
they would have used to conduct intellectual debates. In fact, this would
seemed to have put less pressure on the vernaculars to conform to a single
point, allowing them to develop on their own (although this is about the
time there are definite attempts to create/describe an English grammar), as
there already existed a "universal" language; this also seems less
"political", so much as pragmatic, aesthetic, and open-minded - rather than
use one particular country's speech, a neutral one was adopted. The history
of the Empire seems to further corroborate John's point. Whilst there may
well have been an official language (the "Queen's English", so to speak:
something of a necessity in enabling cross-communication), the actual result
was also an almost ridiculous number of creole's and pidgins, not simply the
language of the "Empire".

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From: Bouchonlemaitre at aol.com <Bouchonlemaitre at aol.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.07 (05) [French]

Hello lowlanders,
In my village in south brittany, there is also a Diwan school. But there are
very few children going there because nobody speeks any " breton " anymore
on this side of Vannes.
Nevertheless it is a good thing to have it. It is a small compensation for
the harm the imperialistic french language has done to local languages.
As a "westvlaming",I am very proud of my ancesters while they resisted
successfully against french in the flemish part of Belgium.
Question to Liesbeth:did you mistreat your french on purpose or what ?

Greetings,
Stephan (ne westvlaomink in bretanje sedert bikans twintig jaor)

[Stephan Lemaitre]

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

Thanks for the input, Stephan, and good to hear from you again.

Just for the benefit of the List members who did not already know this,
"Diwan" -- actually "Diwan Breizh" -- is a network of Breton, or
Breton-and-French, schools in France.

_Diwan_ means something like 'awakening' in Breton (_éveil_ or _réveil_ in
French).

> Nevertheless it is a good thing to have it. It is a small compensation for
the
> harm the imperialistic french language has done to local languages.

Now, now ... Let's rephrase this after considering the fact that the French
language itself is not imperialistic or anything else but a language.  It
can't be blamed for anything, nor can other "power languages," like English,
Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Arabic or Japanese.  It's
not the languages that are the problem.  If anything, it's the policy-makers
and educators, very often the perpetually lauded "founding fathers" of
countries, that enforce(d) the use of these languages to the detriment of
other languages that happen to be in the way of the old "one country, one
ethnicity, one language" utopia (where "one" is synonymous with "single" in
the cases of "ethnicity" and "language").  How insidious such policies are
(especially where they are enshrined in national constitutions), reinforced
through education and the media, is seen where the speakers themselves (like
the Occitan lady Mike mentioned, some Lowlands Saxon speakers I know and no
doubt Scots speakers known to people on this list) come to be convinced that
their own languages are inferior and corrupt (_déformées_) aberrations and
have no right to survive.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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