LL-L "Lexicon" 2005.07.15 (06) [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: Hyazinth Sievering <Zintus at casema.nl>
Subject: Folklore

Moin,

Heather Rendall wrote:

"The loss of Wodenstag in German and the insertion of Mittwoch instead.
What is it in Platt and all the other languages of this list?"

Ron is right when he writes:
"Most North Saxon dialects have _Middeweken_, _Midweek_, _Midweken_, etc.,
while some of them have older _Wou(e)nsdag_ (<Woonsdag>), etc., some
_Gou(e)nsdag_ (<Goensdag>, <Gauensdag>, etc.).  I believe many of the
latter dialects have Frisian substrates."

In my native Northern Emsland and Huemmling dialect of Low Saxon the
original word for Wednesday is "Gaunsdag". A former colleague from
Lohne -Grafschaft Bentheim- (South-West Emsland) used to say "Gusendag".

Nowadays "Gaunsdag" for Wednesday is almost forgotten. With my 38 years I
belong to the younger Low Saxon speakers in Emsland. Most every-day users of
Low Saxon will probably know "Gaunsdag" as an old-fashioned word but would
use  "Middeweke" instead.

I see a similar degradation for Saturday "Saoterdag" (sorry Ron but that's
the way I was tought to spell my mother tongue). In the last 10 - 15 years
there has been a tendency to replace it by the (Standard)German "Samstag" by
people who use Low Saxon as an everyday language. I think that the, at
least, 'uneasy' feeling of LS speakers in an environment that tends to
become more and more Standard German makes them want to replace original LS
words by such forms that are understood more easily by non-LS speakers.

To understand these feelings of LS speakers with often not the highest
education, one should know that often this last generation of native
speakers has experienced discrimination at school during their childhood. It
is less than 30 years ago that at certain primary schools in Emsland the
punishment for using the Low Saxon language to talk to your mate was a
slap!)

Regards

Hyazinth (Zintus) Sievering
born Emslander, now The Hague (NL)

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

Moyen, Zintus!

It's great to have you back on the List.  Thanks for putting Emsland back on 
the map.

I do know of those feelings you are talking about, and I empathize, having 
after all experienced myself exactly what they have experienced, even more 
so as a big city boy.  However, by the same token, their practice should, 
despite such empathy, not be encouraged, I believe.  One way of 
counteracting it (rather than chiding them) would be to promote amongst them 
better knowledge and awareness as well as "pride," also knowledge and 
awareness amongst non-speakers rather than catering to their false 
assumption that LS is some sort of _urig_ German dialect that they *ought* 
to be able to understand.  It is a separate language, now again officially 
so.  So they'd better get used to it.

Cheerio!
Reinhard/Ron

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