LL-L "Orthography" 2005.03.13 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 13.MAR.2005 (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:  R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Dear Lowlanders,

I have received a message in response to my web "treatise" about Low Saxon
(Low German, http://www.sassisch.net/lowsax.htm), and am taking the liberty
to respond to it via this forum, bcc'ing the person who wrote to me, because
I think his words are quite to the point and of interest to more people.

<quote>
It is a great shame that there is not a more cohesive and organised movement
in both Germany and The Netherlands to promote regularisation and
standardisation of Low-Saxon orthography. This would naturally greatly
assist the learning of the language's spelling, grammar, and its composition
among schoolchildren in traditionally Low-Saxon-speaking areas. This in turn
would help the development of serious literature in the language, which
would necessarily reinforce the propagation of this great and greatly
influential Germanic language. Culturally it would be an enormous loss to
Germany, The Netherlands, and Europe generally if this language were to
become extinct and forever lost.
Paul Sweet steelmill64 at usa.net
</quote>

I could not agree more. However, unfortunately the obstacles are currently
formidable and have deep roots.  I promise to be as brief in explaining them
as I possibly can, since many people have heard me go on about it _ad
nauseam_.

The most important root problem is that the language community has been
fragmented in various ways. It has been separated not only by political and
thus artificial boundaries (i.e., the Netherlands-German border and numerous
enclave communities throughout Eurasia and overseas) but also by several
boundaries of the mind that are the direct result of a loss of psycho-ethnic
separateness from the politically dominant ethno-national identities and
century-long denial of any sort of separate language status.

While, on the whole, Low Saxon speakers of the Netherlands, despite the
usual regionally limited, parochial mindset, hold a general, underlying,
though for understandable reasons cautious acceptance of the fact that their
"dialect" is closely related to ("Prussian") _nederduits_ ~ _platduits_ of
Germany and are aware that to be a Netherlander may be separate from one's
local identity, the vast majority of speakers in Germany have come to be
indoctrinated to believe that _Platt_ and its culture and identity
constitute a subset of "German," despite recent official recognition of the
language. Many of them, especially older ones (who have learned in their own
lifetimes that rocking this type of boat can be extremely dangerous) have
come to fear or even believe that setting _Platt_ apart from "German" and
(re-)uniting it across a national boundary could be seen as an act of
disloyalty, treason and secession ... thus would be _undeutsch_. I
personally believe that this is in part due to the ambiguity of the term
"German": it can denote a national identity (which includes minorities, such
as Frisians, Sorbians and Roma, and in the future probably also Turks) as
well as an ethnic identity, namely the German ethnicity into which Germany's
(true) Saxon ethnicity has been forced ever since Charlemagne's destruction
of Saxon independence.

If the (Low-)Saxon-speaking community had remained ethnically separate it
would now be much easier for the average person to conceive the notion that
it exists in more than one country and that it has the right to coordinate
its efforts across boundaries.  I am not suggesting that such a separate
ethnic identity should or could be recreated. I am merely mentioning it as a
root course for what I see as refusal or reluctance to embrace the Low Saxon
community of the Netherlands as an integral part of an overall community,
even though Europe is currently marching toward a place in which national
boundaries will have far less meaning than in the past.

Unfortunately, even most of the influential institutes and advocacy groups
in Germany have not been able or willing to cross this mindset barrier. It
may in part be due to things like territorial thinking, reluctance to part
with traditional scholarship as well as fear of facing the orthography
question in an international rather than a German context -- in other words,
to think internationally rather than German, which would necessitate
international collaboration and thus "watering down" one's own power, and
which might also necessitate "disloyalty" regarding the demigod Sass and his
German-based orthographic school. Suggestions of the likes of me and other
"foreigners" and "disloyals" are thus easily and conveniently dismissed and
ignored.

In other words, orthographic reform and unification proposals, which also a
number of Germans advocate, tend to meet with avoidance and rejection. When
I point out the necessity to include speakers and writers on the Netherlands
side of the border, the usual answers I get -- and usually I get no
answer -- are "their dialects are so Hollandized that they become irrelevant
to us" or "the Dutch are touchy when it comes to things like that"
(obviously with reference to German occupation of the Netherlands,
anti-German feelings and a need for especially Eastern Netherlanders to be
seen as separate from the "Prussians"). However, my personal experiences
with Low Saxon speakers and writers of the Netherlands have shown that the
average person there is far more intelligent and openminded than that, and
my efforts to include Netherlanders in my pan-Low-Saxon advocacy and
activities has been, on the whole, far more successful than in Germany where
prejudices and suspicion tend to be more entrenched.

However, there are other stumbling blocks. All Low Saxon communities are
dominated by the orthographically conservative, having a hard time letting
go of adherence to Dutch versus German orthographic conventions.  In other
words, they are unable or unwilling to "think outside the box."  Another
major stumbling block is a culmination of misconceptions due to a lack of
understanding of basic linguistic concepts. For example, there is this
erroneous idea that "dialects" must be written "phonetically," which results
in various dialects looking much more different from each other than they
sound, thus creating orthographic barriers where there would be few barriers
in mutual comprehension of the spoken language. Also, there is the
ill-begotten idea that orthographic reform is the same as language reform,
that "tinkering" with spelling will change the language, that it is the same
as doing away with dialectal diversity and big-brother-type enforcement of
an artificial standard language. The average person has a hard time
understanding that orthographic unification is a separate issue, that all
the dialects can still be written using a uniform system that would
facilitate inter-dialectical comprehension.

In summary, then, in my opinion orthographic unification cannot be
implemented until minds have not been opened. To open minds it is important
to remove unfounded fears, and to remove unfounded fears we need education.
If the language will last that long is highly questionable. To survive, it
needs orthographic and general unification.  And therein lies the conundrum,
the vicious circle, so to speak.

World-wide, orthography tends to be a semi-sacred calf which to touch and to
alter will result in grumbling at the very best (as the recent Dutch and
German reforms have shown, and as the failure of English spelling reforms
keeps showing us). Add to this the above-mentioned mindset barriers, and you
have a recipe for certain failure, I am afraid.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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