LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.05 (02) [E]
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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 (Zeeuws)
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L O W L A N D S - L * 05 November 2005 * Volume 02
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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.04 (03) [E]
Isaac wrote:
"Well, not to be a pedant (as popular a position as that seems to be around
here, heheh), but I believe "fair haired foreigners" would be Fionnghaill."
You are being pedantic. :) I wasn't confusing _Fine Gall_ with _Fionn
Ghaill_ when I gave the meaning of the former as "fair-haired foreigners". I
had in my head the difference between the Norwegians and the Danes,
distinguished in Irish as "fionn ghaill" (fair-haired) and "dubh ghaill"
(black-haired) respectively (or is it the other way round, I can never
remember). As I understand it, the Vikings of Fine Gall were the sort other
to Dublin town. Obviously I should have provided the literal translation as
well, though. Mea culpa.
"Also, I'm pretty sure Suibhne is a native name, rather than a
Hibernicisation of Sven. Behind the Name (http://www.behindthename.com/),
which is usually pretty accurate, seems to agree with me on this."
Yes, you're right. I had always thought it was from Sven but a quick flick
through Sloinnte Uile Éireann confirms Suibhne is a personal name meaning
"pleasant". The Mhic Suibhne were gallóglaigh, however, which is probably
how I came up with the fictive Norse connection. Also, their proximity to
other families of gallóglach origin (notably Mac Lochlainn).
What a difference a pedant makes! :)
Go raibh maith agat,
Criostóir.
----------
From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.04 (03) [E]
Isaac wrote:
"On the subject of Irish names, though, I ran across a wonderful tome in the
university library here by a Rev. Patrick Woulfe. Irish Names and Surnames,
I believe it's called. Absolutely wonderful, I must say. Exhaustive, and
very accurate."
That's the Sloinnte Uile Éireann I was referring to. De Bulbh (Woulfe) is
the standard reference work on Irish family names.
Go raibh maith agat,
Criostóir.
----------
From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.04 (03) [E]
Ron wrote:
"By liberating a language from restraints, constraints and other
manifestations of limited
thinking you inevitably expand its scope."
That's why I have come to prefer the term "language normalisation" (a la
Catalan) to the term "language revitalisation" or "language revival" (a la
Irish). The differences in usage reflect vastly different attitudes and
approaches and for any minority language I strongly recommend you follow the
Catalan example, not the Irish one, if you want to get anywhere.
Go raibh maith agat,
Criostóir.
----------
From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.04 (03) [E]
Beste Reinhard,
> Sorry. This got longer than intended.
No 'Sorry'- thanks a lot for your efforts!
> (6) I perceive distrust and rejection of anything scientific and written
> for
> an allegedly elusive, immeasurable language variety as being an expression
> of left-over European class consciousness, the old divide between the
> "elite" and "ordinary" people. ("I can't compete with your supposed
> learning, thus must do the obstinate thing. So, poo on your science!") A
> lot could be accomplished once people embrace the idea that there are
> different ways of skinning a cat (and pardon the expression, fellow cat
> lovers!) and that people can work together rather than against each other,
> that there is no need for enmity, and that there is room for all of us.
You don't talk about me, I hope? Here indeed is room for all of us- no
question about this.
But- there we are: there should be room enough for pedantry either, even if
sometimes aspected as any extreme cast of mind.
Let's continue in our trials to find the 'ultimate truth' ;-)!
Low Saxon had been a significant language in the times of the Hanse. It was
integrated into this mighty, international organization, and it lost its
importance with the decline of this trading union.
That happened about 350 years ago- but LS didn't die until our days.
Why did it survive, and where?
It didn't survive in poems and books, not in linguistig circles, not in any
religion or in the scientifical life at the universities.
It survived as a kind of tribal-language, spoken in the tribal 'triviality',
*just* used for everyday's life.
*Just*? A very powerful kind of *just*, isn't it??
If men wanted to take part at social life of their tribe, village, region
they had to use this language- not Standard German. I myself grew up with
this fact, and it hasn't totally changed today. In some aspects it even
became worse: when sitting at a greater table, within a short time those
people still able to speak LS will dominate the whole society, and the rest,
even if maiority in number, could feel excluded. (Maybe, I have to confess
that they mostly are louder than the rest and get admired because oft their
special feature ;-).)
Try to destroy this, and you'll destroy a 'special' language (which I don't
want to glorify and don't think to be better than others- just more
endangered!!).
Let's have a look to another example.
What about Sater Frisian? Why did it keep alive for (?)some(?) hundred
years, in such a small area? Because of any poems or books, because of
clever linguists made their studies there *griemel*, or... or... or?
People *like* to speak it, it gives a special identity to them, it is the
special *moth-ball-odor* ;-) of their community, at least a kind of 'matter
of honour'. Maybe some religiously bound facts also played a roll.
Let's have a look into the future.
Why do (young) German people learn a language which isn't their
mother-language?
English, French, Spanish, Russian (and increasingly Asian languages): for
reasons of necessity to get along in a globalized world.
For educational reasons, maybe Latin and Old Greece.
Other languages, as Dutch, Danish/Swedish (and Polish, Czech, Hungarian [for
Austrians] will come in future) because the speakers are our neighbours.
It's important to be able to talk to a neighbour in his own language, as
history showed.
But- where the hell is that damn'd 'Platt' on this list above?
A reason to learn a language for nothing is a reason just ending in itself.
You won't motivate pupils, you won't motivate teachers, you really won't
motivate a government to spend money for it.
You won't find many young natural scientists intending to write their
dissertations in Low Saxon- not today and not in the future, I dare say.
The only weighty motivation for the young generation to learn LS is and will
be in future to increase, to build up their local/regional identity with a
connection to a special lifestyle. The imagination still is alive.(*)
What on earth could be bad in this?
What really could better motivate than fun and good feelings?
(*)(I remember a Reinhard *Ron* Hahn having written about his effer'vescent
[nice word; we should analyze it!] mentality "not to be typical for a man
from a Low Saxon region."
Was this an archaic, rudimental shimer of local-l*a*nguistic identification,
at the end?? ;-). Showing the 'usenessity' of your trials to escape from the
influences of your 'Wilhelmsburger' [part of Hamburg] childhood? Äätsch!)
If you, Massa Ron, should think 'My god- so many second-handed words again!'
you shouldn't forget that it was mainly YOU to enlight this fire within me,
and you should be delighted ['enlight' vs 'delight'?? Curious!] that I
didn't elect Standard German for my posting. To write all this stuff in a
'foreign' (is it really soo foreign??) language works as a natural brake ;-)
and I no longer don't mind about some linguistic finesses standing aside!
It's not only my local dialect of LS which is concerned in this topic, I
know.
Let's keep on fighting for all endagered languages. But a battle had never
be won without the infantry, which in German can be named 'Fußvolk'.
Allerbest' Groytens un moyen Synndag
Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties
Thanks, Críostóir and Jonny!
Jonny, I have no arguments (or no major arguments) with what you say.
Furthermore, I feel that we are basically on the same page, and our hearts
are roughly in the same place. As I see it, there are only differences in
scope, vision and toleration (or "tolerance," if you will).
I strongly suspect that what I personally perceive as insufficient
toleration on your part is based on fear and suspicion arising from
misperceptions and misunderstanding as regards other people's visions, hopes
and methods. And in this you belong to the majority. I am quite aware that
especially within a North German context -- much more so than within an
Eastern Netherlands context -- you are quite "progressive" and open-minded
in comparison with the average age-wise mature person in your area, and your
earnest endeavor to keep on learning is proof enough of this. I assume the
reason for resistance and compulsive nay-saying being so much stronger in
Germany than in the Netherlands is that educational elitism was abandoned
earlier in the latter country, and the smaller country has always been less
self-centered than the larger one. As a result, "Dutch" people of the age
group in question received more solid, more "liberal" and more cosmopolitan
education, thus being, on the whole, more open to diversity and new ideas –
yes, even in the rural areas of comparatively conservative eastern provinces
(since everything is relative).
Furthermore, I am quite aware – and I suspect so are our Críostóir, Dan,
Holger, Sandy, Andy, Marco and other Lowlanders in their respective arenas,
as well as Bo Oscarsson in the arena of Jamtlandish (see our anniversary
project) – that we are up against enormous bulwarks made up of ignorance,
suspicion and complacency, that most of the time we are lone wolves howling
in deserts, and that it is all too easy to dismiss our visions as bunches of
pipedreams, to find ammunition for discrediting us – given *current*
attitudes and dynamics. However, the choice is between doing nothing and
doing something. If one chooses to do nothing, one ought to do nothing
rather than using one's pent-up energy to sabotage other people's efforts,
efforts that hurt no one. If you do something you have at least tried, have
most likely scattered some seeds of thought in some younger people's minds
at least – and the rest is up to the future, when we are no longer
physically around.
Twenty years ago it would have been inconceivable that Low Saxon would be
officially recognized, but it now is. Two hundred or more years ago people
declared the language moribund, giving it a generation or so to disappear
for good. But has it? This is in part because the "real" speakers (as you
seem to consider them) refused to give it up. Furthermore, it is in great
part because in Europe's 19th-century Romantic Age with its numerous
reassertions and revivals gutsy men like Klaus Groth, Fritz Reuter, Wilhelm
Wisser, Johann Hinrich Fehrs and the Freudenthal Brothers led a revival
movement. Yes, they and their comrades-in-arms are nowadays lauded as
folksy writers, but they were also "eggheads" in their time: scholars,
academics, belonging to the highly educated class most "real" speakers
supposedly distrust.
I see nothing wrong with using Low Saxon (or whatever other minority
language) as a clubby lingo in village X, Y or Z. As far as I am concerned,
people are free to choose to limit themselves any way they wish within their
own lives and communities, as long as they do not impose their choices on
others and actively limit the choices and impede the progress of others.
Why should I care? No fat off *my* back! It doesn't run counter to my
"agenda." This is what I mean by "tolerance."
Someone rather close to me, a Low Saxon writer as well, complained to me and
to the Freudenthal people that (ca. 30 years old) Silke Mansholt's latest
series of poems _heel worden_ (in Eastern Friesland Low Saxon) should not
have won the prize and that her "outlandish" avant-garde word-and-dance
performance of it at the award ceremony just proved this. (_So'n Kraam
versteiht keen Minsch!_ 'Nobody can understand stuff like that!') The fact
that Silke now lives and works in England conveniently serves to underline
the notion of "outlandish." Had this poem been in ("High") German or in
English, I doubt that (s)he would have had as big of a problem with it, at
most would have thought (s)he had attended the wrong type of function, I
suppose. Why? "Modern" art is an at least tolerated everyday thing in
"real," "mainstream" societies and languages. Within the context of Low
Saxon it is seen by some as a sort of abomination, if not even as heresy.
Why? Limitation! Why limitation? Because (s)he doesn't *really* believe
that Low Saxon is a real language, believes that it is justly confined to
certain contexts and genres – contexts and genres of *his/her* preference.
In other words, it is an imposition. It may be a personal opinion and
should as such be tolerated. However, it is a different matter when such an
opinion translates into actions aimed at limiting other people's activities
and validity.
This is what I mean by "there's room for all of us, as long as we don't try
to fight each other." Yes, as I have made abundantly clear, I do regret
that Holger and his WikiPlatt crew don't use an optimal writing system
(which I consider a disservice to the learner, at the very least), and I
won't participate unless they do. This is not to say that I wish to
discredit or otherwise sabotage their efforts. I just expressed my
misgivings regarding a certain choice of theirs, and that's that. I applaud
their basic intentions.
Críostóir:
> That's why I have come to prefer the term "language normalisation"
> (a la Catalan) to the term "language revitalisation" or "language revival"
> (a la Irish). The differences in usage reflect vastly different attitudes
> and
> approaches and for any minority language I strongly recommend you
> follow the Catalan example, not the Irish one, if you want to get
> anywhere.
Hear! Hear!
Best wishes to all of you!
Reinhard/Ron
***
A haiku written this morning after looking out of my office window:
Low Saxon (German-type spelling):
Nu hebbt se ähr Schangs verpasst,
Vagels in ähr Wintertüüg --
Rode Vagelbäärn ...
Low Saxon (AS spelling):
Nu hebt sey er schangs verpasst,
vagels in er wintertuyg --
Rode vagelbeern ...
German:
Ihre Chance verpasst.
Vögel in Winterkleidung.
Vogelbeeren, rot ...
English:
Having missed their chance,
birds are wearing winter coats --
Red rowan berries ...
Scots:
Thay've nou missed thair keep.
Birds are weirin winter claes.
Reid rodden-berries … (???)
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