LL-L "History" 2006.04.09 (01) [D/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 * 08 April 2006 * Volume 01
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.04.07 (04) [D/E/German]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language varieties
>
> It's always interesting, albeit perhaps fruitless, to go down the
> "what-if" lane, isn't it?
>
I was going to say that asking yourself "what if" questions is a sign
you should be writing a novel, but I see it's already been done in this
area!

I sometimes think about what would have happened between England and
Scotland if Edward I hadn't been determined to unite the island at all
costs. I'm inclined to think that, ironically, the island would be much
more united now if he hadn't stirred up such sharp enmity on either side
of the border. It might even be that the whole idea of Scotland and
Scottishness would just seem like an unimportant sideline in mediaeval
politics.

Histroy does seem full of the unexpected and unpredictable, though. The
key battles between Scotland and England seem to be a matter of who's
playing at home and who's playing away. The Scots seemed to have
difficulty with English terrain and vice versa - or else it's something
to do with who's general was the smartest at the time!

At Bannockburn the English attacked with superior force and were wiped
out by the Scots, establishing Scotland as a nation.

At Flodden the Scots attacked the English with superior force and were
wiped out by the English, setting Scotland back as a nation.

In both cases the leaders on the winning side made brilliant use of the
terrain and the losers placed dependence on superior numbers and weaponry.

Add this sort of thing to the idea of more inland-looking Dutch and you
get a different story, of centuries of war between the Dutch and
Hamburg, of the Spanish attacking the Dutch when they were weakened by
wars on their other border, of the French attempting to send down their
chosen King from Lubeck to set himself up on the Dutch throne, and so
on. Whatever, I'm sure the reality would be more exciting than any
alternative history novel, and not in a good way...!

Sandy Fleming
http:///scotstext.org/

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From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties"

Hi Paul, you wrote:

> On this them, I've often thought about the possible scenario of stronger
> Netherlands/English ties, given the importance of contact in the Middle
> Ages. William Caxton, who introduced printing into England, spoke
> "Netherlands" fluently (when he refers to "Dutch", he means Deutsch - > >
High
> German).  Flemish wool merchants and Dutch seamen were almost a fixture
> here.

> If the family trees of English and Dutch royal families had been a bit < >
more
> intertwined, an England-Holland union might have happened instead of, or
> perhaps as well as, the England-Scotland one.

> What effect, if any, that might have had on any of the languages
> involved,
> is obviously unknown.

I think, in this respect we must go back in history a little further and
think over what happened from about 900 to 1100. I don't know the exact
story but fact is, that Skandinavian people settled round the year 900 both
in England and France. Those who settled in England are referred to as Danes
whereas those who arrived in France were called Normans, as we know. I think
they were the same people, one part of them decided to go Britain, the other
preferred France. And as all these tribes were mainly male tribes and had
all but no (or only a few) women and children with them, their ethnic future
depended only on the ethnicity of the conquered populution and the women who
will bear their future children respectively.

And now speculation starts:

If all of them decided to go to Britain, English would have even more
Skandinavic features, additional to those it has got from that time.

If all of them went to France, the Norman-French invasion would have
romaniced old Anglo-Saxon England maybe even totally.

If they stayed only a few decades in France and conquered Britain at a
moment where they still spoke Danish-Norwegian, so about 950, the results
would be again the other way round.

And another question is: why did they chose a place in France which would
later be named after them as Normandie, a place where mainly Gallo-Romance
people lived? Why didn't they settle a bit further in the North where they
would have been immediate neighbours of the ethnically closer Dutch-speaking
Flemings? As Close as possible to the Dover-Calais passage? This would have
resulted in a Skandinavian-Dutch mixture pretty close to the at the same
time mingling Anglo-Saxon-Danish language and so as conquerors the Normans
wouldn't have striked to be ethnically and linguistically different that
much as they appeared in fact as French speaking conquerors.

An answer is: These Nordic people had a great concern about Gallo-Romance
culture and women, which were more exotic and fascinating to them whereas
the Frankish-Dutch culture and women must have appeared to them as pretty
close to what they knew already in their homelands.

Maybe too simple, but that's entertainment for the ones who like to
speculate.

Servus Reinhard!

> As for your "dream," it makes me wonder if we have been infiltrated by  >
the spirits of yesteryear, for a Gothic warrior named Oþmar has
> recently made his presence known, as our Arthur will attest. Die Herren >
Luther, Calvin und Zwingli have expressed a measure of discomfort being >
among the strange-speaking people's of the water's edge, and Martin
> expressed regret about not finding his Pomeranian friend Grubenhagen
> here (who does not dare show his face due to shame over having made a
> mess of translating Marty's German bible translation into Saxon).  Ulf, >
however, does pretty well here, probably because all this internal
> feuding seems just like a bit of static to him.

So you didn't have a guess about the most passionate "subscriber" from
beyond. But you mentioned him: I thought of Johannes Bugenhagen called "Dr.
Pommer". In my vision he is condemned by lowlands-people in heaven to try a
better translation forever and ever. "Und er schaut euch auf's Maul" in
Lowlands-L and is trying to find the real version of LS today and is a bit
confused and desperate about that. He wrote several versions with HG
spelling and recently he finished one in AS spelling and now only a few days
ago he heard about the new Dutch-Nedersaksisch Wikipedia, which he will
pursuit with great interest and he's now at a point where he's likely to
regard this Dutch LS as the real LS.

So anyway: Did you read Bugenhagen's bible? Is it really that bad? Could it
be that it has something to do with the fact that Luther died more then ten
years before Bugenhagen and so the myth around Luther started when
Bugenhagen had his mission to promote Protestantism in his Northern German
home. And so the people preferred a translation by the great Luther himself
and it was easier to Bugenhagen to say something like: Look, this book was
written by our great founder. Another point is that the church could have
preferred a HG bible, because they didn't really want that the folks
understand the bible.

> PAUL FB:
> NO'IĀLAHALAHA
> (< *Nokiārafarafa)
> lālahalaha: swell of the surf
> no'i: seek(ing) knowledge

Congratulation Paul!

Karl-Heinz, the other Neo-Hawaiaan

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

Servus to you, too, Karl-Heinz.

Your newly elevated status seems to be doing wonders by encouraging you to 
let your spirit and fancy soar, truly befitting a kahuna in the making.  Ga 
zo door!

> So anyway: Did you read Bugenhagen's bible? Is it really that bad?

I've only read excerpts of it.  Besides, it's difficult to judge, because we 
don't know enough about the spoken language of the day.  It could well be 
that already early on people's criticism was a bit too harsh.  However, it 
seems that Dr. Pommer's translation has been rightly criticized for being 
too German.  This should surprise no one, for he translated Luther's German 
version into late Middle Saxon.  We all know that translating between two 
fairly closely related languages tends to yield foreign-colored results.  I 
am sure that this would not have happened had he translated the bible 
directly from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek with references to Latin, the way 
Luther apparently did it.  But I believe that Bugenhagen wasn't a scholar of 
that caliber.  Middle Saxon (unlike Modern Low Saxon) did have elevated, 
bookish style registers.  So it appears that internal register was not the 
issue but foreign-colored register was.  Perhaps people were smelling the 
odor of Hanseatic death and had become aware of the beginning of German 
encroachment through academia and church, and this made them extra sensitive 
and alarmist.  It wasn't all that much later that poetic lampoons were 
published about the German language fashion and its excesses and the neglect 
and denigration of the language of the north.  However, I do have the 
feeling that Bugenhagen's effort represents a missed opportunity.  Had there 
been a more acceptable translation it could well have strengthened the Saxon 
language, could have fortified it enough as to stand up better against the 
German onslaught.  Most likely, we would now use a Pomeranian-based standard 
variety, also in what are now the Eastern Netherlands.  But again, this is 
speculation.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron 

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