LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.11 (01) [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 * 11 February 2006 * Volume 01
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.10 (06) [E/Middelspraak/?]
I guess, Ron, this was meant to mock the idea of an Inter-Germanic
language? At least I hope so because your "Al-Laoglandisk" is quite a bad
attempt and a lot harder to understand than MS.
Mid frenlig gröte af Ingmar
Ron wrote>
>Kan wij neot lijk so ejn al-laoglandisk tong maak, ons ejgen privaat-tong
>("Fremders en akademikers uut!") mit grond-lejin tong-regels en ejnli
>grond-luuds (mit neon omluuds)? En wen wij hev it redi en togader, den
>sit it fast in stejn, den kan ejnli *wij* it spraek, en neon manisk-seol
>maeg it maek or spraek ander-wejs.
>Dreomind ...
>
>From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
>Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2006.02.10 (03) [E]
>Tanke di, Paul, ig finde det gôd to höre dat du forstâ MS so licht.
>In fall de werld schalde nöde en Intergermanisch sprâk, ig tenke okso dat
>MS ware en werdig kandidat. Doch dâr is alrede Engelisch naturlig, so
>wê kan brûke MS?
>Ingmar
>
>Paul Finlow-Bates skrivede:
>>I wondered why I was suddenly finding it easier than usual to read one of
>>the non-English postings!! That really seems to be an effective "pan
>>Germanic" language.
----------
From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.10 (06) [E/Middelspraak/?]
From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2006.02.10 (03) [E]
Tanke di, Paul, ig finde det gôd to höre dat du forstâ MS so licht.
In fall de werld schalde nöde en Intergermanisch sprâk, ig tenke okso dat
MS ware en werdig kandidat. Doch dâr is alrede Engelisch naturlig, so
wê kan brûke MS?
Ingmar
Paul Finlow-Bates skrivede:
>I wondered why I was suddenly finding it easier than usual to read one of
>the non-English postings!! That really seems to be an effective "pan
>Germanic" language.
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties
Kan wij neot lijk so ejn al-laoglandisk tong maak, ons ejgen privaat-tong
("Fremders en akademikers uut!") mit grond-lejin tong-regels en ejnli
grond-luuds (mit neon omluuds)? En wen wij hev it redi en togader, den sit
it fast in stejn, den kan ejnli *wij* it spraek, en neon manisk-seol maeg it
maek or spraek ander-wejs.
Dreomind ...
Reinhard/Ron
----------
From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.10 (01) [E]
From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2006.02.10 (03) [E]
... Doch dâr is alrede Engelisch naturlig, so
wê kan brûke MS?
Ingmar
From: R. F. Hahn
Subject: Language varieties
....En wen wij hev it redi en togader, den sit
it fast in stejn, den kan ejnli *wij* it spraek, en neon manisk-seol maeg
it
maek or spraek ander-wejs.
Dreomind ...
Reinhard/Ron
Ron and Ingmar:
For a start, it would be a good tongue for Englishmen to speak, to baffle
Welshmen!
Paul
----------
From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.10 (01) [E]
Hi Ron:
Subject: Language Politics
With reference to your comment;
...covers for hiding illicit or unwanted activities, such as in the case of
Rotwelsch, also some Roma and Irish Travelers
I really object to the language engineering perpetrated by the politically
correct who daintily redefine Irish Tinkers or Romanies (I notice you don't)
as 'Travellers'. I travel occasionally myself. For long stretches in my
youth I was a traveller. But I was never a Tinker.
The language engineers do not materially contribute to the dignity & self
esteem of Tinkers by their political correctness, but they do ablate the
value of the term. This is bad for the language, which, after all is nothing
if not a medium of communication. When this affected daffiness is carried
out across the entire lexicon, the language suffers. There are Bantu
languages where traditional avoidances drive common terms out of the lexicon
with each generation. Where tradition binds you to this practise I suppose
you have no choice, but English speakers do.
Yrs,
Friend of Yeller Hankerchief (& Timmy Jim)
Mark.
----------
From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.06 (09) [E]
> From: Kevin Caldwell <kevin.caldwell1963 at verizon.net>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.06 (08) [E]
>
>> From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
>> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.06 (07) [E]
>>
>> that he didn't have the results of Mendeleevian genetics at his
>> disposal.
>
> I think you mean Mendelian, as in Gregor Mendel. Mendeleyev was the
> periodic table guy.
>
Yes, that's what I meant :)
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language varieties
>
> run the show and have the last word. Also, I am not so sure that
> people, such as immigrants, ought to be excluded, people that use a
> given language predominantly, have adopted it in their family lives,
> raise their children with it, etc., but it happens not to be the
> language they were first taught. Completely excluding them seems
> rather arrogant as well, leave alone exclusionist (perhaps similar to
> naturalizing immigrants but not allowing them to vote). This seems
> like a gray area to me, and there may be some sort of gradation
> related to degrees of involvement, commitment and investment.
Yes, it's grey, I think. I think also another effect of the cultural
aspect is whether people want to be "us" or "them" with respect to the
language. I doubt, for example, if many Scots, English, Welsh, Irish,
Americans, Australians &c would want to use heavy orthography variation
as a way of splitting off from each other, they'd much rather enjoy the
ability to read each others writings effortlessly even if some national
identity is asserted in unimportant variations such as "color/colour"
and, in less formal writing, more imporant variations such as idiomatic
usage.
On the other hand, the peoples listed might be keenly interested in
using their other languages such as Scots, Urdu, Welsh, Gaelic, Irish &c
to emphasise their cultural separation from England (or certain strands
of English tradition), they just don't want to do it through English.
We have this sort of gradation in Deaf communities too. For example we
have born-and-bred deaf (usually written "Deaf" with a capital "D"),
deafened, *HMFD's, interpreters, and hearing with Deaf or deafened
friends or family, all using BSL. Usually it's Deaf and HMFD's who are
considered to be the cultural guardians of the language, the rest
usually accept they'll never achieve such depth in the culture.
As usual the physical barrier between Deaf and non-signers tends to
throw the problems into sharper relief. We see experts like hearing
teachers of the Deaf inventing** and sometimes publishing school signs
that don't fit the grammar and phonology of the language and even when
they do, they miss graphic and metaphoric opportunities that make
everything so much more expressive in signs as invented** by cultural
signers.
* HMFD's: BSL acronym "Hearing, Mother Father Deaf", often also known by
the English acronym CODA "Child of Deaf Adults", though this misses the
fact that many of them are no longer children!
** In Deaf sign languages, the spontaneous creation of new signs from
metaphor and a common understanding of features of the real world is
more important than in oral languages.
Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/
----------
From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.02.07 (02) [E]
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language varieties
>
> Linguistics as a whole contains disciplines that deal with language
> processing on a basic, universal level, including also physical
> aspects. As such it is widely considered bridging "hard" and "soft"
> sciences. It touches and draws from "hard" sciences, social studies
> and the humanities (arts and letters). Philology, just one discipline
> within it, situated at the humanities end of things, is by some
> considered obsolete or virtually irrelevant (other than supplying
> corporae) and happens to linger on in non-linguists' minds as being
> representative of linguistics.
I tend to think of linguists as scientists, as opposed to language
learners and enthusiasts who (unless they're also linguists) aren't.
Most people set their definition of "science" far too wide. Technology
and engineering aren't science, for example, because although they use
the results of scientific research they don't generally involve
scientific method, which is a systematic way of validating (though never
proving) theories by attempting to disprove them and seeing if they stay
standing or fall down. It involves a system of rigourous measurements
and controls, and recording results in such a way that they can be repeated.
Thus I don't call someone who's learned a gajillion languages and makes
a living lecturing on them a linguist, though they could be. On the
other hand, I think it's possible to be a linguist while knowing very
few languages, or only one. For example, someone who studies certain
aspects (say, physical or statistical aspects) of language structure
from recordings might do so without knowing any of the languages and
indeed might decide only to analyse languages they don't understand, in
order to keep their analysis free of their own preconceptions. I'd call
such a person a linguist, but not a language learner.
Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties
No mocking was intended, Ingmar and Gabriele, just friendly, light-hearted
satyrical banter. Sorry if it came across otherwise to you. The perceived
sharp edge may have been due to a temporary mood with satyrical or
sarcastic, though rather playful over- and undertones. (I forgot to take
off the fake horns.)
However, I am genuinely interested in phenomena that at least at first sight
seem like linguistic xenophobia, and I wish I could understand what
experiences have created such mindsets (if I can get my head around that,
being just an emigrant from a large city). So far I have not come across it
with regard to Low Saxon in the Netherlands (although I have very many
contacts there). I don't know if this is a coincidence or if there are
cultural and/or historical reasons.
Ingmar, just so you know for future reference, I have no real issue with
constructing languages, especially if they are meant to be cross-variety
linguae francae (though I do have a problem with them if they ignore certain
varieties, which cannot be said about Middelsprake). (The only issue I have
with Middelsprake is that there are sounds that are hard to pronounce for
some people.) I see it merely as a grand-scale, "radical" equivalent of
creating a cross-dialectical koine, an activity to which I am not opposed
(and which has applied in all "real," "major" languages), though many others
are opposed to it in the case of Low Saxon in Germany. Creating such koine
varieties seems to me related to hypothetically reconstructing
proto-varieties, except that in most cases it includes abstraction and
simplification. I see some educational value in it also, namely as an
exercise serving to heighten linguistic awareness.
More power to you!
Paul:
> For a start, it would be a good tongue for Englishmen to speak, to
> baffle Welshmen!
There you go! Nice to see at least one person tuned in to the intended
wavelength.
Sandy, your definition of linguistics pretty much tallies with the now most
current one (probably having started in the 1960s). However, the fact that
someone can be a linguist and not speak or write a language other than his
or her own tends to be detrimental when dealing with people outside the
discipline. I suppose this is because popular views haven't caught up, and
linguists often run into ignorance- and thus suspicion-based kneejerk
reactions and "protective native speaker arrogance" ("They want to
manipulate our language!" and "What would *they* know, anyhow?") arising in
large part from feeling distrustful of and threatened by anything at least
formally scientific and intellectual.
Reinhard/Ron
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