LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.04.04 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  04 April 2007 - Volume 01

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From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.24 (05) [E]

Hallo Gabriele, you wrote:

> As to language maintenance... what I have seen here in my home area in the
> last two years just hurts too much to describe, really. Old ladies in the
> church choir trying to "speak Platt", discussing vocabulary, sounding like
> early "le jardin de ma tante" lessons - using some watered-down form of
> Eastphalian instead of "real" Sollinger Platt - I wish they would just
> forget about it pronto, and let it rest in peace. Young people doing
> amateur
> plays in "Platt" - I had to leave because it was so awful, they all
> sounded
> like second-year foreign language students and barely knew what they were
> saying.
>
What do you think of this "Krippenspeel"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTYo1gQVX8&mode=related&search=

And I found this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wNXtl8VIYU

It's also quite charming. I tried to write down the refrain, putting the
words I'm not sure about in capital letters:

Mien Mann is in FRÖAM (=in der Fremde?)
un(d) hier is so veel Arbeit
Heel week is he op reis
dat maokt mi REIN VERGRELLT
Ik heb ALLAN(G) (HE)M (it sounds like: allan' (u)m) seggt
Wenn du SCH'MO (schon mal?) so lang weg büst
Denn must du di nich wunnern wenn ik mi sülben help
Denn must du di nich wunnern wenn ik mi sülben help

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From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.25 (05) [E]

When I entered "plattdeutsch", "plattdüütsch" etc. in the youtube search
machine about a month ago, there were only two or three results (the two
wiehnachtsansprachen and some others). Now there are fifteen anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=plattdeutsch

Some of them can't be taken seriously, but about young people talking or
singing LS there is this group 'de drangduewels'. I think they are quite
good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I_hJ2i8cuc

And the other samples of their music:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=drangd%C3%BCwels

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

Just some thoughts:

As most of you know, I'm as little in favor of tokenism as the next guy.
But lately I've come to think that "song and dance routines" may have some
positive effects on kids (of the human kind) regarding language image,
provided the routines are pulled off well, i.e. are fun.

I recently compared notes with a couple of people in similar situations to
mine, and our experiences and observations turned to be pretty much the
same.

My younger (not youngest) sister, seven years my junior, still had a fair
few Low Saxon activities in school, mostly things like Christmas songs and
comedy sketches, and the teacher in charge of those activities projected and
generated a fair bit of enthusiasm.  My sister remembers those activities as
fun, and she still remembers most of the things they learned and did.  She
now wishes she could speak the language better than she can and she was very
excited when she told me that at work there were two new employees that were
genuine LS speakers and regularly used the language with each other even at
work.  (She: "I had my desk moved so I could listen to them as much as
possible.")

My youngest sister, fifteen years my junior, did not have any Low Saxon
activities in school.  By then the language had truly gone underground in
the city.  She heard the language spoken mostly within contexts and settings
that she associated with "vulgarity" or "not her scene."  This includes
inebriated people, mostly in and around pubs or bothering folks waiting for
trains and buses, or at home when the "oldies" celebrated or watched
televised parochial theater plays that to a teenager seemed the height of
"uncool."  Even now she just barely tolerates the use of the language around
her, even when relatives use it, and she now does so mostly to humor us
"oldies."  She still seems to think that "Platt" and "educated" make an odd
pair.

The age difference seems to be significant on other levels as well.  My
middle sister and I still got a good dose of the rebelliousness of the 1960s
and 1970s, and we were aware that the way the language was treated was
unfair.  So we had this "So, jetzt ja gerade!" in-your-face attitude.  That
had pretty much blown over by the time our youngest sister was in her teens,
and the competitive rat race was in full swing again, which meant that you
didn't want to be associated with anything "un-chic" and "low-class."  Her
idea of "cool" was French and visits to Paris.  And ... English?  Well, it
was necessary and prestigeous, even though it seemed suspiciously similar to
... well, you know what.

The point I'm trying to make is that positive language-related activities
may at least serve to weaken prejudices based on negative associations, and
this may increase the survival chances of a minority language.  After all,
attitude is of fundamental importance, isn't it?

In Guangdong province of Mainland China, Cantonese got added prestige --
more prestige than other non-Mandarin language of China --  in great part
because of its association with Hong Kong, formerly under British rule and
with a mostly booming economy.  Most young people in and from Hong Kong are
seen as "way cool," and they speak Cantonese with abandon and great
stylistic skill.  Previously, most of them knew little or no Mandarin, nor
did they care about it.  Hong Kong media were mostly world-class and used
mostly Cantonese, including in elaborate TV shows that appealed to people of
all walks of life.   In other words, Cantonese "behaved" like the real
language that it is, and it did so with much confidence.  And this spilled
over into Guangdong province.  (I should also mention that Cantonese
traditional "opera" has been quite independent, not beholden to Beijing
"opera," for a long time.)  Now that Hong Kong has been returned to China I
hear talk of a weaking process regarding the status of Cantonese.  I can't
verify this as a fact, but it makes sense.  Learning Mandarin is all the
rage in Hong Kong now.  Will it take over, and will Cantonese be relegated
to the back seat in Hong Kong itself?  However, I can say that at least here
in North America the Cantonese-speaking community is still rather
independent and confident, and their TV shows tend to be better than
Mandarin shows. In Taiwan, on the other hand, the Minnan (Hokkien) dialects
of the "natives" (Chinese, not the Oceanian-speaking aboriginals) do not
enjoy as much prestige, mostly because the government has a "Mainlander"
base that, according to the "natives," looks down on them (and this matches,
by and large, my observations.)  However, I have noticed an increase in
Taiwanese Minnan activities lately (also at Wikipedia), and I am under the
impression that it is a political backlash similar to what we witnessed when
Catalan, Valencian, Asturian, Galician etc. reasserted themselves after the
fall of Spanish fascism.  Perhaps the increasing confidence in Frisian
reassertion falls into this category.

Any thoughts about this?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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