LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.23 (04) [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 - 23 March 2007 - Volume 04

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From: Jonny Meibohm <altkehdinger at freenet.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.23 (01) [E/S]

Beste Peter Snepvanger and Ben Blomgren,

did Peter (who signed the posting at the end) or did Ben (who is named as
author in the header of it) write:

My father spoke at least 8 languages fluently and many others to a lesser
degree. He used to say jokingly the difference between a language and a
dialect is basically that the dialect couldn't afford an army.

And I guess your father some good years ago joked this way, but I don't joke
when I several times wrote here on our list that modern, big languages are
able to defend themselves but the old and 'minorital' ones, as e.g.
LS, can't.
There are only some handful of people being capable enough in LS to control
what's right and what's wrong. Things even become worse by the fact that
there is a great number of regional dialects, in The Netherlands as well as
in Germany.

And cheap but trendy dictionaries don't help much to find the truth...


Allerbest

Jonny Meibohm

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.23 (02) [E/S]

> From: Jonny Meibohm < altkehdinger at freenet.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.22 (04) [E]
>
> Beste Sandy, Ron,
>
> Sandy wrote:
>
> Dialects and manners of speaking may come and go (and occasionally
> come
> back again!) but it seems that the language, in one form or another,
> continues.
>
> I think so, too, that a language called 'Low Saxon' will exist in
> future. People as we and many others are busy to collect as much
> knowledge as we and they are able to preserve and paint a picture as
> complete as possible for later generations.
>
> But- who will really speak this language? The boring question: who
> speaks Latin today? A circle of freaky scientists and crazy
> hobby-linguists?

What's your point? Are you saying anyone who speaks Latin these days is
freaky or crazy? Can you support this assertion or are you just flinging
in emotive adjectives at random to add to the general air of negativity
that you seem determined to project?

> And so it is, and I can't imagine that this language will re-conquer
> the bureaus of lawyers, medicine doctors or the big trading houses in

Not a man of vision then?  :)

> Why could the Mennonites keep Plautdietsch alive throughout the
> centuries? I think: because of their closed community, (still???) just
> far enough from the influences of their surrounding world.
>
> Why did the Frisians in The Nederlands succeed to re-animate their
> language? Because of the fact that they feel as something special (you
> may call it minority if you want), as an own community. So this time:
> language as help for self-identification.
>
> So- *if* there is a chance to survive then it will be in rural
> communities, but things are changing here as well; urban way of life
> isn't any longer a matter of the cities only.

I don't think your argument is valid at all. You say that the Mennonites
kept Plautdietsch alive because of isolation, you say Frisians
re-animated their language because they feel something special as
community. And your conclusion is that [minority language] survival will
be in rural communities? It doesn't follow.

I think it is true that languages can survive for centuries in rural
areas after the cities seem to have turned over to a power language, but
then when political changes come, the language can sweep over the cities
again (Czech vs German in Prague, for example?).

You might ask yourself what could happen if Scotland gets proper
independence, or if civil war breaks out in Germany  :)

> I'm sure- LS-languages already have made the step to survive, but I
> don't think as spoken and really used or even needed ones. The soul
> already is leaving the body.

I think this is all about how you've decided to define things. You've
decided that a changed language is no longer satisfactory? It has to be
in it's original form? What would that be? Aren't you implying that all
modern languages are moribund because the soul left the body even before
protoIndoEuropean came along? That's certainly being nostalgic with
might and main!

It's very hard to see what you're getting at, though. You seem to be
vague about whether LS still is spoken but not as well as it was, or
whether it's not spoken in any worthwhile form. Surely no language is
needed - any one will do if you're not deaf, and if you are then there's
still an embarrassment of choice!

When you say "the soul is already leaving the body" what do you mean? It
sounds like you think it's too late and nothing could save LS - oh wait
- when you say LS you sometimes mean the LS spoken by older people and
you sometimes mean the LS as it's spoken (or not?) now, so nobody can
ever really know what you're talking about. What are "LS-languages"?
Does the poetic body/soul analogy really apply to languages or is it
just another emotive appeal?

> I cannot become an assistant of people who write a dictionary and
> decide what kind of words they keep and preserve and which words that
> for their convincement are needed but don't already exist have to be
> invented by themselves! Beg your pardon, Ron: I do not basically
> object good inventions to update, to complete a language in a special
> case, but who being of sound mind would try to make a mathematical
> dictionary in e.g. Gothic, hoping that pupils one bad day are tought
> their school lessons this way?

I would definitely buy that book!

Jonny, could you consider using fewer emotive adjectives? It makes it
difficult to take your arguments seriously. Crazy? Freaky? Why is it a
"bad" day when schoolchildren study mathematics in Gothic? It probably
won't happen but I'd call it a pretty amazing day which would bring hope
into the lives of even the unwellest of languages!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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