LL-L "Language attitudes" 2007.11.07 (02) [E]

Wed Nov 7 19:08:08 UTC 2007

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  06 November 2007 - Volume 02
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Peter Snepvangers <snepvangers at optushome.com.au>
Subject: LL-L "Genealogy" 2007.11.06 (04) [D/E]

Roger,
please keep logging your fascinating facts.
there does not seem to be a lot of south dutch or Limburgisch info and I
always find yours and Luc's and Desidre's info most enlightening. I am
fascinated that there are over 1 million users of limburgs ( and after
having visited in July 2007 again having no doubt in this number of users
but am amazed at the lack of imput from Limburgs language users. it seems as
though Limburgs treats their minor language scenario as un important. My own
experience is totally the opposite. I went to the main bookshop in
Maastricht and asked for Limburgs English dictionary and was told by 3
different staff that this is not what I want. I do not want Limburgs dialect
is what I was told. Even though I was in the heartlaand. What is wrong with
these " Learned people" .  As an English speaking person  I WAS FOBBED OFF.
It was absurd that I wanted to see anything in the Limburgs dialect. What I
wanted was Dutch I was told. I was totally amazed at the lack of Limburgs in
Maaastricht I was being sold in the new b ookshop. Beautiful place with
walls being art updated but the language expectation here was only Dutch -
super sad to me. My cousin who lived in Valkenburg thought it was also an
absurdity b ut the truth.
Regards
Peter Snepvangers
snepvangers at optushome.com.au

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

Hi, Pete! Could to "see" you, stranger.

What you encountered there is the sort of thing I and some people I know are
quite familiar with. I'm certain anyone is who deals with minority languages
of countries other than their own. It is an interesting but also irritating
phenomenon.

What makes it hard to deal with is that it seems to come from a mixture of
ignorance and wanting to be helpful to outsiders. Those people got a bit too
much state-run education (that used to reflect denial of legitimacy of
languages other than the national one), and they haven't really caught up
with the latest changes in policy and attitudes. Fundamental may be that
they truly believe that it's fine for local "backward" *Lokalpatrioten *to
deal with "inconsequential" lingos, but that foreigners ought to learn
the *national
*language if they haven't already done so. It is virtually impossible for
them to get their heads around the possibility that a foreigner is
interested in, say, Limburgish, Low Saxon or Frisian but not in Dutch, and
learning Dutch without wanting to live there is seen by many as being
frivolous to begin with.  So if these "educated" people that are fluent in a
handful of "important" foreign languages see their own national language as
being low on the international totem pole, guess what they think about the
minority and "regional" languages of their country. What you are dealing
with here are the chickens of past indoctrination having come home to roost
and running amuck in this transitional period because no one wants to see
them and deal with them, since that would require acknowledging past "sins."

As I said, I have come across this phenomenon many times, and not only in
Europe. In Indonesia I had the longest run-around trying to round up
material for Sundanese and Javanese (which aren't exactly minority languages
with 27 million and 75 million speakers respectively). And I wasn't even
asking for English language material about them. Overriding seemed to be the
attitude that this was an internal matter, that a foreigner ought to be
dealing only with Indonesian, the national language. In China (including
Taiwan) it is very difficult for foreigners to get to study the "dialects" (
i.e., Chinese languages other than Standard Mandarin), leave alone
non-Chinese languages of China, and the latter is often accompanied by
suspicion.

In my opinion, the only way around such barriers anywhere in the world is
establishing contacts with relevant individuals, populations and
organizations. Just traveling there and trying to spend an afternoon hunting
down material tends to be difficult. This is where it comes in handy if you
do some homework before the trip. Being on a list like ours also allows you
to ask locals or those that have been there before about resources and their
locations.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

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