LL-L "Language politics" 2008.12.12 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 12 December 2008 - Volume 05
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From: Jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2008.12.11 (06) [E/German]

Beste Marcus,



you wrote:



Okay, Hockereestraat was kind of (I am not even sure this is the right
spelling, it's a relatively new commercial area and not yet in any
directories and not visible on Google Maps for example. In the press it was
spelled Hökereestraat sometimes).



Yes, I fully agree. This seems to be a stumbling block.

The same thing I often have to experience with my own address: 'Dingwörden'
(meaning 'a terp where people meet for their council', literal a 'place to
think', probably from OS 'thenkian') mostly becomes something like
'Dink-Würden' or 'Denkwürden' ;-)!



If this kind of commerce would be settling there, I could hardly understand,
why the names should pose problems, cause they would mostly have regional
customers and regional suppliers.

I don't fully agree at *this* point. The greater part of East-Frisia is a
region of extreme low oeconomical structure. They still have got the
reputation of being 'behind the moon', and so we have to understand and to
endorse all of their efforts to take part in globalizing.



PS: You too mentioned the move to Frisian names. Actually I am not a friend
of such moves. I am all supporting the move to fully recognize Frisian and
give it all the same rights, but that should not mean to abolish the Dutch
name. It's okay to write both names on the town signs or even to write the
Frisian name in big letters and the Dutch name in small, and it's okay to
write official documents in Frisian. But the Dutch name shouldn't be erased.
Why can't towns have two official names? One Frisian, one Dutch? "Official"
doesn't mean "only one".

I wonder why we yet didn't hear any opinion from our Western neighbours.

Though this affair shouldn't be our business but a Dutch one only I dare to
write that I by and large agree with you again.

Where would it lead to if the Frisians over there really stop to aspect
Dutch as their first and official language? Perhaps next generation children
just able to speak a poor Standard Dutch? I just remember the words of an
elder East-Frisian collegue who often used to say 'Skall niags öberdreben
waorn' ('nothing should be overdone'), or, with the words of another friend
from the Lower Rhine area 'Allet, wat met *zu* anfängt, is' nit jut'
('everything starting with *too* isn't good').



Allerbest; have a nice weekend!



Jonny Meibohm



PS: Just as you try to stir fears of invented Low Laxon. I don't know no
single example of "re-invented" Low Saxon names. Please give examples.

I like to stir - both in people's minds as well as in a good 'Kehdinger
Hochzeits-Suppe' (a regional recipe of a soup from ox meat - cooked from
minimum one pound meat for each person!) ;-)!

But these really *are* my fears! Just remember 'Lüttensee' vs.
'Lütjensee'. Ein Schildbürger-Verhalten, welches die ganze plattdeutsche
Sache doch nur ins Lächerliche zieht! (A behavior of fools suited to make
the matter of our Low Saxon ridiculous!)

DS
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