LL-L "Media" 2008.02.13 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 13 February 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: L-L "Media"

Beste Ron,

You wrote:

At any rate, this is a very interesting documentary about everyday life of a
rural Mennonite community on the steppes of Siberia. Some of the people
interviewed had visited Germany, usually because relatives had emigrated
there. However, they make it clear that they are content with life in
Siberia and consider.

Consider what?

Sounds very interesting. Would love to know if these guys in the Altai are
able to speak the local language as well. Any idea?

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

PS: Will ride my motorbike to Tajikistan this summer. So I'm eager to know
where and how these pockets of German(ic)s are living/surviving. The north
of Kazakhstan used to harbour a lot of them. Don't know if that's still the
case.

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

Luc,

The "and consider" is a remnant of an erased phrase to the effect that those
people consider that area their homeland.

Sure, the number of speakers of Germanic languages (including Yiddish) has
been dramatically reduced during the last two decades. However, I'm told
that there are still communities of them. Not everyone wants to emigrate to
the "West." Many have visited there and have decided that they feel more at
home in Siberia or Central Asia where they know life and have communities
and networks. There are also quite a few that emigrated to Germany, decided
it was not for them (also didn't always feel welcome) and decided to go
back. Much of it has to do with rural life versus urban life as well. In the
Siberia program one rather eloquent lady explained (in *Plautdietsch*) that
women tend to favor emigration because they would no longer have to work as
hard, and men tend to favor staying because of their properties, modest
though most cottages and plots of lands may be.

There must still be some urban communities as well, such as in Kazakhstan's
Almuty (Alma-Ata) and Qaraghanda (Karaganda), and also around Tashkent,
Bukhara and Samarkand (Uzbekistan), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), and Dushanbe
(Tajikistan). Locating them may require searching for and contacting
associations.

As far as I know, the average speaker of Low Saxon and/or German in that
region did not traditionally learn the indigenous languages but have been
limited to Russian as a lingua franca, and many older people in rural
communities know little or no Russian. I assume that in the Central Asian
countries this is changing now that Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajik have
become mandatory school subjects in the respective countries.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

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