LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.01.02 (05) [E]

Thu Jan 3 00:22:20 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  01 January 2008 - Volume 05
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From: Ed Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2008.01.02 (03) [E]

At 01:09 PM 02/01/2008 -0800, Marcus Buck wrote:

Non-standard language is not used in the military than for private talk
under the soldiers (if they all know the language).

In this particular dialogue, there are no officers present, and the talk is
definitely familiar and private.

And of course, "Das
Boot" is a movie and movies don't depict the reality. In a movie
non-standard language is only used, if the plot demands it.

That's interesting, since in English language films there is often an
attempt to at least imitate the dialect of the character.  If the character
is from Texas, no one in North America will believe it unless they sound
like it.  And in the case of our Low Saxon speaking sailor, I find it as
strange for him to start speaking HG as would be for an American sailor in a
war film to greet someone with a "Hi, how-yall-doin" then start speaking
General American.  This would be strange indeed.

Moin moin stems from Northern German dialect, but is too part of
Northern German colloquial speech. So the moin moin does not indicate
dialect use in the film.

Elsewhere in the film, the greeting used is "Morgen."  Although I do get
your point.

Among sailors (btw, do submariners [or whatever the term for
U-Boot-Fahrer may be] count for sailors?)

quite right, pronounced sub-MAR-iners.

 there was much use of Platt in
that time, but more in civil seafaring, like fishermen and coastal and
inland trade (in de Schipperee).

Too bad they didn't show more of this in the film, which otherwise seems
quite realistic.  Except the U-boot seems much bigger than they were in
reality - if you don't believe me, just go visit the U505 in Chicago.

You ask whether the Nazi policy has
survived the war: There is no special Nazi policy about Low Saxon. There
was no official use before, there was no official use after. The
attitude towards Low Saxon was consistent from the times in the 17th
century when official use of Low Saxon was finally abolished until
today. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (from
1994 on) was the first step for real language recognition in three
hundred years. And had not much effect on the attitude towards the
language. The government has only granted rights with no costs involved
and even of those most are not fulfilled according to the monitoring
reports.
So, in this case the Nazis are not to blame.

I hope everyone understands that I was just being facetious.  I am quite
aware of the long term language policies of successive German governments
over the last 300 years.  I was just curious as to how this worked in
culture, such as film.  If the film was about a fishing village on the North
Sea, would all of the locals speak HG among themselves?  I know they
wouldn't speak straight platt, but would they at least speak with a "platt"
accent and other mild characteristics?

Ed Alexander

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

Ed,

Being a military outfit, the German navy has always only permitted German.
After all, officers are not only from the north.

The merchant marine, too, has been using only German at least since the
beginning of the 20th century, Low Saxon being confined to private spheres.
Why, many sailors come from far off the coastal areas, some even from
Bavaria!

Many people that don't know Low Saxon believe "Moin!" is a form of "(Guten)
Morgen!" ("Good morning!") and use it as such. But in reality it's a
greeting like "Hi!" being derived from something like "Moin ..." ("Pleasant
...").

Rehards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

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