LL-L "Language diversity" 2009.02.20 (05) [E]

Fri Feb 20 23:05:07 UTC 2009

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 20 February 2009 - Volume 05
===========================================

From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language diversity" 2009.02.20 (03) [A/E]

> From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>

>... UNESCO has published a nice online atlas of endangered languages (5
categories):

http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00206

There is clearly disagreement within Luxembirg,

cf.:

http://www.wort.lu/wort/web/letzebuerg/artikel/07502/unesco-sprachenbericht-vieles-stimmt-einfach-nicht.php

Regards,

Roger

----------

From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language diversity" 2009.02.20 (01) [E/LS]

Hi James,

I believe much of the problem with the languages and dialects of England and
Wales is that the speakers refuse to be bilingual. Of course the Education
System will be biased toward Standard English; you can't give a speech to
the Royal Society or an international conference in Geordie, and if you
imagine that a doctor from Mumbai is going to learn it so you can, you're
out of luck.

The problem is that speakers of the different tongues who learn Standard
English then stick with it and fall into a trap of treating their home
speech as "wrong".  It'stheir language, nobody else is making them do that.

Secondly, I guarantee that if I, as an East Midlander, attempted to speak
Geordie in Newcastle the locals would be convinced I was "taking the piss"
and I'd be met with derision at best, and more likely violence. Germans
don't take offence when I speak German, nor do Iranians when I try Persian.
If people want language status they need language responsibility.

Paul

Derby

England

----------

From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language diversity" 2009.02.19 (07) [E]

from heather  heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

Paul wrote: We can stop outright attempts at elimination such as the British
tried with Welsh and Gaelic,

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I do get so angry when people promulgate this anti-British (?English)
nonsense.

When State schooling started in the UK in the 19th century ALL SCHOOLS had
to deliver the curriculum in the Queen's English and - in direct tradition
of the immersion technique of the Latin/Greek schools of the medieval period
-  ALL PUPILS had to 'leave' their home language at the school gate and were
only allowed to use the Queen's English once they were on school premises.
The aim was to iron out the dialect contrasts that made a Southerner
incomprehensible to a Northerner and similarly someone from the Western
counties and someone from the eastern ones.

In certain professions such as mining when Welsh miners were moved to other
areas, speaking in their own language was seen by foremen and owners alike
as disturbing and possibly conspiratorial. When workers uniting to form
unions was still seen as a major threat by owners and foremen, it was going
to be expected that these same same people would NOT wish workers to talk in
a way that could not be understood. ( a criticism that can still be heard in
the workplace today where a monolinguist will always feel at a disadvantage
when listening to half a dozen groups of languages being spoken around
him/her)

I am not supporting the suppression of language: I am just saying that those
that did it, had what they thought at the time were sound reasons, which
should not be reevaluated according to later attitudes and developments.

The schools certainly thought they were "freeing" people to move unhindered
and without bias throughout the world of work by giving them a lingua franca
that could be understood in the late 19th century all the way round the
world.

The owners/workers situation is v different. If I had been an owner/ foreman
and feared that insurrection was being planned ( when really more likely it
was just a conversation about swapping someone's sardine sandwich for a
cheese one!) I'd have taken the trouble to learn the language or employ a
translator!!

And one final point: there were not enough native English teachers around in
the latter half of the 19th century to fill all the state schools in the
British Isles: the teachers who put the Welsh Knot around the necks of Welsh
pupils were native Welsh - often middle class or aspiring to it . They
believed to do their best by their pupils they had to make sure they spoke
English as this opened so many more doors to them.... and the immersion
technique was the medium they chose.

 In East Anglia it was a Scotsman who ran the school where my grandfather
would have been made to wear the 'Norfolk Knot'!

There was no directive from 'above' that said - we must eliminate these
languages. Once English was believed to be the cachet language, it would
have been dialect speakers themselves who would have shunned their own
language in favour of 'getting on in the world ' by being fluent in the
Queen's English.

just as country children long for the city lights

and city parents long for the country life

we all seem to yearn for improvement in our standard of living.

Some people move house; some people change the way they speak.

What is sad - and this has been said many times on this forum - is that they
were not sufficiently enlightened to allow 2 Englishesor languages to be
spoken by each child / worker - their home langauge and Queen's English,
with the ability to move seamlessly at the right time and under right
circumstances between both.

Heather

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20090220/fcc1f4a8/attachment.htm>