LL-L "History" 2009.03.01 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

===========================================

L O W L A N D S - L - 01 March 2009 - Volume 05

===========================================



From: Wolfram Antepohl <wolfram at antepohl.se>

Subject: LL-L "History" 2009.03.01 (03) [E]



Dear friends!

It is amazing how much the discussion about Sweden and the Swedes has
engaged many on the list. At times, I really found it hard to keep quiet,
but lack of time kept me from getting involved in the discussion myself. As
a LL-exile in Sweden, I found the discussion both interesting and relevant -
and sometimes slightly provoking. During recent years, I have sensed a new
interest for languages in this country. You pointed out that several
langauges recently were recognized as "Minority languages" here in Sweden,
but that Aelvdalecarlian, Jamtish and Scanian were not among them.
Nonetheless, my impression is that people (and many of them young ones) have
started to become interested even in those kanguages again. Fredrik
Lindström, a Swedish linguist and popular journalist - Sweden's Melvyn Bragg
- may well be one of those responsible for the trend - with his TV shows and
books about Swedish and its dialects (and yes he also raised the issuue of
language vs dialect). Swedes in general also tend to be both interested in
and aware of Swedish history and its more complex aspects - involving
everything from "crusades" around the shores of the Baltic Sea to the Thirty
Years War and from the "Warrior King" Charles XII to Sweden's role in WWII.
Again, a number of popular authors have contributed greatly to this current
awareness (Dick Harrisson, Peter Englund, Niclas Sennerteg, Jan Guillou).



As for the Wulfingas, who may be the ones "responsible" for the creation of
the original Beowulf-poem, several scholars conisder them to originate from
"Östergötland" (Eastern Geatland or Eastern Gothland or maybe Geats and
Goths have the same origin), the province I live in. A manor house close to
Linköping where I live is known by the name of "Ulvåsa" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulv%C3%A5sa)<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulv%C3%A5sa%29>,
one of the many traces of a presumed wolf-clan (Ulvsätten) with potential
connections to both Beowulf and the Wulfingas.



There was also some input concerning the "Varangar" - the Swedish Vikings
who moved eastward. I found the possible connection between "Varangar" and
the Arab word for crucaders "Farangi" very interesting. An amalgamatin of
the cocepts for Franks and Vikings seems pretty reasonable ...



Finnally, a little about LL-influence on Swedish, Sweden and the Swedes. A
quotation from Wikipedia to start with: "With the rise of Hanseatic power in
the late 13th and early 14th century, the influence of Middle Low German
became ever more present. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and
administration with a large number of German- and Dutch-speaking immigrants.
Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and
brought terms from their mother tongue into the vocabulary. Besides a great
number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration;
general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. Almost all
of the naval terms were also borrowed from Dutch". Modern Swedish is
considered to have borrowed about half of its vocabulary and many gramatical
features from LS. In practice, many medieval cities in Sweden were actually
more Low Saxon than Swedish. In order to guarantee the Swedish minority at
least som influence in the city councils, a law was passed that required at
least one (of two) mayor to be Swedish ... In the local museum here in
Östergötland, an exhibition illustrates the presumed "sound" of a medieval
market place in Söderköping - a major trade town during the middle ages - by
creating a background mumble that is entirely German. Unfortunately it is
modern High German and I am tempted to convince them to change that to
Middle Low Saxon ...



God afton och god natt!



Wolfram



----------

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

Dear Wolfram,

Thank you very, very much for those informative notes on Sweden and Swedes
in history.

I am pleased to know that the issue of indigenous Germanic languages vs
dialects is being discussed in Sweden now. It should not surprise us,
considering a general trend toward open-mindedness and forward thinking in
Sweden and the rest of the Nordic Countries. They have always been my
champions of balancing innovation with conservation. And, as I said earlier,
no country has an angelic past, acceptance of which leads to a better
future.

You wrote about regulations limiting “German” representation in medieval
Swedish cities’ administrations. Apparently the same happened in Norway at
the time where “German” representation on councils had to be below 50%. I
understand that this was more because of merchants' wealth and influence
than one of demographic proportions.

Unfortunately, as you demonstrated in the case of the museum, most
Scandinavians today believe that the medieval “German” immigrants spoke
ancestral versions of German. I urge you and others to help dispel this
myth. Speakers of Balto-Finnic got it right; they referred to them as the
Saxons (Finnish *saksalaiset*, Estonian* sakslased*) those folks considered
themselves to be, and later this became words for Germans in general when
the Saxon parts were gobbled up by Germany.

Thanks again, Wolfram.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

==============================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/20090301/667a68f7/attachment.htm>