LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.10 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 10 May 2009 - Volume 01
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.09 (08) [EN]

From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be <mailto:
roger.thijs at euro-support.be>>

> Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.09 (06) [EN]
>
> After all, that is the *freedom of individuals* in a Western country.
>

On the one side you are of course right in this, but on the other side:
countries are limiting our freedoms all the way if there is a good reason to
do so (or if they think, they have a good reason to do so).
And: I grew up in a free country of the Western world in an area where Low
Saxon at that time was still the majority language and in 13 years of public
school the most intense treatment of Low Saxon was having to memorize the
42-line poem "Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland" which contains five
lines of Brandenburg Low Saxon. But for 9 years I had to learn English and
there was no way to deselect that subject. It was a required subject all the
time. It's a required subject in every school and for every pupil in all of
Germany. I don't know of any way to graduate from any school in Germany
without having attended English lessons for several years.
Where is my individual freedom not to learn English? Where is my individual
freedom to learn Low Saxon in school?

Marcus Buck

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From: Hugo Zweep <zweep at bigpond.com>
 Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.09 (08) [EN]

I may be buying into a discussion which has been going on for some time and
on which I may be missing the point but I have just returned from a walking
trip, the last part of which started in Belgium at Vise and finished at
Namen (Namur).

The shock of getting off a Dutch bus from Maastricht and finding that the
first person I could ask for direction knew no Dutch and having that
experienced repeated day after day was great. One country? I knew of the
antagonism between the Wallons and Flemish but Wallon may as well have been
a separate country. No dual language signage, barely concealed but frequent
hostility directed at my lack of French when I was considered Flemish. It
ended with snarls at Namur railway station.

In Andenne the tourist office had no Dutch speaker to help me find
accomodation. Shops everywhere were entirely French. Bus and railway
information entirely French. And the lack of English speakers was
suprisingly insular. It seemed like a marriage badly on the rocks with
husband and wife not talking to each other.

In Galicia, where I also walked, there were certainly lots of people
speaking Gallego. But there were also signs, directions, brochures, menus
and whatever else in both Spanish and Gallego. While in Spain I also met an
Italian woman from from German speaking South Tirol who explained how
her community is able to maintain its identity, part of which
includes teaching children German for local communication, Italian for wider
use and English for future advancement. This appears to be based on mutual
respect between the local people and on an understanding of global reality.

In the end, Belgians of whatever language must surely ask whether there is
any point in being one country and understand that their small minded
attitude to language repels others and  diminishes the respect others may
have for them for in them. If the Flemish are learning French, then full
marks to them but I certainly did not see this being reciprocated in Wallon.

Hugo Zweep

•

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