LL-L "Language politics" 2010.08.04 (06) [EN]

Wed Aug 4 23:02:38 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 04 August 2010 - Volume 06*

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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.08.04 (02) [EN]

Dear David:

Subject: LL-L "Language politics"

You speak of Welsh, & the support it enjoys from the State. I do not doubt
that you are correct. Many other sources report the same, that the
Administration has made many a cosy niche for those fluent in Welsh &
bilingual in Welsh & English. However, all the World over, Official
patronage is a fickle gift. The test of the survival or merit of a language
is whether it will endure when that support is removed. It seems to me that
in the case of Welsh it will. It seems to me that in the case of Welsh it
doesn't actually need that support. It is a crutch indeed, but a crutch to
an Administration dependant on of the support of Welsh Patriots. This is not
a relationship healthy to either party. It certainly was true of Afrikaans.
Nowadays, without it, only those committed to the use of Afrikaans will use
it, & they speak it with intent. *That *is what you want for a language.

Today I accosted a total stranger buying a newspaper on the street, asking
him suddenly if he thought 'Die Taal' would be spoken in the future. He
laughed spontaneously & easily, & said, "Maar natuurlik!" (but naturally!) &
offered to move on. Then I detained him with one more question, whether he
was educating his children in Afrikaans. Suddenly serious, he said. "Ja,
Swaar, al kos dit hoe duur. Ons is mos Afrikaans. Maar jy moet my asseblif
verskoon. Die tyd is verstreke en ek stel nie so seer belang in taalkwessies
nie. Gaan goed en tot siens." (Yes, Mate, however much it costs. We are
after all Afrikaans. But you must please excuse me. Time is limited & I am
not all that interested in language issues. Go well & goodbye.) or words
more or less to that effect. Now it is in the mouths & hearts of such as
these, that 'are not all that interested in language issues' that a tongue
flourishes or dies. It is not legislation or the Constitution that nurtures
a language, but the simple preferences of those that don't give a damn. Go &
cultivate them.

    (BTW I know a bit more about Afrikaans & since you opened the subject I
feel free to get political, but the British Concentration Camps have bugger
all to do with Afrikaans or its current usage, & if it must be brought up,
please leave it to *me*.

    Further, you may think its true to say that earlier the Boers had
cruelly hunted out the native San (bushmen) and others from the land
themselves, you are being neither completely just nor truly objective. The
British started in on this sub-continent from 1795, & if they enforced any
reversal of such a policy between then & 1965 I have yet the hear or read
hair or hide of it. On the contrary, an article in the Standing Orders of
the BSAP - the British South Africa Police - never retracted, directed that
all Bushmen were to be shot on sight. It was never retracted because the
Bushmen ran out before conscience awoke.

    Yes their were wars & horrors, & My People were not alone the
perpetrators or the victims. Sarel Cilliers' family, lay preacher for the
Great Trek, joined it because among other reasons the land they had been
renting from Bushmen (it can be a profitable arrangement; game population
increases in well-managed pastures) had been siezed by Hottentots, the
Bushmen murdered & they, the tenants, driven off. Trichards joined the Trek
notwithstanding the fact that they had already left the Eastern Province -
it had become an economic wasteland under the British malAdministration - &
were renting land & doing well across the border, among the Xhosa.

    The 'racial lines' & the 'iron fist' under which you accredit us with
ruling S Africa several decades, were laid down by the Constitution imposed
on us as a 'parting gift' by the British (Hong-Kong got the same), most
notably in the Selbourne appendix to the South Africa Act of 1910, & reams
of 'Crown Commissions' building on the Glen Grey Act of the British Cape
Colony well prior to & some time after 1910. (You want me to quote sources?
I am willing.)

    BTW I fear the sub-text of your parting shot is that we deserve what we
got because of what we did. I do not agree. I do not accept that any
injustice justifies a subsequent injustice, not merely on my account but
also on yours. It may be I am being unjust to you. If so I apologise, but
you must pull me up on it.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Dreyer

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