LL-L "Language politics" 2010.08.05 (03) [EN]

Thu Aug 5 17:03:58 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 05 August 2010 - Volume 02*

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From: DAVID COWLEY <DavidCowley at anglesey.gov.uk>

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

Dear Mark,

Thanks for your comments.

On the point about the future of languages being in the hands (or
rather mouths and tongues) of their speakers, certainly that is
essential, I agree. You speak of state support as being a 'crutch' and
you're far from alone in thinking that way. But there is the point I
think that all official languages of states like the UK, France, Germany
or wherever have all of this background support taken for granted.
There's no question of government staff, official documents or state TV
NOT speaking/ being in English, French or German in those countries
respectively - yet we'd never call that a crutch; so I think the support
that Welsh enjoys is an important background fact, the lack of which
would be an unfair disadvantage. And I think without it Welsh would be
under a lot more pressure. So, for Low Saxon, North Friesian or indeed
Scots, though those things on their own would not be enough, I suggest
that the fact that they're by and large not there means there's a lack
of background things that should be taken for granted.

On the Afrikaans comments: please don't think for a moment that I want
to defend the British and their track record in South Africa or really
anywhere else they colonised. Many shameful episodes. It would be
surprising to find that there was any colonial history anywhere in the
world that didn't involve some serious suffering and pain for the native
folk whose land was being colonised.

I wasn't saying that the Afrikaaners now deserve what they get, only
commenting on human behaviour - the same effect would tend to work
anywhere really. Again, you'll probably know much better than me about
rivalries between African tribes/ linguistic groups in Southern Africa
to back up that point. But surely its clear that by using skin colour as
the baseline for defining where folk where in society, what they could
do, where they could go and suchlike, the South African govt of the time
was hardly going to build up goodwill amongst most of the population for
the future, for wanting to speak Afrikaans. Again, human nature, even
though by now there will be many more Afrikaaners who were really
nothing to do with the system, as there always were. I personally hope
that Afrikaans can survive, ja, Swaar!

(I can also add that when I was a student in the '80s, the BIG thing
that was being campaigned against was Apartheid. I recall thinking,
right, but what about the other cases of oppression that got no
attention at all, because many regimes that were significantly more
brutal were ignored. I dare say books could be written on the psychology
behind that.)

Best wishes

David

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From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>

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

Dear all,

"is there a future for Low Saxon?" seems a déja-vu-topic to me, but a
welcome one :-) I feel as if I had seen the discussion two or three times
here on LL-L in the few years that I have been reading LL-L. This proves to
me there is (still!) a lot of passion in it, and also a lot of frustration,
because little ever happens in the real world. But I love to discuss it or
read others dicussing it, and I think every time we do it we distill a
higher concentration of clearsight out of it, although we may be repeating
an argument now and then.

What Marcus wrote (3.8.) is cuttingly true, what Mark Dreyer wrote (also
3.8.) comforts me a little more, because a lot of it has been achieved
already, such as compiling grammars and, in parts, dictionaries; and more of
what he writes can be achieved *without government support or government
money*. If we hope to bring Low Saxon on at all I fear we must put up with
having no official money or support. Now what exactly can be done with
private initiative only, and how effective can it be? If much of that may
have been said in former discussions, don't hesitate to repeat it. I may
have missed or forgotten. And we may distill it again and again on the fire
of Marcus' skepticism and Mark's and my enthusiasm... See what we get.

My first ideas:

1. We need a sound, *useful* low saxon nonfiction literature. Not
translations, but original texts. I had set out on this with computer
manuals etc. at plattpartu.de, but have since digressed from it under the
pressure of lots of texts sent to me and of my own literary tastes. Mea
culpa!!

2. As to low saxon Kindergärten (Marcus' suggestion), low saxon Tagesmütter
(Ron, please translate...!) would be easier to achieve. If there are any,
they could perhaps organize. In the case of success, Kindergärten might
follow on their own accord. Networking and publicity would be the first
steps -- should be no problem in the internet age!

What say you?

Hartlich!

Marlou

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

Subject: Language politics

Thanks, David and Marlou!

David, I do agree that the case of Welsh teaches us a lot. But there is one
difference that I think should not be ignored: Welsh is very different from
the power language English, and no one ever doubted that it is a language in
its own right.

In the case of Scots and Low Saxon there is still this widespread perception
that they are dialect groups of English and German/Dutch respectively, and
this is because they are closely related to the respective power languages.
While people outside Scotland and Northern Germany are catching on that the
two regional languages are really difficult to understand, many people that
grew up exposed to them still grapple with the old “propaganda” that they
are merely “dialects”. (A young Scotsman once told me “Scots” is “slang.” In
the Netherlands many people still refer to Low Saxon as “dialect” too.) It
is very similar to the case of Occitan in France. So you are dealing with
the psychological results of centuries of denial and hierarchical thinking
on top of the more obvious political issues.

The Welsh people as a whole have always been conscious and proud of their
linguistic heritage, so this was a firmer psychological foundation for
language activism. This is so as well in the case of Basque in Spain and
France. In Spain, the cases of Catalan (including Valencian and Balearic)
and Galician are interesting in that these could similarly be represented as
dialects of Spanish (Castilian). However, linguistic and cultural awareness
and an actual sense of separateness in those areas are much stronger than
they are in Northern Europe (e.g. Scots, Low Saxon, Jamtlandic, Scanian and
Darlecarlian). Frisian is a bit of an anomaly in that its independent status
has never been questioned.

Marlou, I would translate *Tagesmutter* as “day nanny” or “(female)
childminder.”

I quite agree that private initiatives are very important, Marlou.
Government support tends to follow it, as has been the case with Welsh.

The few publishers that deal with Low Saxon have been a serious obstacle in
that they go only for works with supposed mass appeal, i.e. those that *they
* think sell. Most of these aim at the lowest denominator, are of the usual
humorous and/or nostalgic ilk. Better writing is largely ignored as too
marginal. So it does not get published and thus remains marginal, a.k.a.
unknown.

Apart from Web exposure, Low Saxon writers (and other writers of course) now
have the option of more effective self-publishing, such as books on demand,
and also electronic books. Since it cuts out the (obstructionist) middleman
(i.e. triaging conventional publishers) there is the added bonus of
self-publishing authors (who retain all rights) earning royalties of 70-80%
rather than the usual 7.5-10%.

I recently read that these days more electronic books than conventional
books are being sold. Of course conventional publishers are beginning to
take note of this, but so far it turns out that electronic books have not
really cut into the earnings of conventional publishers. Most of them are
simply representatives of what ends up, usually unread, in the large
wastepaper basket of publishing houses. Interestingly, some of these
“rejects” have lately become bestsellers and the very publishers that at
first rejected them are now scrambling to get paper copy publishing rights
for them.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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