LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.02 (04) [DE-EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 02 January 2010 - Volume 04
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.02 (02) [DE-NDS]

From: Hannelore Hinz <HanneHinz at t-online.de <mailto:HanneHinz at t-online.de>
|>

  Es ist nicht immer leicht, wilde Pferde zu bändigen.
>
Es ist allerdings auch nicht immer wünschenswert wilde Pferde zahm zu
machen.

Marcus Buck

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
 Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2009.12.29 (04) [EN]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 > Subject: Language promotion
>
> Folks,
>
> Mostly in Low Saxon (Low German), our Marcus and Marlou (and to a
> certain extent Hannelore and I) have been brainstorming about more
> prominent media presence of Low Saxon, utilizing up-to-date multimedia
> technology, such as web-logging, including video blogging. If I
> understood him correctly, Marcus seems to fantasize about a type of
> media presence that needs not be specifically and laboriously sought
> out by the public and by virtue of this attracts or recruits potential
> users of the language or at least makes the language acceptable and
> interesting to a larger section of the public. (I'm not sure if this
> is realistic since everyone must make some sort of effort to access
> any type of media outlet, but perhaps Marcus meant something that
> quickly turns into a household name, something that even people that
> are not language activists would want to tune into because it's a
> place to be.) Our Hanne cautioned the two M's, saying that an
> undertaking of this type and magnitude requires a lot of careful
> planning, that it can't be put together overnight, and that especially
> maintenance of momentum and quality is an aspect that requires serious
> consideration.

Having seen the start and subsequent development of Welsh TV I do think
there is a big advantage in having a language represented on such a
passive medium.

Some of the history of Welsh TV as I remember it:

A new channel (C4) is introduced to the UK, and it's decided (I'm not
sure how) to make this into a Welsh-language channel called S4C (Sianel
4 Cymru) in Wales.

Most of the programmes are actually made by BBC production teams and
sold to S4C.

Programming is mostly just the English-language channel with a few
programmes replaced or displaced by really bad programmes made in Welsh.

News programmes, especially local news, start to be made in Welsh.

After a while, Welsh language presenters, writers and actors become more
experienced and the programmes improve.

Welsh closed captioning for the hard of hearing are added as an
alternative to English closed captioning, so a person can now select
subtitles in the language of his choice.

S4C runs into financial difficulty and reaches an agreement to pay the
BBC by barter, letting them show the hit soap opera "Pobl y Cwm"
nationally, dubbed in English.

And so on.

As you can see it can be a bit of an adventure, but one thing I think it
demonstrates is that with a sufficiently opportunist approach and a lot
of dedication, the high estimated cost of having a TV channel can be
overcome: an existing channel can be hijacked, programmes can be made by
established broadcasters for a suitable fee, and it doesn't have to be
any good to start with, because there are a lot of people who will watch
it just because it's in Welsh.

I think an awful lot of advantages are gained from TV that no other
medium can provide:

   o    thanks to English closed captioning, everybody can watch a
programme, not just the Welsh speakers in the house; so people who
wouldn't read a book in Welsh or try to take part in a conversation in
Welsh are continually exposed to the language;

   o    language learners have a much easier time of it: once the
channel matures they have audio materials, instant translation into a
choice of language subtitles, and as likely as not, support from friends
and family who just want to watch the programme;

   o    people who hear "Nobody speaks Welsh!" all day go home and
watch the news only to find that no matter what's happening, they can
always find a member of the public who's happy to discuss it with the
presenter in Welsh;

   o    native Welsh speakers hear the language being used in many more
situations than they would normally encounter it, and their vocabulary
improves dramatically;

   o    people realise that theirs isn't the only dialect in the
country and begin to be able to communicate more comfortably with people
who speak a different sort of Welsh;

and so on.

Although I don't think you can learn _subject_matter_ from TV better
than you can from books (computers? - depends how you use them),
learning _living_languages_ is perhaps easier and better from TV.

But more importantly, TV is a much more social thing than books. If you
watch a Welsh language programme, other people in your house are liable
to watch it with you and get some sort of appreciation of the language
by osmosis, but if you read a Welsh book, you're on your own. If you
meet somebody in the street or in work you can discuss the programmes
you both saw last night, the chances of you both having been reading the
same book at the same time and both knew that you were are remote.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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