LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (02) [EN]

Mon Jan 4 20:48:30 UTC 2010

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L O W L A N D S - L - 04 January 2010 - Volume 02
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (02) [EN]

I've noticed that in North Wales at least, the big stores such as Tesco have
most signs in English and Welsh.  Interestingly, the Welsh is usually
written below the English, but in a much bigger font - so if you can read
Welsh, you can make out the words from about twice the distance!  On the
roads, the warning signs have Welsh first, or if it's written on the road
itself, you come to the Welsh first. If English speakers learn nothing else,
we soon learn that ARAF means SLOW!  I actually picked up a lot more, but
mainly just as word-recognition as I only have a hazy idea of how to
pronounce the words.

Paul
Derby
England

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From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>
 Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (04) [EN]

Dear Luc, is there nothing like that in Brussels otherwise than to Epiphany?
Or in smaller churches? Church services in Platt are quite popular here in
northern Germany. As always the language must not replace quality. Good
Platt preachers seem to be sought after; a friend of mine has just gained
the qualification to preach as a lay and is a fluent Platt speaker, and
she is all but bombarded with offers to preach in the various country
parishs here. It seems a Platt service easily fills a small country church.
However I don't know whether such a stately church as that in the video
could be filled in a town like, say, Hamburg. I confess I'm not a good
church goer, I'm a longsleeper :-)

Marlou

From: Hellinckx Luc <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language promotion"

Beste LiÃ«glanners,

Another way to revive interest in a minority language could happen by way of
reading mass in vernacular. For the sixth time already, this happened today
in Brussels:

http://www.brusselnieuws.be/artikels/stadsleven/mis-in-brussels-dialect-doet-kerk-vollopen

Religion going back to its roots? ;=)

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From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>
 Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (04) [EN]

Thanks for the fun! True, Heiko, there is a long way to go -- a way that
probably never will be gone by the few, tame Plattspeakers... or will it?
The Welsh seem to take themselves and their language seriously, while many
of the PlattdÃ¼Ã¼tschen still think theirs is just the buffo version of a
language, or something extra, not necessary, and therefore they should not
be a nuisance... If we knew how this could be changed...

From: Heiko Evermann <heiko.evermann at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (02) [EN]

Hi Marlou,

> Wow! The Welsh seem to have been quite militant. I don't think you will
see
> such resolution, even violence among Plattspeakers...
Indeed. They even write their out-of-office autoreplies in welsh...
Have a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7702913.stm
"E-mail error ends up on road sign"

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

Hi, Marlou!

You wrote:

The Welsh seem to take themselves and their language seriously, while many
of the PlattdÃ¼Ã¼tschen still think theirs is just the buffo version of a
language, or something extra, not necessary, and therefore they should not
be a nuisance... If we knew how this could be changed...

I have a type of hypothesis about this. It doesn't really take a genius to
figure it out if one is willing and able to consider history and in the
process deal with the odd, usually unnamed sacred cow.

As you probably know, the Saxon ancestors were extremely independent and
were good at defending their independence, even keeping out the Romans which
was no mean feat. They absolutely abhorred the idea of a monarchy and even
more that of an empire, and for decades they fought tooth and nail against
the introduction of Christianity. It is clear that even after the Franks
under Charlemagne finally baptized them by means of the sword (beginning
with a mass beheading) and incorporated Saxony into the Holy Roman Empire
the Saxons remained unwilling Christians and grudging imperial subjects, as
did the westernmost Slavs that suffered a similar fate.

I believe that this reluctance and this resentment against the empire and
the all powerful Roman Catholic church that represented it have been fading
away only very slowly. The Saxons acquired a measure of quasi-independence
by creating and running their medieval commercial empire, the Hanseatic
League, and thereby amassing independent and hitherto unequaled wealth as
well as trade colonies and thus power abroad. They missed that opportunity
by not separating themselves as an independent country. When the Low
Frankish people later surpassed the Saxons in overseas trade they did take
advantage of this opportunity by becoming the Netherlands, the area of
today's Netherlands, Belgium and French Flanders. Had they not done so they
might today be a part of Germany.

I go as far as hypothesizing that the success of the Christian Reformation
in what used to be (the real) Saxony - thus in Northern Germany and the
Eastern Netherlands - is at least in part due to remaining feelings of
ethnic and subliminally national independence as well as remaining
resentment regarding the Roman Catholic church in whose name the Saxons had
been beaten down not too long before that. However, following the eventual
collapse of the Hanseatic League and thus of the North's economic clout,
German education, institutions, power and language encroached in the North,
as did the Dutch equivalents in Saxon-speaking parts of the Netherlands. The
descendant of the Saxon language came to be pushed aside and led a
precarious existence mostly in rural and low-class communities, and the
equivalent names of "Low Saxon" shifted more and more to the equivalent
names of "Low German" on the German side of the border. Another blow to the
language was when, beginning in earnest in the 18th century, use of the
language came to be prohibited in certain contexts, especially in schools.

Northern resistance and independence had been sufficiently worn down by
1871, when Germany as we now know it came into existence as a nation state.
However, as most of us know that grew up in Germany, there remains a sense
of "Northern pride," an often romanticized feeling of being different from
the rest of Germany. For many, the Low Saxon ("Platt") language is the
ultimate, albeit fading, expression and symbol of this. But the descendants
of Saxons in Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands have been made
into German and Netherlandic nationals, and a sense of their own, separate
ethnicity has all but faded away. Add to this the emotional repercussions of
required loyalty to the emperor in WW I and to the Nazi government in WW II
on the German side, and any talk of separate ethnicity now has a
distinctively unpatriotic, disloyal and even rebellious, secessionist ring
to most. (This is where one of the main sacred cows lies and chews her
dinner over and over.) I believe that this is where this type of ambivalence
comes from, the supposedly "lame" responses to organizing anything that
seems to go too radically in the direction of "independence" (such as
"independent language" and "independent TV station"), even talk about the
Old Saxons.

Wales, on the other hand, has always remained a country in its own right,
not a vaguely defined region like that of the Low-Saxon-speaking area. I
don't think anyone in their right mind has ever doubted that Welsh is the
unique language of Wales and the Welsh. Even English-speaking Welsh people
embrace that and many of them learn Welsh as a second language. So what you
have here is a strong sense of distinct ethnicity, culture, language and
nationhood. When London was not supportive of Welsh language needs, it was a
matter of ethnic and national rights, not a matter of regional and minority
rights. It is much easier to stand up under such circumstances.

In my opinion, the case of Low Saxon is more akin to that of Scots in
Scotland and Northumbrian in Northern England. Both Scots and Northumbrian
are descendants of Old Northumbrian. Scots has been traditionally considered
the poor, uneducated relative of Scottish English. Northumbrian happens to
be spoken in England and there has been traditionally considered a dialect
group of English, even though linguistically it is arguably connected with
Scots on the other side of the border. I am told that even many Northumbrian
speakers are not fond of making this connection, in part because they have
to be conditioned to be loyal to England.

Anyway, some of the above may be worth considering when you wonder what you
are up against and why you are up against it.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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