LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.18 (12) [EN]

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 18 March 2010 - Volume 12*
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From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.18 (05) [EN]

Hmmh! I see my italics didn't work, so my posts are even more incoherent
than usual!

 M-L Lessing wrote:

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


Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.17 (01) [EN]

Dear John,
Â

it is painful to read about the ignorance and stupidity of most Shetland
people, but what is that to you?! If these people are so lost as to cut
their own tongue out of their mouthes, why in the world should *you* take
your website offline?! It is painful to see the state of the language, but
it is another pain to see how these fools seem to hurt you. There is no
reason they should! They scarcely deserve your pity. To me a language lives
in itself, even without an audience. If you love it, that's enough. It lives
in you. And in nature, which has heard the sounds of this language for ages.
It understands you, it answers in your tongue. So you speak it. And if there
be just four or five others on the Shetland islands that think alike, why
not keep your website up for them? And if there aren't, who cares? I for one
honour your stand, and I am sure so do all LL-L members. We have a saying in
german, "Was schert es die Eiche, wenn sich die Sau an ihr scheuert", that
is "The oak doesn't care if the pig scrapes itself against it." (Alternative
form: "Was schert es den Mond, wenn die Hunde ihn anbellen", meaning "The
moon doesn't bother if the dogs bark at it.") You are the oak. Hey, didn't
you know that? You are the oak, not the pig. Anything else is ridiculous.
These people matter not a whit. I would ignore their comments by hundreds
quite easily, and if they forced them on me that would make me ever so much
more stubborn, and relishing it. John, you *are* not alone. With a
beautiful language nobody is ever alone. And then there are so many people
in the world who back your issue. Seeing your fight makes me even more
waterproof against all adversities about *my* language. That's thanks to
you.


Thanks, but I actually don't think it's like that. Shetland people are no
more stupid or ignorant than any other group of a similar size. It's just
that language issues have never been part of any kind of education at any
level, and all the pressures of mainstream society - of all political hues -
are in the opposite direction. Minority language issues have never been
addressed at any level of political correctness, or at any era of history,
pre-modern, modern or postmodern, so nobody is aware of them.

Witness the flak that people who do take their languages seriously get. The
Welsh come in for the most stick in the UK, widely regarded as being
congenitally rude for speaking their own language. There is a widely
promulgated story that the Welsh and Gaels speak only English to each other
unless an English speaker comes into the pub, or whatever, at which point
they switch to Welsh or Gaelic just to be rude.

There are people who consider that, if there is an English speaker in the
room - say in a pub - then everyone in that room should speak English to
each other. I once read on Youtube an irate comment - of the 'four letter
words in capitals' variety - by someone whose family had moved out of Wales
because 'the Welsh spoke welsh to each other when my Grandmother was within
earshot.' So they moved to Spain...!

I do, however, agree that the Shetland intelligentsia are ignorant - but
perhaps that is where the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' comes from.

The real problem here, I think, is that I lie outside the pericope of
Shetland society, and trends which were alive some years ago, and which I
latched on to, have now been completely superseded by more mainstream
attitudes. The thing that concerns me is not so much the general situation
as the fact that those who do care, and are in fact expending a considerable
amount of effort, are in my opinion barking up the wrong tree without a
paddle (although perhaps not mixing metaphors!) I think they imagine that
because their native speech is a 'dialect' and not a 'language' they can do
something about it without learning anything from situations involving
'language'.

The website thing isn't a big deal for me - it's ages since I took it down,
and I've been relieved that I did ever since. My present binge of grouching
and moaning is just a momentary lapse!

Also, I believe that any language which doesn't have a certain proportion of
speakers within a community is moribund. One Welsh study put the figure at
around 70% - I don't know how they arrived at it, but basically when a
language ceases to be the default language within a community I believe it
is moribund.

John M Tait.

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