L O W L A N D S - L - 17 March 2007 - Volume 01<br><br>=========================================================================<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: Jonny Meibohm <br><br>Jonny Meibohm <<a href="mailto:altkehdinger@freenet.de" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
altkehdinger@freenet.de
</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.16 (01) [D/E/LS]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Beste Jacqueline,</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Du schreyvst:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Everybody, whether "banker or boer" spoke both - some better than others.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Well- but who was/is the better one?</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I`ve made the experience
that everybody who was forced to learn the Standard Language- no matter
if it's Dutch or German- is just a poor speaker of Nedersaksisch
compared with those who never really came in too close contact to the
written, official languages.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">This
difference isn't just a phenomenon of today; I could watch this already
in my childhood: though the "better" educated people also spoke 'Platt'
in everyday's life it had lost the archaic originality and the special
natural syntax. Those aboriginal natives really spoke a different,
'foreign' language- hardly to understand if you weren't prepared to
meet one of those fossils.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I
admired them and fear them to have died out meanwhile. Perhaps one can
find just a handful of these individuals being close to the described
ability somewhere in the 'Outlands', e.g. on solitary farms or
settlings, miles away from any urban or semi-urban influences.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">They
are over eighty years old now and unable to hand down their skill to
any follower, so this language in fact doesn't exist any longer- no
matter what we and others are writing and discussing about LS.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">It's my generation's term now to leave with the commemoration of the sound of a dead language...
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Allerbest</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Jonny Meibohm</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <
<a href="mailto:Karl-Heinz.Lorenz@gmx.net" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Karl-Heinz.Lorenz@gmx.net</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.15
(02) [D]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Ron schreef:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> Mensen op de bovenkant van de sociaal-economische "totempaal" gebruiken</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
> soms</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> het Nedersaksisch ("Platt"), vooral met "gewone" mensen (b.v. patiënten</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> en</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> cliënten), misschien omdat zij het leuk vinden en het de indruk maakt dat
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> zij een voeling voor "de mensen van het land" hebben. In elk geval hebben</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">> zij niets te verliezen; het kan hun reputatie slechts verbeteren.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Maybe on writing this you had Buddenbrooks in mind where this sociolinguistic phenomenon found its way into literature:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">...</span>
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">- Großer Gott, du Tropf ! (rief der Konsul und vergaß platt zu sprechen vor Indignation) Du redest ja lauter Unsinn …</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">- Je; Herr Kunsel, dat is
nu allens so, as dat is. Öäwer Revolutschon mutt sien, dat is tau
gewiß. Revolutschon is öwerall, in Berlin und in Paris …</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">- Smoldt, wat wull Ji nu eentlich … … …</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">- Je, Herr Kunsel, ik seg man bloß: wi wull nu ne Republike, seg ik man bloß …
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">- Öwer du Döskopp … Ji heww ja schon een !</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
- Je, Herr Kunsel, denn wull wi noch een.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">...</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">from:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.gesamtschule-suederelbe.de/plattdeutsch/buddb.htm" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.gesamtschule-suederelbe.de/plattdeutsch/buddb.htm
</a></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Subject: Language maintenance</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Thanks, Jonny and Karl-Heinz, for your interesting words above.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Jonny,
whilst you addressed our Jacqueline, I take the liberty of responding
to your lines. There is nothing to disagree with as far as your actual
words and the facts they describe are concerned. But please allow me
to let </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">De Düvel sien Afkaat</span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> (the devil's advocate) come out to play for a minute, as he does once in a while.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Yes,
even in your and my lifetimes we have witnessed enormous changes within
Low Saxon on the whole. Yes, those that you seem to consider genuine
speakers are fast fading away as we speak. And, yes, many people that
use it as a second language now "fake it" and in numerous ways
radically Germanize the language they use, the most blatant way being
the use of German words "transposed" into LS phonology in place of
genuine LS words that these people happen not to be familiar with.
Examples are aplenty, and we need not go into details. But in between
these aforementioned extremes there are people that did grow up with
the language used around them, also those that spoke it in childhood
and are now recapturing it after having been deterred from using it for
decades. And then there are those that never stopped using it at least
in private. They, too, speak differently from those "relics" you
talked about, and there are several reasons for this, including
increased German influences, especially by way of "better" German
education.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Now -- and here's our </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Afkaat </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">coming
out of the woodwork -- is it justified to say that only the "dinosaurs"
or "relics" speak or spoke good or genuine Low Saxon and everyone else
does not? You, I and other people in our situation happen to have had
real-life experiences with the sounds of a fading and soon completely
bygone age. Those younger than us have not, just as you and I have not
had real-life brushes with the language as it was spoken in the late,
mid or early 19th century or in the first half of the 20th century, and
this in the very places in which we happened to grow up. Were any of
the speakers of that era alive now and would listen to our "relics"
speak I am quite sure that at least some of them would be appalled by
what they hear, or they would not even know or believe that they are
dealing with the descendants of their own dialects.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Why
is this? Language changes. And it keeps on changing all the time.
Sometimes it does so gradually, almost without us noticing. At other
times it does so in a hurry, taking giant steps and leaps. It all
depends on historical events and on the socio-economic and cultural
changes that come with them. This happened to German and Dutch as
well. However, there is a "safety net" in the form of written
standards that change less quickly, but they can at best slow down the
process. Don't be fooled! They can slow down but not prevent change. (I
believe that this is what our Sandy recently alluded to.) Non-standard
German and Dutch dialects, too, have been changing quite a bit,
sometimes a whole lot even within a person's lifetime. After all, they
are more vulnerable on account of being perceived subsets of the
respective national languages.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Language
constantly changes. And it does so for a variety of reasons, usually
for complex combinations of reasons. Sometimes radical, traumatic
events provoke a leap in this development.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Old
Saxon underwent enormous changes by way of Frankicization and
Latinization once Charlemagne the Frankish conqueror was done with its
speakers, and you can tell when you compare early Saxon texts with the
writings of the Hanseatic era.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Should
we say that only Old English was genuine English, and that the language
took a nose-dive as a result of the French-language-dominated Norman
invasion, that the reestablishment and relearning of English among
Britain's people after the end of the occupation led to morphological,
lexical and syntactic "corruption" as seen in the writings of the likes
of Geoffrey Chaucer (never mind later rebels like Will Shakespeare),
and that it has been a constant downward spiral ever since?
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">"Nay," says our </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Afkaat</span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">, "that's just how the cookie ... uh ... biscuit ... uh ... </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">crampeht </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
crumbles.
Language changes reflect changes in the lives of the people that use
language. Get used to it!" Our Afkaat may have a few choice words
about the topic of "purism" here, but I'm keeping him on a short leash
today.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">In
Northern Low Saxon of Germany, radical phonological changes have been
afoot lately. The "drawl" or "dragging tone" is now virtually a thing
of the past, in great part because people don't understand it and thus
don't write it. And the spelling then influences the pronunciation of
those that come later, especially the pronunciation of those that learn
LS as a second language. The same happened to the difference between
/oo/ (
e.g., </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">oog'</span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> [?o:.G] 'eye') and /ou/ (e.g., </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
loog'</span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
[lo.UG] 'lye'), which has all but disappeared in the Lower Elbe
dialects. The now wide-spread orthographic non-distinction (including
in the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Wikipedia</span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">!)
between /ee/ and /ei/ and between /öö/ and /öü/ is bound to lead to the
disappearance of these distinction. Yes, I do moan about it, because
it is preventable and something tells me that it makes the language
"poorer," that "beautiful" language-specific sounds are disappearing on
account of "ignorance" and "laziness." So I struggle and wiggle a bit,
snap at certain whippersnappers' ankles once in a while, believing that
the "damage" caused by a handful of doers can be prevented by a handful
of doers. While I have never been a true fatalist, I know that I would
get over it if "ignorance" and "laziness" win out at the end of the
day, and I would take solace in the awareness that "ignorance" and
"laziness" have always featured prominently in changes and even
metamorphoses of languages all the way back to the dawn of human
language, and that this applies to other types of changes as well,
including politico-historic changes we witness as we speak. After all,
all we really know is that it is this very time that we really have,
and our languages as they are now are parts of this.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">And Karl-Heinz, you provided a telling example, although I was not consciously thinking of the Buddenbrooks:
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Lower class: </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Öäwer Revolutschon mutt sien ...</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Higher class: </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Öwer du Döskopp ...</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Higher class: </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
... Ji heww ja schon een !</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I'm
not sure if Thomas Mann was linguistically really that insightful and
purposeful, but I would definitely not put it past him.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">The
first two examples may indicate a difference in pronunciation (probably
[œ:] versus [ø:], of which the latter is a sound shared with German).
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">The
last example represents one of those "appalling" cases of even basic,
"small" words being substituted by German loans, in this case </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">schon </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
al </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
'already'. Other examples found often these days are wer for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">wokeen </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">(~ </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
'keen</span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">) 'who', </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">wie </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
wo </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">(~ </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">woans </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">~ </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
wodennig</span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">) 'how', </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">oft </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
faken </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">'often', and </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">niemand </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">for </span>
<span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">nüms </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">or </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">keeneen </span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
'nobody'.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">For
the sake of those that "missed out" on my "pearls of wisdom" on account
of not reading Dutch, let me add that I responded to our Jacquelines
question as to why it is that in her native neck of the woods
upper-crust representatives do use Low Saxon while the middle class
does so to a lesser extent. My translation of my proposal following
the "Dutch":
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">***</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Dank je voor de interessante vraag, Jacqueline. Het herinnert me aan de</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">situatie aan de Duitse kant van de grens.
</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Mensen op de bovenkant van de sociaal-economische "totempaal" gebruiken soms</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">het Nedersaksisch ("Platt"), vooral met "gewone" mensen (b.v. patiënten en</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">cliënten), misschien omdat zij het leuk vinden en het de indruk maakt dat
</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">zij een voeling voor "de mensen van het land" hebben. In elk geval hebben</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
zij niets te verliezen; het kan hun reputatie slechts verbeteren.</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Maar mensen van lagere sociaal-economische standen willen graag gloven dat
</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">zij "upwardly mobile" zijn, en vooral willen die van de middenstand ook</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
bewijzen dat zij niet tot de laagste standen behoren, namelijk tot de</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">standen die "dialect" spreken.</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Mijn indruk en theorie zijn gebaseerd op de veronderstelling dat de meeste</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
mensen nog geloven dat het gebruik van "dialect" met minderwaardig onderwijs</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">wordt geassocieerd (en het woord "streektaal" is slechts een eufemisme voor
</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">de weigering om een taal als een taal onder mensen van de vermoedelijk</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
zelfde etnische groep te zien) en dat slechts die mensen "dialect" gebruiken</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">waarvan de geleerdheid niet betwijfeld word, en het symbolische bewijs ervan
</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">is hun superieure vaardigheid in de nationale standaardtaal.</span><br></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
***</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Thank you for the interesting question, Jacqueline. It reminds me to the situation on the German side of the border.
<br><br>People at the upper end of the socio-economic "totem pole"
sometimes use Low Saxon ("Platt"), especially with "ordinary" people
(e.g. patients and clients), perhaps because they find it cool and it
creates the impression that they have a feel for and the right touch
with the "people of the land." Anyway, they have nothing to lose; it
can only improve their reputation.
<br><br>But people of lower socio-economic classes want to believe
that they are "upwardly mobile," and especially those of the middle
class furthermore feel obliged to prove that they do not belong to the
lowest classes, namely to the classes that speak "dialect."
<br><br>My impression and theory are based on the assumption that most
people still believe that the use of "dialect" is associated with
inferior education (and the word "regional language" is merely a
euphemism symptomatic of the refusal to recognize a language as a
language among people of the supposedly same ethnic group) and that
only those people choose to occasionally use "dialect" whose
learnedness is not in doubt, and the symbolic proof of this is their
superior proficiency in the national standard language.
<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">***</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Belatedly
in my defense of responses to this, please let me add that I did not
claim that this actually applied to the situation in the Netherlands.
So it was not really to be answered with "right" or "wrong" but with
"it applies" or "it doesn't apply" to the situation in the Netherlands.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Anyway, thanks for all the interesting and informative responses so far.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron<br><br></span>