=======================================================================
<p>
L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
<p>
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands.list@gmail.com
<p>
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.php
<p>
Posting: lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org - lowlands.list@gmail.com
<p>
Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv@listserv.net
<p>
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
<p>
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
<p>
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
<p>
Administration: lowlands.list@gmail.com or sassisch@yahoo.com
<p>
<p>
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
<p>
<p>
A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
<p>
=======================================================================
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 23 March 2007 - Volume 01</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: </span><span id="_user_Ben.Bloomgren@asu.edu" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">"Ben J. Bloomgren" <<a href="mailto:Ben.Bloomgren@asu.edu">
Ben.Bloomgren@asu.edu</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.22 (04) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Thar's aye sadness wheneyr a mither tongue dees.
Yea the land o the leel's aye fair, but ye ken, aa canna view the wab pages o a
tongue that's nar the end o its time, for as Jonny did proclaim, one less method
o talkin remains.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Ok, probably the worst Scots you've ever seen, but
please try to help if possible!</font></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg">
<div><font size="2">Ben<br><br>----------<br><br></font>From: <span id="_user_isaacmacdonalddavis@gmail.com" style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">"Isaac M. Davis" <<a href="mailto:isaacmacdonalddavis@gmail.com">
isaacmacdonalddavis@gmail.com</a>></span><span id="_user_Ben.Bloomgren@asu.edu" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);"></span><br>Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.22 (04) [E]<br>
<br>
Sandy,<br><br>A hae thocht this masel, aboot Scots. As A hae said
afore, A'm a student o the Irish leid, an A read aboot the tribbles wi
that leid, an think tae masel that Scots is lucky, ye micht weel say,
that the leid competin wi it is sae close kin. As it is, there's a
braid spectrum o leid varieties, some that ye coud cry English, some
that are clear Scots, an a muckle o ithers, neither fish nor fowl. Gin
the braidest o the braid (weel, laist English o the lot) dee oot,
there's still mair kinds o speech that isna quite English. Gin ye arena
speakin Irish, ye're speakin English. No spectrum, no varieties in
between.
<br><br>I've thought this myself, about Scots. As I've said before,
I'm a student of the Irish language, and I read about the troubles with
that language, and think to myself that Scots is lucky, you might say,
that the language competing with it is so closely related. As it is,
there's a broad spectrum of language varieties, some that you could
call English, some that are clear Scots, and a lot of othothers,
neither fish nor fowl. If the broadest of the broad (well, the least
English of the lot) die out, there's still more kinds of speech that
aren't quite English. If you aren't speaking Irish, you're speaking
English. No spectrum, no varieties in between.
<br><br>Isaac M. Davis<br><span class="sg"><br>-- <br><br>Westron wynd, when wilt thou blow<br>The smalle rain down can rain<br>Christ yf my love were in my arms<br>And I yn my bed again<br><br>----------</span><br></div>
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span><span id="_user_Ben.Bloomgren@asu.edu" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">"Ben J. Bloomgren" <
<a href="mailto:Ben.Bloomgren@asu.edu">Ben.Bloomgren@asu.edu</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.03.22 (04) [E]
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><span><span><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" size="2"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">></span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Subject: Language maintenance</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Hi,
Pete!</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Thanks for the more than 2 cents' worth! (No, disclaimers
needed. </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Every</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">body on the List gets to
"chirp" in.) </span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Everything you said makes total sense to me. But I
would like to add, or repeat, what I believe lies at the bottom of it all.
No, it ain't "Europe-bashing," just observations from life memories and from
history reading. </span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">As far as I can tell, it is only now that Europe has
started to grow out of the old mode of thinking, has truly, though still
haltingly, begun to abandon the old ideal of one country coinciding with one
ethnicity, one religion and one language -- in other words, the ideal of
"country = tribe." </span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Until recently, minorities were considered
flies in the ointment, much like resident foreigners. If they could not be
treated like foreigners because their ancestry was somewhere else, no matter how
long ago (such as Jews before grudgingly granting them citizenship), then they
had to be </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">made</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"> into members of the
tribe. An important part of this was making them use the same language as
the tribe, not only in public but altogether, and this was considered an
essential part of acculturation. The easiest way of accomplishing this was
to outlaw their languages (which still happened in the recent past, and
Australia and North America took this one step farther in the early part of the
20th century by sending indigenous children away from their people to
English-only boarding schools). The surest albeit slower way is to ban
their languages from schools. Of great advantage to this cause is it if a
minority language is fairly closely related to the </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Kultursprache</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"> of the country/tribe. In
this case you can declare that it is merely a dialect (group) of the </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Kultursprache</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">, and "dialect" comes with the
flags "local color" and "inferior." Not only do you then not have to
provide it with special consideration and funding, but you also instill in the
speakers themselves what amounts to a linguistic inferiority complex, a shame
complex, so that eventually the speakers themselves will participate in the
process of eliminating the language, such as elders not teaching it to the
offspring, and youngsters at some point in their lives refusing to continue
using the language even in their homes. (After all, teenagers want to be
like their perceived peers.) </span><br></font></span></span></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><span><span><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" size="2"> </font></span></span></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Hello Reinhard and Lowlanderen,</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">I know this is tending to a new topic but I thought this
article by our Andrys Onsman adds further to our discussion of the complexities
of destruction of the perceived worth, value or truism of language by concious
or unconcious means. We in Australia have a national learned (taught in school)
history regarding the "last aborigines in Tasmania" focused on the life and
death of a woman called Trugannini. It has suited the purpose of the
"establishment" to quote the history and the quoted soon becomes accepted as the
actual factual history. Andrys has succinctly captured how this true history can
be "captured" and espoused in its wrong context continually by people in good
faith who actually believe the data when it is recorded in bona fide sources
such as Encyclopedia Brittanica. <a href="http://www.islandmag.com/96/article.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.islandmag.com/96/article.html</a> </font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">I have previously brought up the issue regarding plats
and Limburgs and the treatment and discription afforded by renowned authors. In
Australia we have a book written by Bruce Donaldson (Routledge Grammars) called
Dutch, a comprehensive grammar, printed in 1998 isbn 0-415-15418-9 (hbk). At the
time Bruce lectured in Dutch and German in the department of Germanic Studies
and Russian, University of Melbourne, Australia. </font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">I quote now from the preface page 10 (x). "If at any stage I
have mentioned spoken forms which are not acceptable in the writing, or written
forms which are not usual in the spoken language, this has been either clearly
stated in each instance or the abbreviations 'coll' for colloqial, 'arch' for
archaic or 'lit' for literary/formal have been used. On occasions I use the
Dutch word 'plat' in the English text to describe phenomena, as it is commonly
used in Holland and has no direct equivalent in English: if a structure is
described as 'plat' it is considered sub standard or stigmatised and is thus
better avoided by the learner - spoken Dutch, like spoken British English in
particular, is a language that commonly betrays one's regional and social
origins!" </font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Well, well well now Mr Donaldson!!!!!!!</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"> If we all believed this rubbish we accept qwatsch and
have no pride in our heritage and languages. Where are the learned scholars who
rebut this "state language uber alles" type of tripe in published books and
other media. At least then when people refer to these "tomes of truth"
there could be references available to offer an alternative truth. This in
my opinion is why minority languages have continually suffered. They do not
possess that elite group of "white knights" who are always willingly to defend
the honour. It seems we have only ourselves to blame as we have allowed the
systemic reduction of the relevance of our languages without challenge. My
father spoke at least 8 languages fluently and many others to a lesser degree.
He used to say jokingly the difference between a language and a dialect is
basically that the dialect couldn't afford an army. I have noted the use of the
word sexiness used regarding minority languages, the connotation being making it
sexy will increase its popularity. This is probably true and will help. The
reality is the language should be available in many modern formats, saturated in
the market. Dictionaries referenced across many languages, reading material old
and modern, sound files, videos, name dropping of peers or famous people etc. I
personally believe the most important ingredient is pride in talking the
lingo and stating in public YES we speak Low Saxon (or whatever) at home. I f
you are asked why just say Because we like it and also because we
can.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">We have many aboriginal languages in Australia that have been
really marginalised yet we are now getting more and more speakers in these
languages. Even old Dutch / Aussie farts like me can now distinguish Koori from
Murri and Nunga. This is only because there has been shift in pride by the
younger indidgenous people who have taken pride in their heritage and are
insisting at all times and across all spheres that we Aussies acknowledge the
language of the place names and such used by the local people and in their
unique local language. And good on em.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Regards</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Peter Snepvangers</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><a href="mailto:snepvangers@optushome.com.au" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">snepvangers@optushome.com.au</a></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Sydney</font></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
•
<p>
==============================END===================================
<p>
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org.
<p>
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
<p>
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
<p>
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")
<p>
are to be sent to listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org or at
<p>
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
<p>
*********************************************************************