<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 - 26 April 2007 - Volume 03</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: Tomoki Minohara <<a href="mailto:mino_engelachtig@yahoo.com">mino_engelachtig@yahoo.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Subject: Phonology</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Beste Jonny Meibohm,</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Harten Dank, datt Se mi email Adress vun Piet geven hett.</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Ik hebb sien Sied vörig Johr funnen. Dat is interessant!</div>
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Ik lehr ok Plattdüütsch af un an. Ik höör Radio Bremen.</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Platt hett verschedene Mundaarten.</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Snackt Se Dialekt vun Bremenhaven?</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Allerbest,</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Tomoki Minohara</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Jonny Meibohm wrote:</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span>Beste Tomoki Minohara,</span></div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span>man, man- 'n Japoner mit sou 'n K・l van Nedersaksisch un Freys'sch! Dat is meist gediegen' Kroom!
</span></div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span>Eyn Doun- wenn Du wat meyhr van't Stellingwarfs weyten wullt, froog driest Piet Bult. Ick schall Dii ouk woll de Adress geben:
<a href="http://us.f384.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=info@stellingwerfs-eigen.nl" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><span><font color="#003399">info@stellingwerfs-eigen.nl
</font></span></a></span></div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span>Dey hett 'n heyl' oorig Buelt Sinn fr Spooss un Naar'nkroom, door verloot Dii tou!
</span></div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" align="left">Allerbest!</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" align="left"> </div> <font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" face="Courier">
Jonny Meibohm<br><br>----------<br><br></font><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: Tomoki Minohara <<a href="mailto:mino_engelachtig@yahoo.com">mino_engelachtig@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;"><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Goiedag! My naam is Tomoki. Ek is Japanner, en belangstel in Afrikaans.</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Die taal Afrikaans is een van die elf amptelike tale van Suid-Afrika en
</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">word deur omtrent 6 miljoen persone as 'n eerste taal gebruik.</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Gebruik se Engels in die openbaar?</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Leer hulle Engels as tweede taal op skool?</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Groete,</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Tomoki Minohara<br><br>----------<br><br>From: <span id="_user_andy@scots-online.org" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Andy Eagle <<a href="mailto:andy@scots-online.org">andy@scots-online.org</a>></span><span style="font-weight: normal;" class="lg">
</span> <br>
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance"<br><br></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Gabriele wrote:<br>> A TV programme in nothing but Platt? And who would the speakers be? Where
<br>> would they find enough people to dub everything who all speak the same<br>> flavour of Platt, and are at the same time talented enough for the job?<br>> And<br>> how would they pay for it all? It would probably sound horrible because to
<br>> most of them, Platt would be a foreign language they would try to imitate.<br>> And even if it worked, we would be stuck with a standardized version which<br>> could wipe out regional dialects.<br><br>Similar points are raised at the suggestion of radio or TV in Scots.
<br>I pretty sure my observations can be applied to Low Saxon.<br><br>The only serious problem is people to do the presenting. At the moment<br>simply being able to speak English isn't qualification enough to be a news
<br>reader for example. Nor would simply being able to speak Scots be enough of<br>a qualification to read the News in Scots. Presenters need training. Perhaps<br>an amature theatre background helps. That's why anyone interested in having
<br>Scots on the Radio or TV should actively demand promotion of Scots language<br>amature theatre and other oral performance in Scots. That's the breeding<br>ground for future radio and TV talent.<br><br>The question of which variety to use is a red herring. On CNN numerous
<br>accents of English occur, both native and non-native. No doubt the concept<br>of standard English helps overcome differences among the speakers. But I bet<br>how they speak on TV isn't how they speak at home.<br>For Scots there's ample vocabularly that's common to all varieties.
<br>Pronunciation and Grammar differences between Scots varieties pose no<br>comprehension problems for Scots speakers. The claim that Scots dialects are<br>mutually unintelligible is a myth usually perpetrated by monoglot English
<br>speakers. 'If I can't understand it then no one else can'. The only variety<br>of Scots I have encountered and had difficulty understanding was Shetlandic.<br>After a while I got used to it and had no problems. The problem was
<br>familiarity not comprehensibility (The more radio and TV in Scots the<br>greater the familiarity - the suposed problem solves itself). One of my<br>father's reminiscences about his time in the Army is that he once had to
<br>translate for a Shetlander who couldn't manage to speak anything the English<br>soldiers could understand. My father comes from Fife and had no problem<br>understanding a Shetlander (and vice versa).<br>On radio or TV speakers would simply use whatever variety they speak
<br>themselves. In order to maximaise cross-dialect comprehensibility the script<br>would initially contain vocabulary that occurs in all dialects (there's<br>plenty of it so no subject would be taboo)<br>The script could then be tweaked (together with the speaker) to reflect the
<br>syntax, grammar and idiom of the speaker. Words particular to the dialect of<br>the speaker could be used if their meaning is clear from context. Some<br>objects etc. may have different names in different dialects. The simple
<br>solution is that the speaker uses their word for X adding 'also known as Y<br>or Z in other areas', or such like. No need for a standard (spoken) version<br>just clever use of what people already speak.<br>Obviously for character roles dialect (accent) has to fit the character.
<br></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg"><br>Andy<br><br>----------<br><br>From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: Language maintenance<br><br>
Nice to hear from you, Andy!<br><br>There are lots of Low-Saxon-speaking actors (not only amateurs) and other sorts of entertainers that could be trained to host programs if they haven't been already,* also people that already act as LS-speaking radio hosts.
<br><br></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg">* (For instance, North German Radio (NDR) has the TV program series "Talk op Platt" (<a href="http://www.ndr.de/tv/talkopplatt/">
www.ndr.de/tv/talkopplatt/</a>)
with a bunch of competent LS-speaking hosts and presenters. By the way,
for this program they are now preparing a series of presentations about
and in LS from all over the world, apparently presented by Julia
Westlake and Yared Dibaba (</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="linkification-ext" href="http://tinyurl.com/39ur7w" title="Linkification: http://tinyurl.com/39ur7w">tinyurl.com/39ur7w
</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg">, </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="linkification-ext" href="http://tinyurl.com/2ul26f" title="Linkification: http://tinyurl.com/2ul26f">
tinyurl.com/2ul26f</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg">). The grapevine has it that at least Yared will come to
Seattle after a visit to Australia. He, an ethnic Oromo from Eritrea,
now living in Hamburg, introduces himself in LS in a video clip here: </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="linkification-ext" href="http://tinyurl.com/2pxyrl" title="Linkification: http://tinyurl.com/2pxyrl">
tinyurl.com/2pxyrl</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg">.)</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg"><br>I don't see any need for all people at one station or in one program to speak the same dialect. The vast majority of dialects are mutually intelligible. No LS radio program now has teams of speakers with identical dialects. Some pick and choose from a large spread of dialects, such as Radio Bremen, and only the most fervent naysayers and other types of curmudgeons complain about that.
<br><br>My point is that there would be ways of pulling this off if people wanted to and snapped out of their purity excuse to justify their naysaying.<br><br>Kumpelmenten,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br><br></span>