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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)
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<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 - 07 June 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: </span><span id="_user_helgetietz@yahoo.com" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Helge Tietz <<a href="mailto:helgetietz@yahoo.com">helgetietz@yahoo.com
</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.06.04 (04) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Leve Lowlanders!</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I agree that a little bread is better than no
bread and I am actually surprised that there are now obviously enough
people in Slesig-Holsten who take the language issue serious because I
believe we have a distinctive culture in SH which differs considerable
from the rest of Germany. Fact is that we had originally four ethnic
groups in SH: The Saxons, the Frisians, the Danes and the Slavonic
Abotrites. Slavonic has been lost long ago but survivies in placenames
such as Eutin and Luebeck (originaly "Lubice"). For a long time
officials thought it better to surpress anything which might appear
different from the rest of Germany and it to appear as German as
possible. But there are now cracks in the concrete! It started with Low
Saxon and Frisian street names, my relatives in Vollerwiek (Eiderstedt)
battled with that in the local council, the opinion of many was "if the
street names are in Low Saxon or Frisian than the tourists don't
understand them". </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Our reply was "The reason why tourist come to Eiderstedt
is that it is different from what they are used to at home in the
Ruhr-Valley or Southern Germany so it would actually increase the
touristical attractiveness" but many councillors couldn't see they
point and felt the prolonged existance of our local language rather as
an embarrassment than an asset. Could it be that this is slowly
changing, perhaps because now everyone realizes that our local
languages are close to extinction? But at least, I believe the
appearance of bilingual place-names will do something for the
conscience of our distinctive culture and language, I hope so at least.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">groeten, Helge
</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">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Subject: Language politics</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Thanks, Helge.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I'm totally with you and your neighbors in demanding that the state and federal governments just stay out of this issue. Why can't they just leave these things to the local administrations, as long as German (as the national language) is a part of it? Things like "tourists would be confused" falls into the category of lame excuses for over-regulation. Are tourists really so dumb that they can't figure out that those names on the signs are variants, that
e.g. the German variant is on top and the other variant(s) is/are below that, or the German names are in black and the X names in blue? Do tourists get lost because signs are in Italian and German in South Tyrol, or that signs in Ireland are in English and Irish with the Irish versions in uncials?
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">If you ask me, this sort of over-regulation has much more to do with a bureaucratized power issue or territorialism in conjunction with underlying reluctance to let go of the outmoded European ideal of "one country - one ethnicity - one language."
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Unfortunately, the same mentality still pervades the leadership of some Low Saxon organizations and institutes in Germany, hence the pretence that Low Saxon abruptly stops at the German-Dutch and German-Polish borders. More territorialism. More avoidance of dealing with minority issues (including orthography -- yikes!) across political boundaries, even though those borders are now supposed to be so open. It seems that the hardest boundaries to cross are those of the mind.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Schleswig-Holstein, especially Schleswig, is one of Europe's most diverse borderlands as well as the turf on which Western Germanic and Northern Germanic overlap, an area that has seen Danish and German rule come and go. (Hey! This would be a great topic for our upcoming travel section!) What better region to show Germany and the rest of supposedly merging Europe how things ought to be? Forge ahead! Tell them to mind their own business! And we will back you up. Yooohoo!
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Kumpelmenten,</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
•
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