<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 - 05 July 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_kevin.caldwell1963@verizon.net" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Kevin Caldwell <<a href="mailto:kevin.caldwell1963@verizon.net">
kevin.caldwell1963@verizon.net</a>></span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="lg"></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics"
2007.07.06 (04) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><p style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy;">In English, 'patois' is just a way of
saying 'the local way of speaking' (as opposed to what is considered the
standard). I've never considered it to have any sinister connotations.</span></font></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy;">Kevin Caldwell</span></font></p><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_k9mw@yahoo.com" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Mike Wintzer <<a href="mailto:k9mw@yahoo.com">
k9mw@yahoo.com</a>></span><span id="_user_kevin.caldwell1963@verizon.net" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="lg">
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.07.06 (04) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<p style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Hi all, </p><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Ron you wrote:</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">"In older French,
<span style="font-style: italic;">patois</span>
denoted "incomprehensible, vulgar gibberish," and I believe that much
of this meaning remains, implying French language superiority and
supremacy. "<br><br>Dismaying as it is, you hit the nail on the head, Ron.</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Would
you believe that in 2007 there are still people who comment, when I
tell them that my children attend a bilingual French/Occitan school:
"so they learn to speak patois there."</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Not
what you think, this doesn't come from a French chauvinist (although it
may well do), but from someone whose mothertongue is...Occitan and who
firmly believes that her language is a despicable "déformation" of
French, her "patois". This an indication of the degree to which the
French state-organized brainwashing has worked in Occitania - and in
the Bretagne, Euskadi, etc., even in the Rossello, whose Catalan
speakers have millions of compatriots, enjoying some language rights,
right across the border. Not LL, so I stop.</div> <div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Kumpelmenten, Mike Wintzer<br><br>----------<br><br>From: <span id="_user_k9mw@yahoo.com" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Mike Wintzer <
<a href="mailto:k9mw@yahoo.com">k9mw@yahoo.com</a>></span><span style="font-weight: normal;" class="lg"></span><span id="_user_kevin.caldwell1963@verizon.net" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);"></span><span style="font-weight: normal;" class="lg">
</span><br>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.07.06 (07) [E]
<div>Hi all,</div> <div> </div> <div>Elsie wrote:</div> <div><span><font color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></font></span> </div> <div><span><font color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">
<span class="q">"You might not know this historical Afrikaans titbit but Afrikaans<br></span>was called a 'patois' for centuries."</span></font></span></div> <div><span><font color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">
</span></font></span> </div> <div><span><font color="#482c1b" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Any significance that the word "patois" originated from <em>FRENCH?</em>!!!</span></font></span></div><span class="sg">
<div><span><font color="#482c1b" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></font></span> </div> <div><span><font color="#482c1b" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Mike Wintzer</span></font></span></div></span>
<br>----------<br><br>From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: Language politics<br><br>Thanks, Kevin and Mike!<br><br>Kevin, I know that "patois" does not necessarily carry sinister connotations when used in English, especially by Americans. But I have a feeling that there's a lot of variation, particularly when some speakers refer to contact varieties (
e.g., Mauritian Creole or Jersey Norman) as "patois," when it tends to comes with this<span id="r_text" name="r_text"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span> color of <span style="font-style: italic;">déformé
</span>or <span id="r_text" name="r_text">
<span style="font-style: italic;">dégradé</span></span>, this idea of "uneducated gibberish."<br><br>In the case of France and in the speech of strongly Francophile English speakers it is, in my opinion, a different matter, because, as Mike explains,
<span style="font-style: italic;">patois</span> is everything that is not Standard French. This includes <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> variety of, for instance, Basque, Breton, Catalan, German and Occitan. Breton and Occitan are languages based in France, and this includes varieties that are or approach standard. Obviously, Breton, being a Celtic language, is not some sort of
<span id="r_text" name="r_text"> <span style="font-style: italic;">français</span></span><span id="r_text" name="r_text"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;">déformé</span><span id="r_text" name="r_text">
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>. Nor is Occitan, though this is admittedly less obvious to the average person, since it belongs to the same Gallo-Romance branch with French (as well as with Catalan-Valencian-Balearic, Emilian-Romagnol, Franco-Provençal/Arpitan, Ligurian, Lombard, Piedmontese and Venetian) and thus comes with lots of cognate vocabulary (though more with Catalan). But it is still not a French offshoot and thus can not be considered
</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">déformé</span>; it is derived from an old language of which the Provençal (Occitan <span style="font-style: italic;">provençau</span>) of the medieval troubadours (Occitan <span style="font-style: italic;">
trobadors</span>) became the best-known dialect group. We are dealing with old and proud traditions of separate languages here, which makes talk about <span style="font-style: italic;">patois</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">
déformé</span> rather degrading and insensitive.<br><br>However, in many cases incessant talk of <span style="font-style: italic;">patois</span> in combination with Francocentric education came to be adopted by native speakers themselves. In the case of
<span id="r_text" name="r_text">Franco-Provençal this (<span style="font-style: italic;">patouès</span>) spread to Italy where now the largest speaker community lives (mostly in the Aosta Valley) and Italian picked it up (
</span><span lang="it" lang="it"><i>patoà</i>).<br><br>Let's not forget that France is not the only member of this club. Examples of this, complete with native speakers adopting the derogatory terminology (as Mike mentions above), has traditions all over Europe. It took the European Language Charter to make countries and regions make up their minds and finally recognize as languages varieties that previously were considered dialects (or patois) of the "real" languages of the countries, where these were related. Thus, for instance, Walloon was no longer a subset of Belgian French, Low Saxon no longer a group of Dutch dialects in the west and a group of German dialects in the east, and Kashubian no longer a dialect group of Polish (though many still don't agree with all of the above examples).
<br><br>Mike, the attitude of a native speaker you mentioned is nothing new to me. I have come across it plenty of times in the case of Low Saxon. Also, I have now spoken with the third Scottish person that grew up with Scots and still refers to it as "slang." You could take the position that this is the natural progression of language death and "survival of the fittest." Alternatively, you could take the position that this is the result of a strategy in which derogation eventually comes to be internalized by the native speaker community, which results in "voluntary" abandonment of its language (
i.e., not passing it on) -- but then you'd run the risk of being laughed out of the room as a subscriber to conspiracy theories. Whatever position you take, it seems to me that it all boils down to non-recognition sooner or later bringing about language death in that it amounts to denial of opportunities to maintain language confidence, pride and love, leave alone opportunities to develop the language.
<br><br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br><br></span> </div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">