<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 - 06 August 2007 - Volume 06</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_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><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.08.06 (05) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Ron wrote:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> <font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<font color="#000000" size="2">"....Many
native Welsh-speakers tend to resent other people trying to speak their
language and deliberately speak very quickly to discourage them....."</font></div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="#000000" size="2">
</font></div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="#000000" size="2">Ron, your description is sadly so correct for ALL regions
</font></div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="#000000" size="2">that I have come to poke my nose into during my lifetime.
</font></div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="#000000" size="2">What you write about Wales, can be written about </font>
</div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="#000000" size="2">Occità nia where I now live, just by changing a few</font></div>
<font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="#000000" size="2">names.</font></div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2">
</font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><font color="#000000" size="2"> </font></div><font style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<font color="#000000" size="2">Greetings to you all LLers,</font></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg"><font color="#000000" size="2"> </font><div><font color="#000000" size="2">Mike Wintzer<br><br>
----------<br><br></font>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 style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">
</span><br>
Subject: Language maintenance<br><br>Hi, Mike!<br><br>Thanks, but for the record: you quoted not me but David Clark who wrote that in response to my request for responses.<br><br>Be that as it may, I must say that I've long tried to grapple with the type of attitude the two of you referred to.
<br><br>In theory, when we talk about minority languages (i.e. languages without national power), especially those that are endangered (and all of them are to some degree or other), we would expect speakers to welcome boosts from the outside and, perhaps more importantly, recognition and appreciation on the part of "outsider." While this may be true in some cases, it is more often the case that "outsiders" are discouraged. Why? What are the possibilities? Let me throw a few possibilities your way. These are based on my own observations. (The names assignations are mine.)
<br><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Linguistic tribalism </span>("Language is part of 'us against them (the power majority and outside)'.")</li><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Linguistic exclusivity
</span> ("It's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">our<span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span> language, our secret code, and nobody else should touch or even use it.")</li></ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">
Linguistic chauvinism</span> ("Only we are the keepers of the proper language.")<br></li><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Linguistic purism</span> ("Only <span style="text-decoration: underline;">we
<span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span> can use the language <span style="text-decoration: underline;">properly </span>because we live and grew up in the God-given place and belong to the appropriate ethnicity and class." If it turns out that there is a transported enclave somewhere else, this tends to be shrugged off as impure or debased, thus as irrelevant. The assumption here is that language should never change.)
</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Linguistic racism</span> ("No one that doesn't look like us can possibly speak like us and understand our culture.")</li></ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Linguistic insecurity
</span> ("So it happens to be what I leaned as a child. But ...")<br></li><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Linguistic self-loathing</span> (<span class="sg">"What good is this language these days anyway? It would be an albatross around the children's necks. Away with those outsiders that want to turn things around!")
<br> </span></li></ul><ul><li><span class="sg"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Linguistic suspiciousness</span> </span>("They used to despise us and used to want to get rid of our language and culture. So what are they up to, those outsiders
<span class="sg"> trying to learn it</span>? Are they trying to ridicule us")<br></li></ul></ul></div></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I wonder if this was an issue when Norman power over England had withdrawn and scores of English, part-English and Norman people switched from their native French to the reemerging, albeit still teetering English language that was very much susceptible to further French influence. If it was an issue, I suppose that, had the other camp come out victorious, the English language would now be extinct rather than globally dominant.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Just my thoughts ...</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">