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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 - 08 August 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_luc.hellinckx@gmail.com" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Luc Hellinckx</span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="lg">
<<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance"</span>
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Dear Wesley,<br><br>You wrote:<br>> That's just my 0.02c - thankfully not USD! ;)
<br><br>Even so, you'll need to write a hundred messages like these to make them<br>worth 2c in total (2c =0.02 $).<br>Not exactly what you had in mind I guess? ;=)<br><br>Anyway, twas very nice to read how well you were treated by the Maori.
<br><br>On a sidenote, Western legal systems do sometimes clash with local<br>customs; I've seen two good examples of this the past few days. Both<br>were documentaries on Belgian TV, dealing with sexual abuse of<br>youngsters, one on Pitcairn Island (Polynesia) and the other among
<br>Aboriginal communities in Australia. Surely this is not the place to<br>discuss these topics, but one thing struck me. On Pitcairn, there used<br>to be no jail apparently, until a trial was held against seven men.<br>
Before the final judgment was passed, one of the accused, Steve<br>Christian (ex-mayor, descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers and then<br>still in liberty) even helped to construct the very prison (similar to<br>mountain huts)...in which he finally was put. More can be read here:
<br><br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_of_2004" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_of_2004
</a><br><br>Kind greetings,<br></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="sg"><br>Luc Hellinckx<br><br>----------<br><br></span><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 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 maintenance" 2007.08.08 (02) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span class="q"> <div style="direction: ltr;">Marcus wrote:</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">
My theory about it is that: There are two types of people. Ideologists <br>and pragmatists.</div> <div style="direction: ltr;"> </div></span> <div style="direction: ltr;">Marcus, your essay is not theory. I would like to congratulate you
</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">on your anlysis, which hits the nail on the head for all those cases</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">that I came into contact with.</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">But then I take exception to your condoning pragmatism as opposed
</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">to idealism.
Why are we LowLanders? Speaking for myself, but I </div> <div style="direction: ltr;">suspect also for the majority of us: Out of idealism.</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">Only your last paragraph sort of reconciles me with your contribution.
</div><span class="q"> <div style="direction: ltr;">You write:</div> <div style="direction: ltr;"><br>The way to rescue a language from disappearing therefore is to take care<br>that speaking the language will be a pragmatic choice again. The second
<br>way to rescue a language is to convert all pragmatists to ideologists. <br>The former means establishing the language in all domains of public life<br>(like Mike Wintzer said too). The second means building a nationalist
<br>movement or at least an strong own national consciousness (which likely <br>will result in establishing the language in all domains of public life<br>in the
end).</div> <div style="direction: ltr;"> </div></span> <div style="direction: ltr;">Wonderfully said. But doesn't this mean that there have to be lots and</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">lots of militants, acting out IDEALISM, to bring about either of the
</div> <div style="direction: ltr;">two ways you identify???</div> <div style="direction: ltr;"> </div> <div style="direction: ltr;">Greetings, Mike Wintzer</div></blockquote><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 maintenance</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Hi, Mike! You wrote:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">
But then I take exception to your condoning pragmatism as opposed</div> <div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">to idealism.
Why are we LowLanders? Speaking for myself, but I </div> <div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">suspect also for the majority of us: Out of idealism.
</span><br></div><br>I'm not quite sure what your meaning is here. First of all, by "Lowlanders" do you mean members of this organization or heirs of Lowlands heritage?<br><br>If you mean the latter, of course it's a matter of life's circumstances, does not include many of our members and thus has nothing to do with pragmatism or idealism. So I assume you mean the former. While you did leave it up to individualism,
<span style="font-style: italic;">den duyvel syn afkaat</span> puts it to you that probably most are here first and foremost because they are <span style="text-decoration: underline;">interested<span style="font-style: italic;">
</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></span>which in itself doesn't have anything to do with pragmatism or idealism either. Furthermore, going by Marcus' theoretical scheme, and also going by past exchanges on the List, I would say that we have a mixture of "pragmatists" and "idealists," yet all of them are interested.
<br><br>I suppose it boils down to this:<br><br> All of us are keen on being observers ("students"), but not all of us are keen on being activists.<br><br>This might go a long way in explaining the occasional frustration, irritation and crossed wires. Don't you think?
<br><br>Nevertheless, just as we as individuals of various backgrounds from all over the world can interact harmoniously and cordially within our association, I am sure that the same can be said of "pragmatists" and "idealists" among us, just as long as we accept and respect these differences and the resulting reactions to various issues.
<br><br>I feel that Marcus' scheme holds water in a general way. I would like to add, though, that it is of course very simplified, because there are degrees involved here. <br><br>Let's assume, for instance, that I am an idealist in the sense of believing that Low Saxon can reassert itself as a secondary language but I find it overly optimistic (or "too idealistic") to expect that it can regain the status it had until the 16th or 17th century, and let's say that I base my "agenda" on this lowered expectation. I'm not necessarily saying that this is my true attitude. However, I believe it would be a valid one, probably based on the belief that "all or nothing" is too big and too risky a step if compared with "something (at a time)." Anyway, with such an attitude, would I be classified as an idealist or as a pragmatist?
<br><br>Where are the borderlines between "pragmatism" and "pessimism" on the one hand and between "idealism" and "(pipe-)dreaming" on the other hand? I'm pretty sure the borderlines lie in the eyes of the beholder.
<br><br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
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