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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 20 September 2007 - Volume 01</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Song Contest: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/contest/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">lowlands-l.net/contest/</a> (- 31 Dec. 2007)</span>
<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 style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Mark Williamson <<a href="mailto:node.ue@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">node.ue@gmail.com</a>>
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language death" 2007.09.19 (03) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
While it is obviously an issue in Europe as well, I think the issue is</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">very different in its scope and nature. Regional languages are being
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">lost in Europe; in the Americas, all (non-colonial) languages are at</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
risk to some extent.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">The linguistic diversity that would be present in Europe if all
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">minority languages perished would still be much greater than that of</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
the Americas if all minority languages were to perish.</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" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">sassisch@yahoo.com
</a>></span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: Language death</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Well,
Mark, as far as I am concerned, the situations may look more dissimilar
than they are. The only real difference is that in the "New World" the
result is less linguistic diversity, but Europe (and certainly Russia
and Siberia) is headed the same way.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Absorption
of ethnicities and resulting language minoritizing and eventually death
in Europe has in large part taken place by way of colonial expansion.
We can trace it back to Greek and Roman powers, and it has been going
ever since. For instance, what is now Eastern Germany was largely
Slavonic-speaking and began to be colonized in earnest in the 12th
century, with mass migration to that region from Germanic-speaking
Western Europe. The by then indigenous Slavonic populations (Polabians,
Sorbs, etc.) came to be marginalized, their languages were eventually
"phased out" in churches, and children were "encouraged" to assimilate
to the prestige populations, to lose their ancestral languages and in
many cases to acquire new Germanic(ized) names. Those that were
"stubborn" enough not to do so remained in "backward" villages in areas
that were not attractive to the Germanic-speaking prestige populations
(such as today's Lusatia, a tiny fraction of original Lusatia). Similar
things happened to Sami-speaking communities in Central and Southern
Scandinavia and to Uralic-speaking communities in Russia, before that
to the various Iberian, Celtic (Gall, etc.) and Greek communities under
Roman colonization, to the Celtic-speaking populations of Britain, etc.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Reinhard/Ron</span>
•
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