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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 - 12 October 2007 - Volume 05</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Song Contest: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/contest/">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: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <
<a href="mailto:ingmar.roerdinkholder@WORLDONLINE.NL">ingmar.roerdinkholder@WORLDONLINE.NL</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics"
2007.10.12 (03) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:16:29 -0700, Lowlands-L List</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><</span><a style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:lowlands.list@GMAIL.COM">lowlands.list@GMAIL.COM</a><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
> wrote:</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Why didn't Dutch, or rather "Flemish" as it was/is called in Belgium, have
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">any success in Belgian colonies or protectorates in Africa, in Congo,</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Rwanda, Burundi?</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I assume in that period, the first half of the last century, many Flemish</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">even didn't know standard Dutch very well themselves, what they spoke were</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">their Brabant, West and East Flemish or Limburg dialects and a kind of
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Dutch coloured heavily by those. French, however, was a clear and uniform</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
language. With all the prestige Flemish was lacking.</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Something else: French orthography may be horrible, but its phonetics are
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">not. Actually, I think spoken French is much easier, much more familiar to</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
most African ears than Dutch or German would be: French has far less</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">tricky consonant clusters, no ch-sounds, it's pretty nasal like many
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">African languages, etc. That may have helped to its success there, too...</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
When you really want to hear Afro-French, just listen to the creole songs</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">of Kassav' or Zouk machine from the Antilles. It's such a sweet language...
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Ingmar</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_ben.j.bloomgren@gmail.com" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
"Ben J. Bloomgren" <<a href="mailto:ben.j.bloomgren@gmail.com">ben.j.bloomgren@gmail.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics"
2007.10.11 (01) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" id="mb_1">
<div dir="ltr" bgcolor="#ffffff"><span class="q">
<div><font size="2">I believe that Dutch had virtually no impact in
Belgian colonies.<br></font></div></span>
<div><font size="2">Wasn't French the language of the Belgian colonies?
French is the European language of the Congo area, and French influence is all
over Kokoongo and the other Bantu languages.</font></div>
<div><font size="2">Ben<br><br>----------<br><br></font>From: <span id="_user_luc.hellinckx@gmail.com" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Luc Hellinckx</span><span style="font-weight: normal;" class="lg"> <<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">
luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics"<br>
<br><div style="direction: ltr;">Beste Paul,<br><br>You wrote:<br>> Luc,<br>> Regarding French, I think you support my argument; despite being one<br>> of the "worst" European languages for matching sounds with spelling,
<br>> it has a wide currency - because France was powerful.<br><br>Sure do. The reason that France was powerful was why it got adopted in<br>Africa in the first place. But also bear in mind, that even though a<br>nation can be powerful, it usually takes less time to lose that power
<br>than it takes to consolidate it. If French would have suffered from a<br>series of bad spelling reforms, Africans might have understood this as<br>"weakness". First cracks in your Kulturhaus :-) .<br><br>> I'm not sure French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish got international
<br>> currency by being "Latin"; three of the four were the languages of big<br>> empires and are spoken internationally.<br><br>Latin was the language of science and religion. No small virtue (from<br>the 15th century on). As such it was perceived to float halfway between
<br>earth and sky. Semi-divine :-D .<br><br>> Tellingly, one wasn't, and isn't. But of course they are all only<br>> "Latin" in the first place because Rome did have a big empire!<br><br>Which wasn't built in a day. Whose influence was profound. And which
<br>lasted for quite a while. This is not exactly a "fait divers".<br><br>> As for the perceived "ugliness" of German (something I get from<br>> everyone who knows I'm learning it), much of this, at least amongst
<br>> English speakers, is because the only German they think of is films of<br>> Old Toothbrush Nose, screaming (I still can't make out more than about<br>> 25% of what he was saying).<br><br>Lol. Reminds me of one of my dad's uncles, who was a missionary in
<br>Congo. When I was 10 or so, he once visited our house, and was eager to<br>test my language skills. First said he believed that the number of<br>languages man is able to speak, equals the number of men he's worth.
<br>Then he taught me how to count till 5 in Swahili (told me that some<br>tribes didn't have words for numbers higher than five!)...and finally<br>stated (sic): "Die Deutsche Sprache ist eine Pferdesprache". Up till
<br>this day I wonder where he got that from as it sounded like a quote, but<br>he didn't explain. Guess he was referring to German aspiration, being<br>relatively strong, compared to our local Brabantish dialect (but I'm not
<br>sure whether that was what he really meant). Yep, he was born and raised<br>in a completely Dutch setting, still spoke the dialect very well, but<br>had mentally evolved into a Francophile. I gather he was no exception
<br>among his peers.<br>Then again, to !some! extent I understand his (rude) remark about<br>German, 'cause I personally experienced more or less the same when I<br>came back from China. Hearing nothing but Mandarin Chinese for almost a
<br>year (apart from some English now and then), I found it quite difficult<br>to start speaking Dutch again when I got back home. In the beginning, my<br>dialect really sounded like Russian to my ears: Bulky, rough and dark
<br>(no doubt due to thick [z], heavy rolling [r], and words with few vowels).<br><br>Mind you, in the meantime I "recovered", and can now thoroughly enjoy<br>the sound of any language again :-D .<br><br>Kind greetings,
<br></div><span class="sg"><br>Luc Hellinckx</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"></div></div>
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