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<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 06 November 2007 - Volume 02
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,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,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">
Peter Snepvangers</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:snepvangers@optushome.com.au">snepvangers@optushome.com.au</a>></span></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Genealogy" 2007.11.06 (04) [D/E]<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<font size="2">Roger, </font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">please keep logging your fascinating facts. </font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">there does not seem to be a lot of south dutch or Limburgisch
info and I always find yours and Luc's and Desidre's info most enlightening. I
am fascinated that there are over 1 million users of limburgs ( and after having
visited in July 2007 again having no doubt in this number of users but am amazed
at the lack of imput from Limburgs language users. it seems as though Limburgs
treats their minor language scenario as un important. My own experience is
totally the opposite. I went to the main bookshop in Maastricht and asked for
Limburgs English dictionary and was told by 3 different staff that this is not
what I want. I do not want Limburgs dialect is what I was told. Even though I
was in the heartlaand. What is wrong with these " Learned people" . As an
English speaking person I WAS FOBBED OFF. It was absurd that I wanted to
see anything in the Limburgs dialect. What I wanted was Dutch I was told. I was
totally amazed at the lack of Limburgs in Maaastricht I was being sold in the
new b ookshop. Beautiful place with walls being art updated but the language
expectation here was only Dutch - super sad to me. My cousin who lived in
Valkenburg thought it was also an absurdity b ut the truth.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Regards</font></div><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888">
<div><font size="2">Peter Snepvangers</font></div>
<div><font size="2"><a href="mailto:snepvangers@optushome.com.au" target="_blank">snepvangers@optushome.com.au</a></font></div></font><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>----------<br><br>From: R. F. Hahn <
<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: Language attitudes<br><br>Hi, Pete! Could to "see" you, stranger.<br><br>What you encountered there is the sort of thing I and some people I know are quite familiar with. I'm certain anyone is who deals with minority languages of countries other than their own. It is an interesting but also irritating phenomenon.
<br><br>What makes it hard to deal with is that it seems to come from a mixture of ignorance and wanting to be helpful to outsiders. Those people got a bit too much state-run education (that used to reflect denial of legitimacy of languages other than the national one), and they haven't really caught up with the latest changes in policy and attitudes. Fundamental may be that they truly believe that it's fine for local "backward"
<i>Lokalpatrioten </i>to deal with "inconsequential" lingos, but that foreigners ought to learn the <i>national </i>language if they haven't already done so. It is virtually impossible for them to get their heads around the possibility that a foreigner is interested in, say, Limburgish, Low Saxon or Frisian but not in Dutch, and learning Dutch without wanting to live there is seen by many as being frivolous to begin with. So if these "educated" people that are fluent in a handful of "important" foreign languages see their own national language as being low on the international totem pole, guess what they think about the minority and "regional" languages of their country. What you are dealing with here are the chickens of past indoctrination having come home to roost and running amuck in this transitional period because no one wants to see them and deal with them, since that would require acknowledging past "sins."
<br><br>As I said, I have come across this phenomenon many times, and not only in Europe. In Indonesia I had the longest run-around trying to round up material for Sundanese and Javanese (which aren't exactly minority languages with 27 million and 75 million speakers respectively). And I wasn't even asking for English language material about them. Overriding seemed to be the attitude that this was an internal matter, that a foreigner ought to be dealing only with Indonesian, the national language. In China (including Taiwan) it is very difficult for foreigners to get to study the "dialects" (
i.e., Chinese languages other than Standard Mandarin), leave alone non-Chinese languages of China, and the latter is often accompanied by suspicion. <br><br>In my opinion, the only way around such barriers anywhere in the world is establishing contacts with relevant individuals, populations and organizations. Just traveling there and trying to spend an afternoon hunting down material tends to be difficult. This is where it comes in handy if you do some homework before the trip. Being on a list like ours also allows you to ask locals or those that have been there before about resources and their locations.
<br><br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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