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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 - 26 November 2007 - Volume 06
</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(0, 104, 28);">
Sandy Fleming</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:sandy@scotstext.org">sandy@scotstext.org</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 "Language varieties" 2007.11.25 (07) [E]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><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: Language varieties</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;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> Hi, Luc!</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;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> As far as I know -- and our British friends no doubt will correct me</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> if I'm wrong -- the educational system in British was tweaked quite</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> some time ago to be more tolerant with regard to local and regional
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> language varieties. In other words, teachers no longer correct</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> students (pupils) at every turn but permit use of local varieties. You</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> will notice that even media reporters' language comes in quite some</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> variety, as does the English of people interviewed, why, even that of
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> members of the House of Commons. You are not necessarily considered</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> poorly educated by everyone if you don't speak "posh," and not</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> speaking "posh" may even allow you to win more hearts. You may have</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> noticed (even though you may be too young) that class distinctions and
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> stigmas are melting away in Britain, and the more relaxed linguistic</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> atmosphere may well be one of the signs of this.</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;">No, I wouldn't correct you on this. It's certainly true that no-one here</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
would be bothered about the accent or dialect someone speaks in,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">including Scottish and British-Asian dialects, as long as it's
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">comprehensible. Nor would they be bothered about it being</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">incomprehensible (eg Welsh, Scots, Somerset) as long as they're not</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
expected to understand it.</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;">One no longer hears scolding about dropped "h"s, th->f/v or anything
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">like that. The only people I've heard complaining about it recently have</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">all been visitors to the country or recent immigrants. If a British</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
person reacted in this way to an accent, I'd prpobably try to connect it</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">to personality traits (irritability or something) rather than the idea
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">that people should speak in a certain way.</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;">This needs to be qualified with the fact that my perception of the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
oral-linguistic ambience is somewhat rarefied, but on the other hand,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">being deaf, people often do describe other people's accents to me, and I
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">can lipread accents to some extent, so it's not all that rarefied.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><br>Sandy Fleming<br><a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a><br><br>----------<br><br></font><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(0, 104, 28);">Sandy Fleming</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:sandy@scotstext.org">sandy@scotstext.org
</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 "Language varieties" 2007.11.25 (05) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><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: Language varieties</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;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> local language, many will find this very strange, because they have</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> come to believe that their language is private and improper, that you</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> as an outsider should not be involved in it. When a foreigner,
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> especially an "exotic-looking" one, speaks "dialect," many people will</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> point this out as an amusing anomaly.</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;">
It's certainly true that there's a tradition of Scots speakers having a</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">healthy interest in foreigners, or "exotic-looking" Scots, being
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">involved in speaking Scots or participating in Scots culture in general.</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;">An example from WWII is in George MacDonald Fraser's "McAuslan" series</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">of books where there's a story about a Black soldier in a Scottish</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
regiment who joins the pipe band. To people of 60 years ago this looked</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">very odd and raised serious questions but the eventual conclusion was
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">that he was a good piper and that was what mattered.</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;">In the village where I grew up we had one Black man, who spoke Scots</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">exactly like us and was an Elder of the kirk (which may have been an</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
early example of positive discrimination, or not). To me this made a</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">lasting impression that Black people are just like me and scientifically
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">(as opposed to politically) speaking, there's no such thing as a Black</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">accent or language or White accent or language, everybody is the same in</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
this respect.</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;">In the 1960s/70s TV series "Dad's Army" there's an episode where the
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Scottish member of the group is ranting about the fact that the English</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">captain will regret trying to preside over the haggis at a celebratory</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
dinner. In the end it turns out that the Englishman could play the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">bagpipes, which I remember amusing us tremendously: of course English
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">people can play the pipes, if they learn it!</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;">In the 70's or 80's I remember a popular clip on Scottish TV of a young</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
boy singing "Auld Lang Syne" in perfect Scots. The camera starts at his</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">feet and moves up past his socks, flashers, kilt and jacket, and finally
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">his face is seen and he's Chinese. Not necessarily foreign, of course.</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;">One of the really big Scottish events of the year is the Edinburgh</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Tattoo, which is watched avidly by traditional Scots all over the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
country when it's shown on TV. Although based around the idea of</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Scottish regimental piping traditions, it's full of guest bands from
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">many other countries showing how this sort of thing is done more "exotic</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">looking" people than us plain-faced Scots :)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888">
<br>Sandy Fleming<br><a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a><br><br>----------<br><br></font><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><span></span> </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: Language varieties<br><br>Thanks, Sandy.<br><br>When I was a kid, two of our local Lutheran churches were involved in an international pastoral exchange program. One of the churches had a visiting pastor from Ghana for about one year, a native speaker of Twi. The other church had a youngish pastor and his family from Hong Kong, Cantonese speakers, for quite a long time, at least three years, I'd say. Already upon arrival both pastors were quite conversant in German and were able to conduct services and deliver sermons in German. Apparently they had attended German seminaries. The one from Hong Kong, being rather gregarious, picked up some Low Saxon. I have a feeling he did this as an extra effort to break through the remaining ice. The one from Ghana also picked up some local expressions with which he'd occasionally startle and amuse folks. However, the novelty and amusement factors soon wore off.
<br><br>I remember that some oldies found these visitations rather strange at first, but I think it was just the novelty of the idea of "missionaries in reverse," if you get my drift. However, it took both pastors very little time to win over lots of hearts. I suspect that their linguistic efforts played at least minor roles.
<br><br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br><br></span>
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