<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 08 January 2008 - Volume 06</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: Elsie Zinsser <<a href="mailto:ezinsser@icon.co.za">
ezinsser@icon.co.za</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.01.07 (07) [E]</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;">Hi all,</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, John Howland, this was not my line! </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;">
Regards,</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;">Gespierde Elsie Zinsser</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: Danette & John Howland <<a href="mailto:dan_how@msn.com">dan_how@msn.com
</a>><br>Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.07 (05) [E]<br><br>Hello, all (I can never bring myself to say you guys--sounds vulgar to me).<br><br> Elsie wrote:<br><br>(Quote) And I just noticed that apparently Dutch is the only Germanic/W.European language that does not use the latin word "muscle" but "spier". Anyone knows other Germanic languages that use a more "original" word? (end quote)
<br><br>English retains the word "brawn," of germanic origin, I think. It seems to me that brawn is less used in American English than when I was a child.<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">John Howland</span><br></div><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);"><a href="mailto:foga0301@stcloudstate.edu">foga0301@stcloudstate.edu</a></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.01.07 (07) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" id="1ep5" class="ArwC7c ckChnd">
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<p>Thanks Ron,</p>
<p> For your encouragement. I'll have more
time for conformity issues next week after my exam. But today, it seems you're
probing for a bit more '<b><i>high-plains</i></b>' history
[the highlands here are dry—it's the lowlanders who hold power
here]. </p>
<p><i><u><span style="color: rgb(79, 129, 189);">Reinhard wrote</span></u></i><span style="color: rgb(79, 129, 189);">:</span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(79, 129, 189);">…those [low saxon speakers] that left for the
"New" World did have a choice (and I wonder if some of them emigrated
for this reason). I am told that especially many of those that emigrated with
other Low Saxon speakers or congregated with them overseas tended to end up
with Low Saxon alongside English, often without German playing any role.</span></p>
<p>Yes'r, my great-great-grandfather came over with all
four of his boys in the 1880's and ended up in South Texas (with only one
dollar left)—one son found work in a German bakery the next day. Not
liking the farmland there, two boys hired on as cowboys on a cattle drive to
take cows up north to Nebraska for railroad shipping and slaughter. They're
minor characters in James Michener's novel too [Gompert]. My grandfather
was born in a cave because there wasn't enough sod to build a pukka "grassroots"
house. Note that the hoch deutschers controlled the best land for a 1000 + miles
to the east. His name comes up at the end of a long letter listing the
number of horses, cows and sheep they had at the time. The message was that surviving
in the drylands seemed to be possible. The others followed…[breathe here]</p>
<p>Yes, there was a lot of plattdeutsch spoken at the
crossroads in those days. My grandfather could still write it and read
letters from the old country even in the 1970's. One of our German
cousins showed up at his funeral. It was the largest funeral the valley
ever had. He taught me how to ride wild horses, but not how to speak plattdeutsch.
I have a feeling for my heritage in two ways: one comes from the silences
between words and the other from the light-hearted jokes. Everything is
survivable, but the stories tend to be fresh new ones. </p>
<p>And you're right, I have had to live next to actual hochsters
only in the last 7 years after migrating to Minnesota [the lowlands] for work. And
again, you're right, there is little or no mention of low German here.
I struggle with the authoritarian flavor of this place. Not sure if it is my
Spanish-friendly [Pakistani-nurtured] mode of talking or my family's
long-abandoned Euro-tensions, but I'm constantly getting in social
trouble here for speaking my mind. The fascinating thing is how I learned
to use a thick peasant-Norwegian accent to express my anger. I think that's
common here—and most commonly ineffective. From what you say, it
might be that this borrowing is due to the locals having lost their memory bank
of plattdeutsch swear words. I learned some of those high-energy words in
Nebraska as a child, but don't hear them here. German itself was banned
here when the WWars broke out. Everyone got lower grades in school after than point,
I'm told—no more bilingual classrooms. There are a lot of silences
here still. Very little room for plattdeutsch [rabbits or wrens] here… or
for Ojibwa, or… Sioux or Somali. Colonialism continues in an
English Only key.</p>
<p>I have some reflections on the ancient "pagan"
history of the lowlands too (and the imposition of Christianity from the German
highlands), but that shifts the subject back too far… Same tensions,
different day, perhaps…I'll save it.</p>
<p>Gael</p>
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</div><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: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">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<br><br>Again thanks a lot, Gael. This is fascinating.<br><br>And now that you are aware of certain sentiments ... well ... you might like to consider not referring to the language by its
<u>German </u>name, unless you speak or write German. (Why in German?! To emphasize who's the boss? Insult to injury?) <br><br>The traditional English name is "Low German," which is, however, imprecise in that it can serve as a group name for Low Saxon and Low Franconian (Dutch, Afrikaans ...), and also in that in German Low Franconian (
<i>Niederfränkisch</i>) dialects that happen to be spoken on German soil are lumped into this together with Low Saxon.<br><br>We have one group with two subgroups here:<br></span><ul style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<li><b>Low German</b></li><ul><li><b>Low Franconian</b> (< Old Low Franconian)<b><br></b></li><ul><li>Dutch (<i>Nederlands</i>)<br></li><ul><li>Hollandish</li><li>Brabantish</li><li>Flemish-Zeelandic</li><li>Cleves Low Franconian (also in Germany)
</li></ul><li>Afrikaans</li></ul><li><b>Low Saxon</b> ("Low German") (< Old Saxon)<br></li><ul><li>Northwestern</li><li>Northeastern</li><ul><li>Mecklenburgish</li><li>Pomeranian</li><ul><li>Mennonite (<i>Plautdietsch
</i>)<br></li></ul></ul><li>Southeastern</li><li>Southwestern</li><ul><li>Westphalian</li><li>Eastphalian<br></li></ul></ul></ul></ul><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">On the German side, the own name is
</span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Plattdüütsch</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> or </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Nedderdüütsch</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
, or just </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Platt</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">. For the sake of more accurate classification many of us say "Low Saxon" in reference to the Saxon-derived varieties, and this is consistent with usage in the Netherlands where this language is used also. Naturally, this "Low Saxon" excludes the Cleves Low Franconian (or "Bergish") varieties.
</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;">(Old Saxon is also one of the ancestors of Old English.)
</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;">(And "Saxon" has nothing to do with today's German state of Saxony. It stole our name!)
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Platt</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
is confusing too, because many other language varieties are referred to as such as well, not only in the Low German group.</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;">Is this confusing enough for you?</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;">
Kumpelmenten,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">