<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 - 17 January 2008 - Volume 05
</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);">
Marcel Bas</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:roepstem@hotmail.com">roepstem@hotmail.com</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 "Names" 2008.01.18 (03) [E]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Hi Ron!</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;">
That's interesting. I didn't know that the earliest word (maybe *</span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">wal-</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">?)
must have been a word that must have denoted something like
'Romance-speaking Celtic'. I thought 'stranger', or 'speaking funny',
like so many words for neighbouring people in many languages (barbaroi,
etc.). </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
In Austrian and German languages, we know the word </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">windisch </i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">and </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
wendisch, </i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">used to refer to Slavonic tribes. Do you perhaps know what the original meaning of that word was?</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;">
Indeed, in some 'Flemish' mouths the word 'Walen' is used in such a
negative fashion, that for me 'Walen' has gained a negative
connotation. 'Romance speaking Belgians' sounds better, nowadays. It's
a sociological process; the southerners and northerners are growing
apart. One would almost think that it's French-speaking peoples versus
Dutch-speaking peoples. But to a large extent, the 'Walen' also consist
of romanicised Germanic people. Jacques Brel was one of them (a very
late one, and not Walloon in the strict sense; rather a French speaking
'Brabander'.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
In the past, the huge province of Brabant was bilingual, with Romance
dialects in the South, Germanic dialects in the North. Nobody cared.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
I believe it's the Belgian state that causes people to focus so
strongly on languages, when there is, actually, a socio-economic battle
going on, and there are conflicting interests.</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;">
Best regards,</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;">
Marcel.</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;">----------</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 <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: Names</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;">
Marcel,</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;">Wenden</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
etc. is believed to be related to "Vandal," even Vandals were East Germanic speakers.</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;"><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;">
<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: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Names"<br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" id="1eod" class="ArwC7c ckChnd">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
<div>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Marcel, Reinhard, Jacqueline,
Ben, and all,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Another quick
note I can't resist sharing on names.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(79, 129, 189);">Marcel you
wrote,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(79, 129, 189);">The words
"Waal" and "Walloon" mean "stranger", so I'm not
so fond of this word for the linguistic status of the southern half of Belgium;
it neglects the regional languages spoken there, and it reduces Romance
inhabitants of the Lowlands as "strangers"</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(79, 129, 189);">Reinhard you
wrote,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(79, 129, 189);">It is true that
<i>Waal</i> etc. has been variously interpreted as "stranger." The
other, probably original and remaining meaning is something like
"Romance-speaking" from "Romance-speaking Celtic." The group
of names is related to "Gaul," "Gallic,"
"Gaelic," "Wales," "Welsh," <i>welsch</i>, <i>Wallis</i>;
cf. French <i>gallois</i> for 'Welsh'. In this sense I don't see anything
negative in it, but perhaps it's different for Dutch speakers. Large tracts of
formerly Celtic-speaking Europe became Romance-speaking, and Germanic speakers
therefore identified any Romance variety (practically all of which had Celtic
substrata) as "Welsh." It was only later that this name came to be
extended to mean "others" and "gobbledigook" ( e.g. German <i>Kauderwelsch</i>).
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">After immigrating to the US,
my father's family decided to Anglicize our surname (from Fokken to
Fonken). This was originally so that the preachers in the family
could avoid the vulgar implication of a name that sounded like the <i>f---</i>
word (such as "I told that <i>f---ing</i> preacher to…"). But
then when I was dating a Norwegian in college, he told me that Fokken meant something
worse in the original—that he would be embarrassed to tell his family
that he was dating "a devil". I guess in Germany the word <i>fokken</i>
means a burning coal or amber in the fire, but in Norwegian it means something
like "hell" or those who live in hell and enjoy it. This guy
also drove a Mercedes that he bought in Germany. He probably had more
interest in German cars than German women, though. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">But so now if you add my
first name Gael (stranger) to the word Fokken (the devil), it might be best to start
over entirely. However, it seems better to me to think of all this as just
part of the work of crossing borders. It's better to generate talk on
the other side of a border than to evade all that with name changes and silence.
Jacqueline, the entire country of Belgium seems to be a world-class
borderland. I'm impressed. In the US you can travel for days
and days and still be in the same country. That's not healthy.
Names here have lost all their meaning.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Gael </span></p>
</div>
</div>
</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: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Luc Hellinckx</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">
luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span></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 "Names"</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;">
Beste Ron,</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;">
You wrote:
</span><blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite">
<ol><li>It is true that <i>Waal</i> etc. has been variously
interpreted as "stranger." The other, probably original and remaining
meaning is something like "Romance-speaking" from "Romance-speaking
Celtic." The group of names is related to "Gaul," "Gallic," "Gaelic,"
"Wales," "Welsh," <i>welsch</i>, <i>Wallis</i>; cf. French <i>gallois</i>
for 'Welsh'. In this sense I don't see anything negative in it, but
perhaps it's different for Dutch speakers. Large tracts of formerly
Celtic-speaking Europe became Romance-speaking, and Germanic speakers
therefore identified any Romance variety (practically all of which had
Celtic substrata) as "Welsh." It was only later that this name came to
be extended to mean "others" and "gobbledigook" (
e.g. German <i>Kauderwelsch</i>).</li></ol>
</blockquote>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The troubled relationship between the (Western) Flemish and the French
is old. During the battle of the Guldensporenslag (in 1302), the slogan
already was: "Wat walsch is, valsch is. Slaet al dood." </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
(freely translated: What is welsh, is false. Slay 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;">
I'm not a historian, but I have the impression that these
anti-French/Francophone feelings have always been a lot more intense in
Flanders than they were in the center of the country. Maybe this
originated in the County of Flanders being a fief of the French king,
whereas the Duchy of Brabant was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Maybe,
maybe, maybe it even goes further back to a Saxon/Frankish divide,
where the French king was viewed as heir to the Frankish warlords.</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;">
Franks, in turn, can also be seen as "strangers" of course, just look
at the Thai word "farang", for a Westerner and Persian "farangi" for a
non-muslim.</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;">
Kind greetings,</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;">
Luc Hellinckx</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;">
PS: "Wallonia" is called "De Walen" in Brabantish (analogous to "De
Vlaanderen" and "De Limburg").</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;">