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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 20 November 2008 - Volume 04<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Arend Victorie</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:victorie.a@home.nl">victorie.a@home.nl</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language use" 2008.11.20 (03)
[E/LS]</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="NL">Moi,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="NL"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;" lang="NL">'t Huus van de taol in Drenthe hef hiel mooie buttons en
stikkers daor stiet op "Tegen mij kuj Drèens praoten" Ik hebbe der al
verscheiden an mien kompels uut-edield.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="NL"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">Groet,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;">Arend Victorie</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">----------<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">M.-L. Lessing</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de">marless@gmx.de</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language use" 2008.11.20 (02) [D/E]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Hello all,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">all this is very fascinating.
Why should a person deny his/her own language? To me it seems rather defensive.
No, none of you attacked anybody, I'm sure! :-) But just think: Can it be a
sort of hiding? In most cases you addressed a single person, isolated, not just
a dozen of them talking in their language. You addressed them in their own
language. And in most cases the person you addressed adopted the language of a
greater community -- the language of "the majority" or, in extreme
cases, the globalized anonymous English, compared to which all other languages
are minorities. This looks like hiding behind an anonymous mask. -- If you
belong to a minority and a stranger adresses you in your own special language,
you have two choices: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">1. Answer in the minority
language and thus compromise yourself as to where you come from; this is
giving a great deal of information about yourself, and it might turn against
you -- e.g. you may be despised for provincialism by the stranger or by others
who hear you;</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">2. Do as if you belonged to
quite another, much greater, perhaps stronger group, thus keeping everything
special about yourself in the dark and giving the stranger as little
information as possible. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Of course that is poor
camouflage, and a speaker who puts on another language in fact gives even more
information about him/herself, but it may be an instinct to keep others from
your own whereabouts. It seems to me the neandertaler is peeping out somewhere
here. Strangers have no right to know where your cave lies and how strong is
your group. Data protection! If people would only be half as nice with their
email address!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I have often seen this happen
among Plattdeutsch-Speakers here in northern Germany. I know that a person
speaks Platt, I address him/her in Platt, quite politely, and still they answer
in High German, which I read as: Keep your distance! I will not let you come
near my thoughts! -- Such people, mostly elderly, use the language only among
their closest friends, often among those who have shared part of their lives,
fates, troubles -- absolutely trustworthy members of their minority
community, mates who may know all about them and will never do harm. My mother
tells me her father didn't want his own children to address him in Platt; this
was allowed only to his old country mates, to talk of times past. It was not
done to keep the children at High German, it was to protect his own intimacy,
his remembrances, his individuality. I think the fact that language is the
material that thoughts are made of is also very important in this context.
Language *is* intimate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">But what can we do about it?
I think people who feel they want to hide must be reassured, as a first thing.
Friendliness and patience is much more important than insisting on a language.
Some fear, some pressure to assimilate to a majority group or an ideal, perhaps
even some vanity, is behind this behaviour. If a person will not share
his/her language with you, very little or nothing would be won by forcing them.
The language might not profit either. It can not be separated from the people.
-- So we would have to make minority people strong, fearless and proud to
preserve their languages?! Every single human being?! Looks like no little
task! If we could do it, much would be won independent of language.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Skeptical greetings to you
all,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Marlou<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">----------<br>
<br>
From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Language use</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
Arend, in Noordduytschland hebt sey buttons un pins mit "Ik snack ok Platt" up.<br>
<br>
Marlou, you're quite right. Especially for older people, but also for pretty
much everyone in close village communities, use of Low Saxon is often reserved
for close relationships. Switching to the language sets a different, more
intimate tone.<br>
<br>
I believe that this is the results of generations of virtually hiding one's
language from the outside world. It began with </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">German </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">northward encroachment by
way of administration and education. It ushered in an era of Low Saxon as a
group of sociolects. The higher up the socio-economic ladder you were the more
obligated you were to use only German. German became a status symbol. Nobody
likes to be at or near the bottom of the heap (unless he or she wears it as a badge of
honor). So Low Saxon retreated more and more from the public arena. People only
used it in "safe" contexts: at home, with good friends, with fellow villagers,
and perhaps at the weekly market and in neighborhoods stores out of earshot of
higher-ups and visiting townsfolk. In other words, it became an "intimate
language" or "familial language," so to speak. As a stranger, you're most lucky
to break the barrier if you use the language with people of the same age or
younger. Otherwise it might be perceived as being forward.<br><br>I've been told that Low Saxon was for quite some time the language of the Hamburg Senate, not all that long ago either, and that this was at least in part to keep out Johnnies-Come-Lately, all those German-speaking <i>Quiddjes</i>, non-natives that might get Senate seats by virtue of wealth. So apparently it was used as a guild or club language to keep out the newly arrived "riffraff."<br>
<br>
Kumpelmenten,<br>
Reinhard/Ron</span></p>