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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 - 11 December 2008 - Volume 06<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Mike
Wintzer</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:k9mw@yahoo.com">k9mw@yahoo.com</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language politics" 2008.12.11 (04)
[E]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Paul wrote:<br>
If they can't read maps, they shouldn't be driving trucks for a living.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Paul, you
don't understand.<br>
This is for the poor truckers from New Zealand<br>
who only read Maori written in Chinese characters...<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Mike Wintzer</span><br>
<br>
----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Mike
Wintzer</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:k9mw@yahoo.com">k9mw@yahoo.com</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language politics" 2008.12.11 (02)
[E]</span><br>
<br>
Mir fehlen ob dieses Blödsinns echt die Worte (Rademacher)<br>
<br>
Da müsste doch eine Unterschriftenaktion wirken.<br>
Ganz LLL gegen eine Handvoll Stadträte.<br>
Besser: Die Welt (Globalisierung) gegen...<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Mike Wintzer</span><br>
<br>
----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(200, 137, 0);">Marcus Buck</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:list@marcusbuck.org">list@marcusbuck.org</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language politics" 2008.12.11 (02)
[E]</span><br>
<br>
From: Jonny <<a href="mailto:jonny.meibohm@arcor.de" target="_blank">jonny.meibohm@arcor.de</a>
<mailto:<a href="mailto:jonny.meibohm@arcor.de" target="_blank">jonny.meibohm@arcor.de</a>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">>><br>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2008.12.10 (01) [D/E/LS]<br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">Beste Lowlanners,</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
yesterday I sent you a link about the intention to change street- and
placenames into Frisian in Fryslan/Netherlands: </span><a style="font-family: courier new,monospace;" href="http://www.leeuwardercourant.nl/nieuws/regio/article4109509.ece" target="_blank">http://www.leeuwardercourant.nl/nieuws/regio/article4109509.ece</a><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
Today Piet Bult (who got a copy of that yesterday's mail) sent me an article
from an insert of the same 'Leeuwarder Courant' just showing the other thing in
East-Frisian/Germany (i.e. change of Low Saxon street names into Standard
German). I found some additional links in German newspapers:</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<a style="font-family: courier new,monospace;" href="http://www.szon.de/news/kultur/aktuell/200811171040.html?_from=rss" target="_blank">http://www.szon.de/news/kultur/aktuell/200811171040.html?_from=rss</a><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<a style="font-family: courier new,monospace;" href="http://www.ostfriesische-nachrichten.de/neu/index_volltext.asp?ID=24003" target="_blank">http://www.ostfriesische-nachrichten.de/neu/index_volltext.asp?ID=24003</a><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
Let me give a short summary to those of you who aren't familiar with German:</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
The community of /'Großefehn'/ in East Friesland/Germany decided to change some
Low Saxon street names *within a new commercial area* of their village into
Standard German because they experienced that customers and drivers of any
delivery services, who don't speak LS, have difficulties to find their
addressees.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
By the scandalised leader of the German 'Frisian Party' this step is suspected
to be against the spirit of the times - in other regions of Northern Germany
people try to add, sometimes to re-invent the Low Saxon names of their
locations. And furtheron he fears that this affair could lead to the result
that the EU will get everything out of this matter and make a decision about
any regularized standard for new street names.</span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"></span><br style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"><span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">
I'll enjoy to hear your opinions! </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Rademacher's
reference to EU regulating street names of course only tries to stir fears of
centralism unadapted to local needs. (The old crooked bananas bureaucracy
thing) Of course the EU will never regulate street names.<br>
Just as you try to stir fears of invented Low Laxon. I don't know no single
example of "re-invented" Low Saxon names. Please give examples.<br>
Some people *felt* difficulties with their Low Saxon addresses. Not cause
"delivery services could not find them". I have read most of the
media coverage since the issue emerged in late November (I look upon all news
covering "Plattdüütsch" on Google News). I haven't heard a single
example of actual delivery problems or any other severe problems. The only
problem is, that they sometimes have to say the name twice or spell it. On the
phone for example. That's most likely true. I too live in a street with a Low
Saxon name and regularly have to spell it. But that's also true for many first
names (my first name is Marcus and I have to inform people regularly not to
write it Markus), last names (my last name Buck is very simple and I still
often have to correct people who try to write Bock [in a move to correct it to
a more Standard German form]), place names (Rademacher gives the example uf
Upleward), many other street names (I guess, the inhabitants of the Cuvrystraße
in the Inner City of Berlin for example have to spell their streetname just as
often as the Hockereestraat people from Großefehn) and names in general.<br>
<br>
Were the names difficult in any special way? Okay, Hockereestraat was kind of
(I am not even sure this is the right spelling, it's a relatively new commercial
area and not yet in any directories and not visible on Google Maps for example.
In the press it was spelled Hökereestraat sometimes). Schoosterstraat and
Sniederstraat are not very hard to spell. And Timmermannsring is even easier
than the new name Hanomagstraße. Großefehn is near to the Dutch border. If the
companies in the commercial area Ulbargen want to trade with the Netherlands
too, I guess the Low Saxon names would have been easier. And the special signs
in the German names don't make it easier in international trade. Perhaps
Dutchmen can handle ß, but in most other countries people will give up on ß,
they often write a capital B instead or similar things. Well, I don't know what
kind of companies are settled or want to settle in the area. Those commercial
areas ("Gewerbegebiet") often consist of rather low level commerce
(car washes, carpentry, locksmithery, car dealers etc.) and not international
business. If this kind of commerce would be settling there, I could hardly
understand, why the names should pose problems, cause they would mostly have
regional customers and regional suppliers.<br>
<br>
I have to admit, it's kind of a media bubble. It was pure chance that a
journalist was present on the council meeting of the Großefehn council and
covered the decision in the local newspaper from where it made its way into
national newspapers. If the journalist wouldn't have been present, it would
have went through unnoticed. That's a sad thing, there should be much more
awareness for things like that. It shouldn't be possible that things like that
go through unnoticed. Jonny, imagine Großefehn would have decided to name the
streets after people from the resistance against the Nazis in 2005, when the
commercial area was set up, and now in 2008 they would decide that the names of
those resistance members are too hard to spell and they want to change it to
names easier to spell. That would have been a national scandal! Großefehn
erasing resistance members from their streets!<br>
It's irrational. From a pragmatic point of view it should be acceptable to
change both the Low Saxon names and the names of hard-to-spell resistance
members to easier ones without anyone objecting. But people still object, cause
they have emotions. They don't like people who want to stop Nazi resistance
commemoration, even if the commemoration is just three years old. And it should
be just as accepted to not like people who want to abolish the cultural
endurance of Low Saxon on the public, even if it is only three year old.<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br>
Marcus Buck<br>
</span><br>
PS: You too mentioned the move to Frisian names. Actually I am not a friend of
such moves. I am all supporting the move to fully recognize Frisian and give it
all the same rights, but that should not mean to abolish the Dutch name. It's
okay to write both names on the town signs or even to write the Frisian name in
big letters and the Dutch name in small, and it's okay to write official
documents in Frisian. But the Dutch name shouldn't be erased. Why can't towns
have two official names? One Frisian, one Dutch? "Official" doesn't
mean "only one".<br>
(But I am anti-status-quo. Many people only look at the status quo and support
equal rights in cases like "Estonian vs. Russian" in Estonia. I
personally regard this as an invader/defender situation and would recognize the
right of the Estonians to put pressure on the Russians. As long as it's not
'op'pression and a fair kind of pressure. The case of Dutch vs. Frisian is
similar. Frisian has the right to put pressure on Dutch but not to 'op'press
Dutch [like erasing their place names].)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>