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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 20 February 2009 - Volume 05<br>
===========================================</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">From: <span class="ep8xu"><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Roger
Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc.</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language diversity" 2009.02.20 (03)
[A/E]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">> From: <span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Luc Hellinckx</span> <<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com" target="_blank">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">>... UNESCO
has published a nice online atlas of endangered languages (5 categories):</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
<a href="http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00206" target="_blank">http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00206</a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">There is
clearly disagreement within Luxembirg,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">cf.:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://www.wort.lu/wort/web/letzebuerg/artikel/07502/unesco-sprachenbericht-vieles-stimmt-einfach-nicht.php" target="_blank">http://www.wort.lu/wort/web/letzebuerg/artikel/07502/unesco-sprachenbericht-vieles-stimmt-einfach-nicht.php</a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Regards,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Roger</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span style="color: rgb(200, 137, 0);">Paul Finlow-Bates</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language diversity" 2009.02.20 (01)
[E/LS]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Hi James,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I believe
much of the problem with the languages and dialects of England and Wales is that the speakers refuse
to be bilingual. Of course the Education System will be biased toward Standard
English; you can't give a speech to the Royal Society or an international
conference in Geordie, and if you imagine that a doctor from Mumbai is going to
learn it so you can, you're out of luck.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The problem
is that speakers of the different tongues who learn Standard English then stick
with it and fall into a trap of treating their home speech as
"wrong". It'stheir language, nobody else is making them do
that.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Secondly, I
guarantee that if I, as an East Midlander, attempted to speak Geordie in Newcastle the locals
would be convinced I was "taking the piss" and I'd be met with derision
at best, and more likely violence. Germans don't take offence when I speak
German, nor do Iranians when I try Persian. If people want language
status they need language responsibility.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Paul</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Derby</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">England</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);"><a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a></span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language diversity" 2009.02.19 (07)
[E]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">from heather <a href="mailto:heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk" target="_blank">heatherrendall@tiscali.co.uk</a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Paul wrote: We can stop
outright attempts at elimination such as the British tried with Welsh and
Gaelic,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I do get so angry when
people promulgate this anti-British (?English) nonsense.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">When State schooling
started in the UK in the 19th century ALL SCHOOLS had to deliver the curriculum
in the Queen's English and - in direct tradition of the immersion technique of
the Latin/Greek schools of the medieval period - ALL PUPILS had to
'leave' their home language at the school gate and were only allowed to use the
Queen's English once they were on school premises. The aim was to iron out the
dialect contrasts that made a Southerner incomprehensible to a Northerner and
similarly someone from the Western counties and someone from the eastern ones.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">In certain professions such
as mining when Welsh miners were moved to other areas, speaking in their own
language was seen by foremen and owners alike as disturbing and possibly conspiratorial.
When workers uniting to form unions was still seen as a major threat by owners
and foremen, it was going to be expected that these same same people would
NOT wish workers to talk in a way that could not be understood. ( a
criticism that can still be heard in the workplace today where a monolinguist
will always feel at a disadvantage when listening to half a dozen groups of
languages being spoken around him/her)</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I am not supporting the suppression
of language: I am just saying that those that did it, had what they thought at
the time were sound reasons, which should not be reevaluated according to later
attitudes and developments.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The schools certainly
thought they were "freeing" people to move unhindered and without
bias throughout the world of work by giving them a lingua franca that could be
understood in the late 19th century all the way round the world.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The owners/workers
situation is v different. If I had been an owner/ foreman and feared that insurrection
was being planned ( when really more likely it was just a conversation about
swapping someone's sardine sandwich for a cheese one!) I'd have taken the trouble
to learn the language or employ a translator!!</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">And one final point: there
were not enough native English teachers around in the latter half of the 19th
century to fill all the state schools in the British Isles: the teachers who
put the Welsh Knot around the necks of Welsh pupils were native Welsh - often
middle class or aspiring to it . They believed to do their best by their pupils
they had to make sure they spoke English as this opened so many more doors to
them.... and the immersion technique was the medium they chose.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> In East Anglia it
was a Scotsman who ran the school where my grandfather would have been made to
wear the 'Norfolk Knot'!</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">There was no directive from
'above' that said - we must eliminate these languages. Once English was
believed to be the cachet language, it would have been dialect speakers
themselves who would have shunned their own language in favour of 'getting on
in the world ' by being fluent in the Queen's English.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">just as country children
long for the city lights</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">and city parents long for
the country life</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">we all seem to yearn for
improvement in our standard of living. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Some people move house;
some people change the way they speak.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">What is sad - and this has
been said many times on this forum - is that they were not sufficiently
enlightened to allow 2 Englishesor languages to be spoken by each child /
worker - their home langauge and Queen's English, with the ability to move
seamlessly at the right time and under right circumstances between both.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Heather<br></span></p>