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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="PT-BR">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 10 April 2009 - Volume 08<br>
===========================================</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
From: <span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Roger Thijs, Euro-Support,
Inc.</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.04.10 (05) [E]</span><br>
<br>
> From: <span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jmtait</span> <<a href="mailto:jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk" target="_blank">jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk</a>><br>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.04.10 (01) [E]</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">> On the other hand, if you raise the status of your
speech to a level where it requires a policy, then it's questionable whether
you can continue to regard it as a dialect.</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;">I think you can have both, some examples:</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;">- <strong>Luxembourgish</strong>
emerged from being a Moselle-Franconian dialect. It now has a grammar,
dictionary, literature etc. The dictionary gives some regional variants for
some words though. Actually what you do is setting a standard (the
"dialect" of a representative area or town), but allow some variants.
However I think variants will slowly disappear as a result of TV programs etc.</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;">- <strong>Faeroersk</strong>
certainly is a language on its own, though living in the shadow of Danish
before being cut-off from Danemark during WWII. Now it is "the"
language of the islands, with isogloss maps though for remaining variants.
I leave it open whether or not regional variants must be classified as
dialects.</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;">The point is, I think, that many people believe that,
because there are regional variants, it is impossible that a standard form
emerges. For proving it to be wrong one just has to look at the history of
French and English.</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;">-<strong> Afrikaans</strong>
left the shadow of Dutch in the 1920's. although there are variants, there
clearly is a standard form with a common grammar and dictionary.</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;">In all these cases there is some coïncidence with a
territorial political development.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Curiously, though Australia
and the US
have proper variants, but I do not see any action for intentionally creating
really different languages. I don't know whether some UK TV series are
dubbed when programmed in Australia
or in the US.
At least not in the US
for Hyacint Bouquet (do I spell correctly?) or for "Are you being
served?". (Critical is, I think, "are the jokes still
understood"?)</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;">What I do not undertstand is why Prussia
did not support development of a Low German language standard, giving the North
an identity, loose from Bavaria and Austria. Were
they too much attached to "Hohenzollern"? When Hoffmann von
Fallersleben travelled in the Southern Netherlands
and wrote his "Horae Belgicae", he always kept a Pan-Germanic
mindset.</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;">- In the 1840's some politicians promoted a kind of <strong>"standard Flemish",</strong> as
distinct of Dutch. As a result the "commission orthography" was
created a kind of compromise between "Siegenbeek" from the Netherlands and
Belgian traditional writing. It didn't last for long, since in the mid 1860's a
common "Netherlands-Belgian spelling of De Vries & Ten Winkel"
was adopted.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">If I make my analysis why the creation of a "standard
Flemish" failed, I would say:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- The (West-)Flemish, Brabantish and Limburgish dialects
were too different for coming to something common on short term</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- In defence against dominance of French one needed a strong
language position. Standard Dutch from the Netherlands could offer that.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- Standard Dutch, or something close to it, remained the
written form of the language all the time. One can say that the Brussels chancellary
language was setting the tone before the separation at the end of the 16th
century.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- At the end of the 19th century, in the Romantic period,
the Flemish movement emerged. It was rather "pan-Diets" from the
beginning and certainly reluctant to create "Belgian" symbols.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">This does not exclude that standard Dutch in Belgium has its
local color.</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;">- "<strong>Limburgish</strong>"
was recognized in the Netherlands,
not in Belgium.
Imposing the central "Maasland"-form as a common standard failed. One
wanted "Limburgish" being protected, but <strong>preserved with its parish variants</strong>. I
don't know the actual situation in the Netherlands,
but in Belgium the
language is in decline with the younger generation.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Some issues here:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- the definition of the language area corresponds for
80 percent with the territory of the 2 provinces. However the provincial
government considers also the Kleverlandsh of the Venlo area in the North as protected
Limburgish. (<strong>unclear policy</strong>
with Limburgish as territorial <strong>area</strong>
- versus - Limburgish as language <strong>area</strong>
between the "Ich maak" isoglosses)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- Parish <strong>variants
are strongly different</strong> since we are here in a spread
variance of the transition between Low-German and Middle-German. So it is not
obvious to define what should be the standard form.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- Belgian Limburg had to do significant efforts for learning
ABN (standard Dutch) in the 1960's. I guess they all will hate doing a similar
indoctrination forcing for imposing some form of "standard
Limburgish".</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">- <strong>Immigrants</strong>
from other areas continue speaking Dutch, and do no effort for learning their
Parish Limburgish.</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;">It may help to compare situations.</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;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Roger</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
----------<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">From: R. F. Hahn <</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="IT"><a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="EN-US">sassisch@yahoo.com</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">> <br>
Subject: Language varieties<br>
<br>
Thanks, as always, dear Roger.<br>
<br>
I don’t think Faroese has ever been </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">not </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">considered a language in its own right.
Or has it? Certainly its spoken forms are incomprehensible to Danes without
extensive exposure to it. Surely Icelanders have an easier time with it. I can
read it fairly well, also Icelandic, but I understand very, very little of it when
I hear it.<br>
<br>
I guess Luxembourgish and Limburgish would be officially Rhenish German
dialects now had they not found themselves outside German territory. I
understand both of them very well.<br>
<br>
And there is Low Saxon, officially considered a collection of dialect</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Dutch and
German</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> groups, depending on which side of the border they fell. Officially it is now a
regional language, but many people cannot yet wrap their minds around that
concept, and they continue treating it lexically, grammatically and
orthographically dependent on Dutch and German respectively. The old bird has
been caged for too long to take advantage of the open cage door, seems to have
forgotten how to fly.<br>
<br>
Pennsylvania German, on the other hand, seems to enjoy its position as an
American language, albeit with some acknowledgement to the old country. Religious
segregation probably plays a role in this, as well as the fact that local organizations
and institutions have been promoting the language as worth treasuring.<br>
<br>
Low Saxon in America
had similar beginnings, even being the language of early patriotic American
literature, so much so that people like Claus Groth considered it exemplary.
Its early speakers seem to have appreciated their liberation from the German-speaking
shadow. Some such communities remain in the Midwest,
but the language is fading away in this country too, apparently even in Mennonite
communities.<br><br>What about some people's attempts to have Zealandic (Zeeuws) officially recognized, with or without West Flemish?<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Reinhard/Ron<br>
Seattle, USA</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
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