<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 27 September 2009 - Volume 02<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===========================================<br></div><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="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Hellinckx Luc</span> <span class="go"><<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="gI">LL-L "Language politics"<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" id=":1ar" class="ii gt">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><div>Beste Ron,</div><div><br></div><div><span style="line-height: normal;">You wrote:</span></div></span><div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><i>All</i> languages, like <i>all</i> cultures, are valuable and can do what they are supposed to do, as long as they are given the freedom and respect to do so.<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="line-height: normal;"></span></span>Agree...but...what are languages and cultures under the jurisdiction of a higher entity then "supposed to do" exactly?</div>
<div><span style="line-height: 18px;"><div><br></div><div>Does freedom include the freedom to break away unilaterally from a central government?</div><div><br></div><div>If
so, let me propose a deal: let Sachsenland go its own way and allow
Niederfrankenland to enter the German union. Berlin and Brussels remain
the political capitals, and München and Amsterdam get a new status.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederfr%C3%A4nkisch" target="_blank">http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederfränkisch</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>Kind greetings,</div><div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium</div></font></span></div></div></div></div><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" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: Language politics</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, </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 suppose you're trying to tease me here ...</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;">By "supposed to do" I meant "function as languages and cultures", not "take political action" or "secede" or anything like that. The latter types of things are what some speakers might consider doing. Languages and cultures can't do that.</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;">When I said "</span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">All</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> languages, like </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">all</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> cultures, are valuable and can do what they are supposed to do, as long as they are given the freedom and respect to do so," I was addressing the types of mindset in which some languages and cultures are considered "better" and "more developed" than others. My argument is that languages and cultures will, given the social and political freedom to do so, adapt to changing circumstances in order to do what they are meant (= supposed) to do as languages and cultures. </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;">As for languages specifically, their vocabulary will adapt and grow and their grammatical structures might change to accommodate it's speakers' changing "reality", such as in technology and environment, sociopolitical order, and spirituality and philosophy. Also, its structure might change on account of substantial foreign influence (very often because it is adopted by large numbers of speakers of another language, such as in the case of Low Saxon and German on West Slavic substrata). Such changes come about naturally over time, sometimes faster than at other times, depending on need, urgency and levels of restriction or opposition. Sometimes this happens not so "naturally" but is pushed along by conscious, concerted efforts (some would say "interference"). </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;">A remarkable example of this is the reinstatement of Hebrew as an everyday language. Contrary to popular belief, Hebrew was never "dead," was not only used for liturgy. It was and is an international lingua franca of Jewish learning (side by side with Judeo-Aramaic). It was always used in publishing new literature, and learned people have always been able to converse in it in the absence of a common Diaspora language. But its area of functionality had come to be restricted to religion, philosophy and the areas of life directly based on these (which to very devout people was pretty much all their was, anyway). It was in the wake of European Jewish emancipation in conjunction with the development of Zionism in the 19th century that people began advocating the reassertion of Hebrew as a language to be used in all walks of life. The Belarusian Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman) tends to be given all the credit, but there were others, modern authors using Hebrew, drawing new expressions from Biblical and Medieval Hebrew texts. By the time European Jews began to settle in Palestine they were able to speak Hebrew with each other, and the language took it from there. It is now a fully functioning language on any subject, has millions of native speakers, and there is an unmistakable Hebrew accent when native speakers use other languages. The resulting language is in some regards (especially phonologically) a far cry from the ancestral language, but it is by no means a newly created language.</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;">This is not all that different from the case of Sanskrit and Pali, two Indo-Aryan languages that tend to be regarded as being languages of Hindu and Buddhist learning and liturgy (Sanskrit of both Hinduism and Buddhism). Both of them are in fact spoken by sizable populations in South and Southeast Asia, most of them in monasteries and other types of religious institutions. In India there are now efforts to use Sanskrit as a first language in a few villages. This is similar to the history of Latin as an international lingua franca in Roman Catholic institutions and, in the Middle Ages, among scholars. (Imagine a village in, say, Spain or Italy deciding to switch to Latin from Spanish or Italian.)</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;">What these cases have in common is a religious base. Without it it such "resurrection" may be difficult, because the "spiritual" or rather emotional foundation is missing among the (potential) speakers. An alternative might be strong nationalistic consciousness and fervor (which sounds a bit scary). But in many cases ethnic consciousness has been "sucked out of" minorities, such as speakers of Low Saxon, Occitan speakers of Southern France, and Slavic speakers of Northern Greece, and many have been conditioned into despising their own languages.</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;">My basic argument is that, given all the "right" circumstances, a language </span><b style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">can</b><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> rise to the challenge of becoming fully functioning. One of the most common obstacles is nay-saying, the old "can't be done" and "let's not mess with it" attitude.</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, and best wishes for Yom Kippur wherever it applies.</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;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Seattle, USA</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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