<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===============================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 04 January 2010 - Volume 02<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com">lowlands.list@gmail.com</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(200, 137, 0);">Paul Finlow-Bates</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</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 promotion" 2010.01.03 (02) [EN]<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
I've noticed that in North Wales at least, the big stores such as
Tesco have most signs in English and Welsh. Interestingly, the Welsh
is usually written below the English, but in a much bigger font - so if
you can read Welsh, you can make out the words from about twice the
distance! On the roads, the warning signs have Welsh first, or if it's
written on the road itself, you come to the Welsh first. If English
speakers learn nothing else, we soon learn that ARAF means SLOW! I
actually picked up a lot more, but mainly just as word-recognition as I
only have a hazy idea of how to pronounce the words.</div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Paul</div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Derby</div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">England</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;">----------</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: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">M.-L. Lessing</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de">marless@gmx.de</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 promotion" 2010.01.03 (04) [EN]</span><br><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,serif;"><font size="4">Dear Luc, is there nothing like that in
Brussels otherwise than to Epiphany? Or in smaller churches? Church services in
Platt are quite popular here in northern Germany. <font size="4">As always the language must not replace quality.
</font>Good Platt preachers seem to be sought after; a friend of mine has just
gained the qualification to preach as a lay and is a fluent Platt speaker, and
she is all but bombarded with offers to preach in the various country
parishs here. It seems a Platt service easily fills a small country church.
However I don't know whether such a stately church as that in the video could be
filled in a town like, say, Hamburg. I confess I'm not a good church goer, I'm a
longsleeper :-)Â </font></div>
<div style="font-family: times new roman,serif;">Â </div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="font-family: times new roman,serif;">Marlou</span><br><br></font></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">From: Hellinckx Luc <span><<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com" target="_blank">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span></span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Subject: <span></span>LL-L "Language promotion"</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Beste Liëglanners,</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Another way to revive interest
in a minority language could happen by way of reading mass in vernacular. For
the sixth time already, this happened today in Brussels:</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.brusselnieuws.be/artikels/stadsleven/mis-in-brussels-dialect-doet-kerk-vollopen" target="_blank">http://www.brusselnieuws.be/artikels/stadsleven/mis-in-brussels-dialect-doet-kerk-vollopen</a><br>
<br><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Religion going back to its
roots? ;=)</span><br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><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: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">M.-L. Lessing</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de">marless@gmx.de</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: </span><span class="gI"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (04) [EN]</span><br><br></span><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Thanks for the fun! True, Heiko, there
is a long way to go -- a way that probably never will be gone by the few, tame
Plattspeakers... or will it? The Welsh seem to take themselves and their
language seriously, while many of the Plattdüütschen still think theirs is
just the buffo version of a language, or something extra, not
necessary, and therefore they should not be a nuisance... If we knew how
this could be changed...</font></div>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: Heiko Evermann <span><<a href="mailto:heiko.evermann@gmx.de" target="_blank">heiko.evermann@gmx.de</a>></span><br>
Subject: LL-L "Language
promotion" 2010.01.03 (02) [EN]<br><br>Hi Marlou,<br></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br>> Wow!
The Welsh seem to have been quite militant. I don't think you will see<br>>
such resolution, even violence among Plattspeakers...<br></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Indeed. They even write their
out-of-office autoreplies in welsh...<br>Have a look at <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7702913.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7702913.stm</a><br>"E-mail error ends up on road
sign"<br></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 <</span><a rel="nofollow" style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: </span>Language promotion<br><br>Hi, Marlou!<br><br>You wrote:<br><br><div style="margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Welsh seem to take themselves and their
language seriously, while many of the Plattdüütschen still think theirs is
just the buffo version of a language, or something extra, not
necessary, and therefore they should not be a nuisance... If we knew how
this could be changed...</font><br></div><br><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I have a type of hypothesis about this. It doesn't really take a genius to figure it out if one is willing and able to consider history and in the process deal with the odd, usually unnamed sacred cow.</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 you probably know, the Saxon ancestors were extremely independent and were good at defending their independence, even keeping out the Romans which was no mean feat. They absolutely abhorred the idea of a monarchy and even more that of an empire, and for decades they fought tooth and nail against the introduction of Christianity. It is clear that even after the Franks under Charlemagne finally baptized them by means of the sword (beginning with a mass beheading) and incorporated Saxony into the Holy Roman Empire the Saxons remained unwilling Christians and grudging imperial subjects, as did the westernmost Slavs that suffered a similar fate.</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 believe that this reluctance and this resentment against the empire and the all powerful Roman Catholic church that represented it have been fading away only very slowly. The Saxons acquired a measure of quasi-independence by creating and running their medieval commercial empire, the Hanseatic League, and thereby amassing independent and hitherto unequaled wealth as well as trade colonies and thus power abroad. They missed that opportunity by not separating themselves as an independent country. When the Low Frankish people later surpassed the Saxons in overseas trade they did take advantage of this opportunity by becoming the Netherlands, the area of today's Netherlands, Belgium and French Flanders. Had they not done so they might today be a part of Germany.</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 go as far as hypothesizing that the success of the Christian Reformation in what used to be (the real) Saxony - thus in Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands - is at least in part due to remaining feelings of ethnic and subliminally national independence as well as remaining resentment regarding the Roman Catholic church in whose name the Saxons had been beaten down not too long before that. However, following the eventual collapse of the Hanseatic League and thus of the North's economic clout, German education, institutions, power and language encroached in the North, as did the Dutch equivalents in Saxon-speaking parts of the Netherlands. The descendant of the Saxon language came to be pushed aside and led a precarious existence mostly in rural and low-class communities, and the equivalent names of "Low Saxon" shifted more and more to the equivalent names of "Low German" on the German side of the border. Another blow to the language was when, beginning in earnest in the 18th century, use of the language came to be prohibited in certain contexts, especially in schools.</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;">Northern resistance and independence had been sufficiently worn down by 1871, when Germany as we now know it came into existence as a nation state. However, as most of us know that grew up in Germany, there remains a sense of "Northern pride," an often romanticized feeling of being different from the rest of Germany. For many, the Low Saxon ("Platt") language is the ultimate, albeit fading, expression and symbol of this. But the descendants of Saxons in Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands have been made into German and Netherlandic nationals, and a sense of their own, separate ethnicity has all but faded away. Add to this the emotional repercussions of required loyalty to the emperor in WW I and to the Nazi government in WW II on the German side, and any talk of separate ethnicity now has a distinctively unpatriotic, disloyal and even rebellious, secessionist ring to most. (This is where one of the main sacred cows lies and chews her dinner over and over.) I believe that this is where this type of ambivalence comes from, the supposedly "lame" responses to organizing anything that seems to go too radically in the direction of "independence" (such as "independent language" and "independent TV station"), even talk about the Old Saxons.</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;">Wales, on the other hand, has always remained a country in its own right, not a vaguely defined region like that of the Low-Saxon-speaking area. I don't think anyone in their right mind has ever doubted that Welsh is the unique language of Wales and the Welsh. Even English-speaking Welsh people embrace that and many of them learn Welsh as a second language. So what you have here is a strong sense of distinct ethnicity, culture, language and nationhood. When London was not supportive of Welsh language needs, it was a matter of ethnic and national rights, not a matter of regional and minority rights. It is much easier to stand up under such circumstances.</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;">In my opinion, the case of Low Saxon is more akin to that of Scots in Scotland and Northumbrian in Northern England. Both Scots and Northumbrian are descendants of Old Northumbrian. Scots has been traditionally considered the poor, uneducated relative of Scottish English. Northumbrian happens to be spoken in England and there has been traditionally considered a dialect group of English, even though linguistically it is arguably connected with Scots on the other side of the border. I am told that even many Northumbrian speakers are not fond of making this connection, in part because they have to be conditioned to be loyal to England.</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;">Anyway, some of the above may be worth considering when you wonder what you are up against and why you are up against it.</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,</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;"><br>
•
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