<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===============================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 07 January 2010 - Volume 04<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(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"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (02) [EN]</span><br>
<br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="4">Hello Ron,</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="4">your detailed and interesting explanation still has a mark in
my email inbox, but I didn't have the time to answer appropriately. It is very
plausible that the uncompromising Welsh spirit results from their having been
a country and people in their own right, even somewhat isolated. As to
northern Germany, you are right that today people put more stress on "Germany"
than on "northern". Even I don't feel like a separatist or anything like it.
Separatism in Germany, if at all, is mostly attributed to Bavarians :-) But
I don't feel being ethnically different from them or, say, the people on the
upper Rhine. In former times there were all these tribes, but where would we
come...?</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="4">Moreover, today nobody is so very much isolated. Life mixes
people up much more, forcing them to follow work and move, resulting in
intermarriage and all sorts of fraternisation, even with Bavarians. Any ethnic
difference _inside_ Germany has long faded into local colour. It would be
hopeless to base a cultural issue -- such as the preservation of a language --
on this ground. In fact, reading your post I found myself musing over the
"feeling of ethnical difference" and whether I ever felt it. I have travelled
very little, but the world mixes in our cities. Knowing so many people so
different and at the same time so much alike and so much like me and watching
our cultures mix makes me lose the sense of difference. Maybe I see it all too
much on a personal level, and maybe I am confusing nation, culture and
ethnicity. But I feel the overlap of cultures is growing, which
for the cultures may be not so good, while on a personal level it is just
fine.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="4">Now, how can we preserve a language and culture under
such circumstances? Neither going separatist nor melting up in globalized
indifference? It must be a narrow path, and time is working against us. It
cannot be on an ethnical basis, everybody must be free to join or adopt a
culture -- or parts of it. Something new will necessarily result. And
a culture must be attractive to survive. Welsh seems to be attractive. What
can Low German do? I would love to know.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="4">Hartlich</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="4">Marlou</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: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Language
promotion<br><br>Hi, Marlou!<br><br>You wrote:<br><br></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 80px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font 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><div style="margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>Anyway, some of the above may
be worth considering when you wonder what you are up against and why you are
up against it.<br><br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br>Seattle, USA<br></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><br><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><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" 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: Language
promotion</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;">Thanks for your response, Marlou. </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 the meantime you may have read my addendum.</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;">The "complaint" I had heard from you and Marcus had been that North Germans tend to be on the "lame" side when it comes to getting things done in the regional language area. So what I have been trying to accomplish is to illustrate with the help of examples the spectrum of "separateness" and "group consciousness" in relation to degrees of "language loyalty" and "language activism." </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 don't mean to pass judgment or to advocate some sort of secessionist action. I am simply trying to explain what I see as deciding, correlative factors. Things are as they are for whatever reasons. The questions as I see them are as follows:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<ol style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><li>Under the given circumstances, can the language be saved from extinction?</li><ol><li>Can the language be saved within its indigenous region?</li><li>Can the language be saved outside its indigenous region elsewhere in Germany and the Netherlands?</li>
<li>Can the language be saved overseas (e.g. in the US Midwest where regional dialects have been developed)?<br></li></ol><li>If the language can indeed be saved from extinction, does the majority of speakers endorse such action?</li>
<li>If the majority of speakers does endorse such action, which of the necessary, available and feasible methods or combination of methods would seem most comfortable and attractive to the speakers?</li></ol><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">For one thing, it seems to me that the gulf between traditionalists and innovators needs to be bridged, where there is room for both camps. This would indeed require some sort of medium that caters to both camps and to shades in between.</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;">Most importantly and basically, unification is needed in which dialect diversity is valued while bringing together speakers of different dialects. You can simply have no cultural and linguistic survival without some sense of community and "otherness." </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 where the hairy problem of orthography comes in. The majority of speakers wouldn't be able to tell a phoneme and a grapheme from their own backsides. They try to write "as it sounds," i.e. "phonetically," and thereby exacerbating problems of mutual comprehensibilty or creating such problems in writing where there are none or just minor ones in speech comprehension. People would have to be convinced that "a unified writing </span><b style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">system</b><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">" is not the same as a written standard dialect, that everyone can write their dialect but use the same orthographic conventions to do so. This would go a long way in leveling the field in literary areas. In conjunction with this, more exposure to spoken dialects would help people to become acquainted with dialectical features. All this would go a long way in creating a type of "languagehood," a sense of family, or common ownership of the language as a whole, not just of a dialect or dialect group as it is common at the moment.</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 a Catalan speaker living in Madrid, Bilbao or Málaga, i.e. in a non-Catalan-speaking part of Spain, is more likely to maintain their Catalan (such as when speaking with other Catalans, telephoning family, etc.) than is a Low Saxon speaker that lives in Frankfurt, Munich or Erfurt, for example. Why do I think so? Part of it is based on my own observations, and I am aware that the average Catalan is quite fond and proud of their heritage and "otherness," does not perceive its use as something outdated, embarrassing or disloyal. </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;">Just more to ponder.</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>
•
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