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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-family: Arial;">===============================================<br>
<b>L O W L A N D S - L - 18 March 2010 - Volume 12</b><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
<a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="gd"><span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jmtait</span></span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk">jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.18 (05)
[EN]</span><br>
<br>
Hmmh! I see my italics didn't work, so my posts are even more incoherent than
usual!<br style="">
<br style="">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">M-L
Lessing wrote:<br>
<br>
<span style="color: blue;">From: M.-L. Lessing <<mailto:<a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de" target="_blank">marless@gmx.de</a>><a href="mailto:marless@gmx.de" target="_blank">marless@gmx.de</a>></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: blue;"><br>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.17 (01) [EN]<br>
<br>
Dear John,<br>
Â</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: blue;">it is painful to read about the ignorance and stupidity of most
Shetland people, but what is that to you?! If these people are so lost as to
cut their own tongue out of their mouthes, why in the world should *you* take
your website offline?! It is painful to see the state of the language, but it
is another pain to see how these fools seem to hurt you. There is no reason
they should! They scarcely deserve your pity. To me a language lives in itself,
even without an audience. If you love it, that's enough. It lives in you. And
in nature, which has heard the sounds of this language for ages. It understands
you, it answers in your tongue. So you speak it. And if there be just four or
five others on the Shetland islands that think
alike, why not keep your website up for them? And if there aren't, who cares? I
for one honour your stand, and I am sure so do all LL-L members. We have a
saying in german, "Was schert es die Eiche, wenn sich die Sau an ihr
scheuert", that is "The oak doesn't care if the pig scrapes itself
against it." (Alternative form: "Was schert es den Mond, wenn die
Hunde ihn anbellen", meaning "The moon doesn't bother if the dogs
bark at it.") You are the oak. Hey, didn't you know that? You are the oak,
not the pig. Anything else is ridiculous. These people matter not a whit. I
would ignore their comments by hundreds quite easily, and if they forced them
on me that would make me ever so much more stubborn, and relishing it. John,
you *are* not alone. With a beautiful language nobody is ever alone. And then
there are so many people in the world who back your issue. Seeing your fight
makes me even more waterproof against all adversities about *my* language.Â
That's thanks to you.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
Thanks, but I actually don't think it's like that. Shetland people are no more
stupid or ignorant than any other group of a similar size. It's just that
language issues have never been part of any kind of education at any level, and
all the pressures of mainstream society - of all political hues - are in the
opposite direction. Minority language issues have never been addressed at any
level of political correctness, or at any era of history, pre-modern, modern or
postmodern, so nobody is aware of them.<br>
<br>
Witness the flak that people who do take their languages seriously get. The
Welsh come in for the most stick in the UK, widely regarded as being
congenitally rude for speaking their own language. There is a widely
promulgated story that the Welsh and Gaels speak only English to each other
unless an English speaker comes into the pub, or whatever, at which point they
switch to Welsh or Gaelic just to be rude.<br>
<br>
There are people who consider that, if there is an English speaker in the room
- say in a pub - then everyone in that room should speak English to each other.
I once read on Youtube an irate comment - of the 'four letter words in
capitals' variety - by someone whose family had moved out of Wales because
'the Welsh spoke welsh to each other when my Grandmother was within earshot.'
So they moved to Spain...!<br>
<br>
I do, however, agree that the Shetland intelligentsia are ignorant - but
perhaps that is where the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' comes from.<br>
<br>
The real problem here, I think, is that I lie outside the pericope of Shetland
society, and trends which were alive some years ago, and which I latched on to,
have now been completely superseded by more mainstream attitudes. The thing
that concerns me is not so much the general situation as the fact that those
who do care, and are in fact expending a considerable amount of effort, are in
my opinion barking up the wrong tree without a paddle (although perhaps not
mixing metaphors!) I think they imagine that because their native speech is a
'dialect' and not a 'language' they can do something about it without learning
anything from situations involving 'language'.<br>
<br>
The website thing isn't a big deal for me - it's ages since I took it down, and
I've been relieved that I did ever since. My present binge of grouching and
moaning is just a momentary lapse!<br>
<br>
Also, I believe that any language which doesn't have a certain proportion of
speakers within a community is moribund. One Welsh study put the figure at
around 70% - I don't know how they arrived at it, but basically when a language
ceases to be the default language within a community I believe it is moribund.<br>
<br>
John M Tait. </span></p>
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