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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=====================================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 13 May 2010 - Volume 05<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
</span><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a>
- <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/" target="_blank">http://lowlands-l.net/</a><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From:
<span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Helge Tietz</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:helgetietz@yahoo.com">helgetietz@yahoo.com</a>></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject:
<span class="gi">Language politics</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I just read the following in
the German magazin Der Spiegel:<br>
<br>
.... sagte Tillich und forderte als Alternative..........."inhaltliche
Ziele" wie "die Schulabbrecherquote verringern oder flächendeckende
Sprachtests vor der Einschulung einführen<br>
<br>
meaning in English:<br>
<br>
Mr. Tillich (Prime Minister of the East German federal sate of Saxony, however,
I prefer the term "Upper Saxony" here in order to avoid confusion
with the Saxons and Low Saxon because the Upper Saxons speak a middle German
dialect which has nothing to do with Low Saxon) has demanded as an alternative.......content
relevant aims such as reducing the number of students leaving school without a
degree or general language tests for children before they start school". <br>
<br>
If the latter would become state policy it would clearly mean that children
when aged 6 are expected to speak fluent and faultless High-German which
effectively would also mean the final nail in the casket of the recognized
minority and regional languages Frisian, Low Saxon and Sorbian and probably
also of East Limburgian, Allemannic, Bavarian etc. The irony here is that
Tillich himself is Sorbian and speaks Sorbian as a native speaker and probably
had failed the language test he now demands when he was six years old. It also
means that I do not need to consider to ever send my little boy to a German school
because he will be raised in Dutch and Low Saxon (with perhaps some Danish) so
he will clearly fail any language test if it comes to that in Germany. Fair
enough, I am anyway not planning to have my little boy educated in the German
school system, so if they think that a linguistic absolutely uniform country is
a great educational advantage, please go ahead. However, I cannot see
multilingual Luxembourg, Switzerland or Catalonia
doing worse than Germany
when it comes to education, rather the other way around...<br>
<br>
Groeten,<br>
Helge</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=========================================================<br>
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