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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=====================================================<br>
<b>L O W L A N D S - L - 27 June 2010 - Volume 05<br>
</b><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">lowlands.list@gmail.com</span></a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">http://lowlands-l.net/</span></a><br>
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=====================================================</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: "Elsie Zinsser" <<a href="mailto:ezinsser@mweb.co.za">ezinsser@mweb.co.za</a>></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: LL-L "Language
proficiency" 2010.06.26 (02) [EN]</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Hi everyone,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><br></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Vlad, a few
short tales on the subject:</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">-In 1997, on a flight from Amsterdam back to SA, I
sat next to two men whose German discussions I followed quietly all the way.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">At some stage, I needed to
leave my window seat to go to the bathroom and spoke to them in German but the
one said to the other (in the same language), ‘She thinks we’re speaking
German...” I am still flabbergasted and can only guess they were speaking Low
Saxon/Plaut.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">-O</span>ne of my sister’s daughters is in Rhode Island. She was recently surprised
that her four-year old grandson spoke fluent American with his daddy and fluent
Afrikaans with my niece, and on the same topic. He only started speaking
fluently a year or so ago and interestingly knows that he could converse in
Afrikaans with his mommy, ouma and oupa on the phone, and his aunt in San Diego.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">-My friend over the road has
a three-year old granddaughter who knows exactly that her daddy and his
extended family speak Afrikaans and her mommy and her extended family speak
Sotho.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Cheerio,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Elsie Zinsser</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">----------</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: <span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(0, 148, 134);">Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc.</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</a>></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L
"Language proficiency" 2010.06.25 (01) [AF-EN]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">> From: Obiter Dictum
<<a href="mailto:obiterdictum@mail.ru">obiterdictum@mail.ru</a>></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">> Subject: Language
Proficiency</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">> Roger Thijs wrote on
2006.07.19:<br>
> “I don't know whether it is beginning senility, but I often cannot
remember in what language a conversation has been held or what the original
language of a program was.”</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Today I was in Wervik and
Wervicq-Sud. The first is in Belgium,
West-Flanders, the second is in France, Dept du Nord. They are separated by the
river Leie/Lys and a little bridge of 50 m long.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Similar to what one sees in
Comines-France and Comines-Komen,-Belgium,
2.5 miles to the South, France is death on a Sunday evening, while Belgium is very
much alive, at least for the bars and little restaurants.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I had some fries with a
crisly at the Belgian side of the bridge in Wervik this evening, and half of
the people queuing for fries came from over the bridge, out of Wervicq in France.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">The spoken languages used by
the staff of the "frituur":</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- 1 - West-Flemisch (very
loudly, "joat", "joat", ..)</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- 2 - French</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">The written languages inside
the frituur</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- Dutch</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- just a few translations
into French.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Here language switching is
standard, and since they do not always remember who ordered what, mistakes are
made and corrected. But that is an OR-OR behavior: OR West-Flemisch OR
Standard-French, no creolized intermediate language.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">What I was referring to in
2006 were French-Dutch interlaying situations.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Example: at the "De
Post - La Poste" (headquarters of "Belgian Mail") all staff
speaks their own language but understands the other's language. This gives a
mix.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">When I do an assignment
there I preferably adjust to the language of my contact (unless the contact
asks me for sticking to my own language, for him/her to learn a bit more of
Duitch).</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">So I'm mixing two rules of
behaviour, and depending on developped relations the switching is uncounscously
automatical. After facts I do often not remember what rules I followed nor what
language I spoke.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Uncounsious switching has
nothing to do with language proficiency or quality. Nor my Dutch nor my French
is perfect (but none of the two is a creolized mixture).</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">My spoken languages:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- Limburgish, Lonenlands
from Vliermaal. The language of my birth village of Vliermaal
and my father's language. Errors I make: incidentally some Limburgish from
Schalkhoven, my mother's language. In Vliermaal dogs "blaffen", in
Schalkhoven, one mile to the East, dogs "beilen".</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- Limburgish, Tongerrlands
from Tongeren, the language of the town where I did middle school. However for
some reason others do not identify me speaking "downtown Tongerlands"
but rather "Tongerlands of the suburb Nerem". I don't know enough
about Nerem for explaining this.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- Belgian Dutch, not
completely free from Limburgish intonation, and socially colored with quite
some Brabantish idioms (I lived for a long time in Antwerp-Mortsel, and now
East of Brussels. Speaking too correct is considered snobbish in Brabant.)</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- Standard Dutch when I talk
to Dutchmen, but they easily recognize me coming from Belgium.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- Belgian French, some say
they recognize a Liège intonation, but I cannot explain this.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- German "with
hairs"</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- English "with
hairs".</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I can maintain a consistent
syntax within each of these variants, but I may switch oncounsciously (this is
not mixing languages into a creole, but real switching).</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">How language selection can
be triggerred by external factors:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">In the eightires my mother
was taken into hospital in Antwerp
after she got a strole.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">She spoke Limburgish with me
but curiously French with the Antwerp
hospital staff.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">40 years earlier she had
been working in the Saint-Joseph hospital in Liège, where French is the
language.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Regards,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Roger</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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