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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 - 04 August 2010 - Volume 06</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center"><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 style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: <span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Mark Dreyer</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:mrdreyer@lantic.net">mrdreyer@lantic.net</a>></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L
"Language politics" 2010.08.04 (02) [EN]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Dear David:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: LL-L "Language
politics"</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">You speak of Welsh, &
the support it enjoys from the State. I do not doubt that you are correct. Many
other sources report the same, that the Administration has made many a cosy
niche for those fluent in Welsh & bilingual in Welsh & English.
However, all the World over, Official patronage is a fickle gift. The test of
the survival or merit of a language is whether it will endure when that support
is removed. It seems to me that in the case of Welsh it will. It seems to me
that in the case of Welsh it doesn't actually need that support. It is a crutch
indeed, but a crutch to an Administration dependant on of the support of Welsh
Patriots. This is not a relationship healthy to either party. It certainly was
true of Afrikaans. Nowadays, without it, only those committed to the use of
Afrikaans will use it, & they speak it with intent. <strong>That </strong>is what you want for a language.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Today I accosted a total
stranger buying a newspaper on the street, asking him suddenly if he thought
'Die Taal' would be spoken in the future. He laughed spontaneously &
easily, & said, "Maar natuurlik!" (but naturally!) & offered
to move on. Then I detained him with one more question, whether he was
educating his children in Afrikaans. Suddenly serious, he said. "Ja, Swaar, al kos
dit hoe duur. Ons is mos Afrikaans. Maar jy moet my asseblif verskoon. Die tyd
is verstreke en ek stel nie so seer belang in taalkwessies nie. Gaan goed en tot siens." (Yes, Mate, however
much it costs. We are after all Afrikaans. But you must please excuse me. Time
is limited & I am not all that interested in language issues. Go well &
goodbye.) or words more or less to that effect. Now it is in the mouths &
hearts of such as these, that 'are not all that interested in language issues'
that a tongue flourishes or dies. It is not legislation or the Constitution
that nurtures a language, but the simple preferences of those that don't give a
damn. Go & cultivate them.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>(BTW I know
a bit more about Afrikaans & since you opened the subject I feel free to
get political, but the British Concentration Camps have bugger all to do with
Afrikaans or its current usage, & if it must be brought up, please leave it
to <strong>me</strong>.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Further,
you may think its true to say that earlier the Boers had cruelly hunted out the
native San (bushmen) and others from the land themselves, you are being neither
completely just nor truly objective. The British started in on this
sub-continent from 1795, & if they enforced any reversal of such a policy
between then & 1965 I have yet the hear or read hair or hide of it. On the
contrary, an article in the Standing Orders of the BSAP - the British South
Africa Police - never retracted, directed that all Bushmen were to be shot on
sight. It was never retracted because the Bushmen ran out before conscience
awoke.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Yes
their were wars & horrors, & My People were not alone the perpetrators
or the victims. Sarel Cilliers' family, lay preacher for the Great Trek, joined
it because among other reasons the land they had been renting from Bushmen (it
can be a profitable arrangement; game population increases in well-managed
pastures) had been siezed by Hottentots, the Bushmen murdered & they, the
tenants, driven off. Trichards joined the Trek notwithstanding the fact that
they had already left the Eastern
Province - it had become
an economic wasteland under the British malAdministration - & were renting
land & doing well across the border, among the Xhosa.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>The 'racial
lines' & the 'iron fist' under which you accredit us with ruling S Africa
several decades, were laid down by the Constitution imposed on us as a 'parting
gift' by the British (Hong-Kong got the same), most notably in the Selbourne
appendix to the South Africa Act of 1910, & reams of 'Crown Commissions'
building on the Glen Grey Act of the British Cape Colony well prior to &
some time after 1910. (You want me to quote sources? I am willing.)</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>BTW I
fear the sub-text of your parting shot is that we deserve what we got because
of what we did. I do not agree. I do not accept that any injustice justifies a
subsequent injustice, not merely on my account but also on yours. It may be I
am being unjust to you. If so I apologise, but you must pull me up on it.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Yours sincerely,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Mark Dreyer</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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