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L O W L A N D S - L - 14 December 2011 - Volume 02<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font> </font></p>From: <span>David Pinto <<a href="mailto:david_e_pinto@yahoo.ca">david_e_pinto@yahoo.ca</a>>;</span><span></span>
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Subject: LL-L 'Language maintenance' 2007.01.11 (03) [E/LS]<span></span>
</div><br><div>Ron,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>You could have mentioned, but did not, Yiddish</div>
<div> </div>
<div> David</div><br>--- Received: <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1323896590_0">Thursday, January 11, 2007, 4:38 PM</span><br><br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid;PADDING-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px">
<div> L O W L A N D S - L - <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1323896590_1">11 January 2007</span> - Volume 04<br><br>=========================================================================<br><br><font color="black"><span style="COLOR:black;FONT-SIZE:10pt">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span id="lw_1323896590_2" class="yshortcuts">sassisch@yahoo.com</span></a>><br>
Subject: Language maintenance<br><br>Thanks, Arend and Jonny. <br><br>Folks,
what these two have been discussing is basically the ambivalence
between wanting minority languages (in this case Low Saxon) to survive
and on the other hand feeling uncomfortable with the creation of
neologisms that are necessary if these languages be used in <span style="FONT-STYLE:italic">all</span>
spheres of life. The argument, especially Jonny's, is that Low Saxon
simply isn't used in certain
spheres of life, that when you talk about science and technology, for
instance, you use German or Dutch, depending on on which side of the
border you happen to be living. <br><br>While I certainly appreciate the
ambivalence and emotional resistance, I would at least like to try to
play the devil's advocate, a role that comes easily especially in this
case.<br><br>The facts are:<br></span></font></div>
<div>
<ul><li>For a language to have long-term survival chances it must be
self-contained, independent and "complete" (which is not the same as
"isolated" and "pure").</li><ul><li>A language that is limited to certain spheres is likely to disappear
sooner or later. It will be wiped out by the power language(s), if it
doesn't wither on the vine all by itself due to self-imposed isolation
and stunting. </li><li>A language that is used only among older people within limited contexts has the least survival chances.</li><li>A language whose speakers are emotionally committed to its survival will overcome such ambivalence.<br>
</li></ul></ul></div>Let's look at a few cases.<br><br>Roger
recently visited the Faeroe Islands and mentioned that it was close to a
miracle that Faeroese survived after centuries of Danish rule. We might
as well extend this to Iceland and Greenland. Faeroese, Icelandic and
Greenlandic can be used in all spheres of life, even though at least
higher education used to be almost exclusively in Danish. This survival
by way of adaptation is obviously due to the speakers <span style="FONT-STYLE:italic">wanting </span>them
to be comparable to Danish and as lasting and powerful as Danish. While
there may be discussions and even quarrels about the methodology and
the finer points of terminology creation and stylistic developments, the
general consensus has been that such expansion was necessary. <br><br>Welsh
began to seriously reassert itself in the
latter part of the 20th century. It too had to play quite a bit of
catch-up. While many people spoke the language fluently they had
difficulties discussing certain topics, namely those they were used to
discuss in English. The Welsh media, bolstered by public demand,
expanded the range of programming topics, including technical contents,
and as a result younger people's terminological inventories expanded and
then affected those of older speakers. <br><br>When Norman power had
declined in Britain, everyone who wanted to be someone had adopted
Norman French, either completely or reserved for for certain subject
areas, namely those specialized areas that had been developed and taught
in French under Norman rule. It was only the "uneducated" masses,
especially rural communities, that had continued use of English; they
had little or no French and lacked the book learning to discuss certain
subjects. English was a threatened language in its
home country then. It was mostly thanks to activists and other
committed people (interestingly lead by many Cornishmen) that English
reemerged as a national language. Yes, it had taken on glaring French
traits, but the thing is that it survived after a long period of
dormancy in the shadow of French. <br><br>A major vehicle of the
foundation of Modern Israel was the revival of Hebrew as a religiously
rooted lingua franca, thus as an ethno-spiritual symbol of the <span style="FONT-STYLE:italic">aliyah</span>, the much awaited and heralded return gathering from the <span style="FONT-STYLE:italic">galuth</span>,
the diaspora. Before that it hadn't been an everyday spoken language
for at least two millenia. The revival required major lexical expansion
(among many other things), and in the wake of European-dominated
adaptation its phonology underwent extreme changes, developed into a far
cry from Semitic phonology. However, the endeavor was a
success. Why? Because people <span style="FONT-STYLE:italic">wanted</span>
it to be a success. This is being emulated in the Cornish language
movement, and time will tell if this, too, will be a success.<br><br>Things are as simple as this:<br></blockquote>
<ul><li>There are two things to choose from:</li><ol><li>to resist adaptation and expansion</li><li>to embrace or at least accept adaptation and expansion</li></ol><li>These choices require acceptance of the consequenses:</li>
<ol><li>language death</li><li>a chance of language language survival</li></ol></ul>Having your
cake and eat it too is simply not a choice. In other words, if you moan
and groan about people's adaptation and expansion attempts you
shouldn't say that you want the language to survive. <br><br>Kumpelmenten,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br><br>
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