<div style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font>==============================</font><font>=======================<br> L O W L A N D S - L - 21 July 2012 - Volume 02<br>
<a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span>lowlands.list@gmail.com</span></a>
</font><font>
- <a rel="nofollow" href="http://lowlands-l.net/" target="_blank"><span>http://lowlands-l.net/</span></a><br>
Posting: <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"><span>lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org</span></a><br>
Archive: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html" target="_blank"><span>http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html</span></a><br>
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)<br>
Language Codes: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php" target="_blank"><span>lowlands-l.net/codes.php</span></a><br>
==============================</font><font>=======================
</font><font><br></font></div>
<div style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left"><font><br></font></p><div style="text-align:left"><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: </font><span class="gI"><span class="gD">Roger Thijs</span> <span class="go"><a href="mailto:rogerthijs@yahoo.com">rogerthijs@yahoo.com</a></span></span><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br>
Subject: </font><span class="gI">LL-L Language politics</span><br><br><div><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">I have some thoughts about the emotional aspects of language learning.</font></div><div>
</div><div>My
mother tongue was Lonerland Limburgish from a small village in Southern
Limburg. I must actually say it was my fathers' tongue, the local
variant of the municipality of Vliermaal, where we lived. My mothers'
tongue was the variant of Schalkhoven, 1 mile to the East and very
different. In Vliermaal dogs "blaf", in Schalkhoven dogs "beil".
Limburgish varies rapidly from West to East, from Low Franconian to
Middle German.</div><div>
My mothers' family was always joking about my Vliermaal language. As kid
I hated to be dealt with as an exotic language animal, so I started
hating Schalkhoven language.</div><div> </div><div>Our shopping town was
Tongeren, 7 miles to the South. The variant spoken there was
Tongerlandish Limburgish. It was considered by us people as a very
vulgar cockney, perhaps since we encountered it as the language of the
Thursday morning local farmers market. Since later, I went to middle
school in Tongeren, I not only learned some Latin, Old-Greek, Dutch,
French, German and English, I also learned Tongerlandish on the school
playground and in the streets. I finally started liking it and I still
speak it when in Tongeren.</div><div> </div><div>For farther away
languages, we liked Brussels Brabantish, because of the programs with
René Grassin and tante Colette on the radio. We hated Antwerp
Brabantish, we had some family over
there, they had switched language from Vliermalish to Antwerpish, they
considered their metropolitan language superior, and we hated that
cultural desertion.</div><div> </div><div>I cannot say much about
Flemish. We just didn't understand it. As for Dutch, we could understand
Mies Bauman, we didn't understand Rudi Carrell though, when he was
still on Dutch TV. Our TV was rather tuned to "Zum blauen Bock" or to
"Erkennen Sie die Melodie".</div><div> </div><div>Dutch was called "op
te letter" (as one writes) while the spoken Limburgish was called
"plat". Dutch lived in a kind of symbiosis with Limburgish. It was the
written language, the cancellers' language (as Latin once was versus
"Old French"). It was the language of the parish priest and of the
school teacher (in school, in the street he spoke Limburgish). Things
have changed since then unfortunately. Nowadays parents speak some form
of Dutch with their kids. In my youth, speaking
Dutch was ridiculous, comparable with the over-correct speaking by the
kid-glove Mr. Verastenhoven in the TV Series "De Collega's". It is like a
real cockney Londoner trying to imitate the Queens' speach.</div><div> </div><div>I
had some contacts at Liège university at the time. They had a modern
view on languages and included language modules, even in engineering
curricula. I saw guys opting for Russian, Chinese..; etc, but virtually
no one for Dutch, the official language of 60 percent of the Belgians.
When you do not like spinach, being forced to eat it may reflect the
feeling many French speakers have against learning Dutch.</div><div> </div><div>However
I think it is not a local Belgium phenomenon. I found this old text
from Marc Twain about German (annexed). So I'm wondering to what extent
language aversion is felt in other language areas.</div><div><br>Regards,</div>Roger<br><br></div>
<font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><span lang="en"><span></span></span></font>
<div style="text-align:left">
</div><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">
==============================</font><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">===========================<br>
Send posting submissions to <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>.<br>
Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
</font><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><br>
Send commands (including "signoff lowlands-l") to<br><a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"><span>listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org</span></a>
</font><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">
or <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a><br><a rel="nofollow" href="http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html" target="_blank"><span>http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html</span></a>
</font><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">.<br><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#%21/group.php?gid=118916521473498" target="_blank"><span>http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=118916521473498</span></a>
</font><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><br>
==============================
</font><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">============================ </font></div>