ELL: Cultural production

[Julia Sallabank]

Dear everyone

I take Mauro's point, and I am ambivalent myself about the link between
language and culture - I've spent a lot of my life trying to escape from
some of the narrower strictures of traditional culture, but am still
committed to the language. But given a choice between McDonald's and
Guernsey culture, I know which one I would choose!  The juggernaut of
"global" (plastic and unsustainable) "culture" is itself part of the
problem, and it's not only minority language speakers who object to it (and
not all of them do object anyway, which is one reason for language shift).
I'll take modern comforts such as indoor bathrooms but not the plastic food
thanks. But this may be rather hypocritical given the reliance on
international banking in Guernsey's economy (yes, we are trying to get
sponsorship from them).

Diversity in language, culture, politics, religion, etc. is a good thing to
uphold. On the one hand, people have a right to celebrate traditional
culture - but on the other hand, I agree that minority languages need
modernising and to lose the image (often forced on them by outsiders) of
being 'only for peasants' and looking backwards at the 'good old days' (so
good that people shifted language to escape from them).

The advantages of diversity (including multilingualism) need to be
promoted - a lot of people abandoned the old language because they thought
that it would hold back their children in education (which was/is in English
of course). The concept of 'new culture in old language' is also difficult
to put over.

In fact, there were Guinness adverts in Guernsey French in the 1950's - at a
time when more people used the language, but attitudes towards it were more
negative than nowadays. Adverts in the language are just as symbolic as folk
festivals - they won't do anything in themselves to make parents speak the
language with their children, but they raise its profile.

Another point is that in the absence of any mass media in Guernesiais,
cultual festivals are the only chance for many people to hear any of the
language. And it's by no means only traditional culture that is presented at
them - e.g. new plays and sketches are also produced.

Best wishes

Julia


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lars v. Karstedt" <lkarstedt at uni-hamburg.de>
To: <endangered-languages-l at cleo.murdoch.edu.au>
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: ELL: Cultural production


> Speakers of a minority are sometimes socially isolated from other speakers
> (e.g. because all their relatives who speak it are deceased). In such
cases,
> cultural events are at least an opportunity to meet other speakers and
'come
> out' as speakers of a stigmatised language. They are social occasions and
> offer an opportunity for the audience too, not only the performers, to
speak
> the language.
>
> I think that regaining pride in a language (as well as practising it!) is
an
> important step in promoting it in all domains.
>
> Yours
>
> Julia

[second post]

> I think this discussion started with revitalization strategies and
reversal
> of language death. So, stable multilingual societies are not germane here.
> But you are certainly right there.
> I also take it for granted that the discussion was centered around modern,
> Western-like societies, not hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari desert.
There,
> again, things may be different.
> But if a language is threatened in Europe, US, and the like, I guess it is
> because its speakers are shifting to another language for most "high" uses
> of the language. "Traditional" culture is not one of these; "modern" life
> is. To stress traditional culture does not seem a good strategy in order
to
> reverse the tendency: if you want to revitalize Guernesiais (Guernsey
Norman
> French) do not do a poetry-festival, try to have McDonald's or Coca-Cola
do
> ads in it. This is a PRACTICAL encouragement to use a language, because it
> makes the language "trendy", appealing, etc. (well, maybe not to
> everybody...).
> Best,
>
> mauro
>

I think both, Mauro and Julia have a point here. But the most
important factor in saving a threatened language is the number of
first language speakers and that is, naturally, the number of
children who learn the language (be it as mono- or bilingual
speakers). I may add some personal experience from Amrum, a
German island off the North Sea coast, where I conducted fieldwork
on the island's dialect of Frisian called Öömrang. There are only a
very few Öömrang-speaking children (probably about ten). The only
situation where Öömrang is spoken is at home, basically with
parents/grandparents. There where two cases when kids (in both
cases pairs of siblings) where brought up Öömrang-speaking but
ceased to use the language as soon as they entered (monolingual
German) kindergarten. Even at home they wouldn't speak Öömrang
anymore. I think this illustrates Mauro's point: Speaker's home as
linguistic environment is too limited to give children the idea that
Öömrang is something that really matters in the outside world. It
doesn't even need to re-design McDonald's signs (by the way, in
Quebec it's "poulet frit à la Kentucky" instead of "Kentucky fried
chicken") but an Öömrang-speaking storekeeper, teacher, bank
teller etc. would probably do. These people are there, they just
don't practice their language publicly and this is where Julia's point
gets in: the attitude towards minority languages matters as well. A
person being proud of his mother-tongue will more likely practice it
whenever he can than someone who deems his mothertongue
being primitive, un-modern, un-educated etc. and therefore rather
uses the (official) majority language.

Best, Lars




Lars Karstedt
Bredeneschredder 7
22395 Hamburg
Germany
lkarstedt at uni-hamburg.de
(040) 604 54 53
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