LL-L: "Multilingualism" LOWLANDS-L, 30.OCT.1999 (01) [E]
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Sat Oct 30 15:54:30 UTC 1999
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L O W L A N D S - L * 30.OCT.1999 (01) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic
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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Multilingualism
Ron
Thanks for your further observations. I was, of course, talking about a
Dutch person learning English, not the other way round. When I wrote the
original message I thought that the case might come under your Point (2)
"People whose cultures do not allow them to contradict someone in any sort
of special and/or respect position" but I thought that sociological
speculation about the characteristics of secretaries might be out of place
here.
You wrote:
>>Netherlanders ... are notoriously uncooperative when it comes to helping
outsiders learn *their* language, ... Now, I don't for a second think that
they are uncooperative because they are mean, unhelpful people. On the
contrary! They try to be kind and considerate, hospitable, wanting to adapt
to *you* rather than expecting you to adapt to them. ... Of course they
feel thrilled and flattered, though bewildered, that you do want to bother
about their "little" _taaltje_, but I guess this gets overridden very
easily. Of course all this is all a generalization."
May I add a couple of quotes from the (possibly highly inaccurate) book "The
UnDutchables" (p 156). (In case people don't know it it's a kind of
non-fiction Dutch version of that wonderful book about Australia "They're a
Weird Mob".)
"If you take a course in the Dutch language and finally progress enough to
dare to utter some sentences in public, the person you speak to will
inevitably answer you in what they detect to be your native European tongue.
They love to show off the fact that they have learned one or more other
languages."
"The more you try to learn Dutch, the more the Dutch refuse to speak to you
and the more they complain that you haven't learned it."
John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk
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From: Colin Wilson [lcwilson at iee.org]
Subject: LL-L: "Multilingualism" LOWLANDS-L, 27.OCT.1999 (04) [E]
At 10:12 27/10/99 -0700, R. F. Hahn wrote:
>In other words, interference from your native language is much
>more of an issue in this case. This is definitely a problem among northern
>speakers of German trying to learn Low Saxon (Low Geman). They tend to
>understand a fair bit of the language to start with, simply by way of
>exposure, and when they try to use it they tend to translate literally from
>German, also make up words on the basis of German, ending up with what is
>known as _Patentplatt_. This is of course aided by ages of brainwashing
>people into believing that it's merely a German dialect. I should imagine
>that there is a similar problem for English speakers studying Scots.
Very much so. Indeed, much written Scots is produced by learners on that
very basis. One difference is that there's less of a tendency to make
up words on the basis of English, than to use obsolete Scots words
obtained from dictionaries and then to insist that this is how Scots
ought to be written.
The whole tendency is harmful and convinces many, who have no other
contact with Scots, that there's no such language. Either that or,
if there is, it's been invented by people in pursuit of an agenda.
Colin Wilson.
**********************************************************************
the graip wis tint, the besom wis duin
Colin Wilson the barra wadna row its lane
postin fae Glesca an sicna soss it nivver wis seen
lik the muckin o Geordie's byre
**********************************************************************
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From: Ian Parsley [parsleyij at yahoo.com]
Subject:
In fact Ron, this "perceived minority language" status
can even apply to
German! My dad served there in the forces in the 70s
and joined a hockey
club to learn German, only to find that all they
wanted to do was speak
English to him, presumably again because they felt
English was more
important. Such a thing would seldom happen in France
or Spain, for example,
where there is rather more pride in the local language
and they have a high
opinion of its status on the world stage.
Best,
-------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"
----------
From: Ian Parsley [parsleyij at yahoo.com]
Subject:
Lila,
I think by definition we all speak our native tongues
perfectly - whether we
adhere to the national standard is another matter.
As you imply, it is important to decide, before you
learn a language, why
you have decided to learn it. You have to decide
whether you simply want to
make yourself understood in the foreign language, or
whether you really want
to speak it accurately. In any national education
system I think there's a
happy medium between the two - unfortunately here in
the UK I feel too much
emphasis is put on general communication rather than
grammatical accuracy. A
friend of mine from Uni was capable of expressing
almost anything in German,
but ask her to write the simplest thing (e.g. "I see
the gentleman") and she
would write the latter part as any of "dem Herrn",
"den Herrn" or "dem
Herren" without the slightest clue why the correct
version would be "den
Herren". So she could communicate complicated things,
but writing even the
simplest sentence accurately, after TEN YEARS, was
quite beyond her!
Best,
-------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"
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