LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 03.AUG.2000 (04) [D/E/S]
Lowlands-L
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Thu Aug 3 22:19:57 UTC 2000
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L O W L A N D S - L * 03.AUG.2000 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * 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: Standardisation
The University of Kiel used to run Low Saxon summer schools for foreigners.
What version of the language did they use?
John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk
----------
From: Roger Thijs [roger.thijs at village.uunet.be]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization"
At 08:35 3-8-2000 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>>From: "Ian James Parsley" <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 02.AUG.2000 (04) [E]
> If not, is this the right place to start, or should I take it
someplace else?
> (trying to get something going here, instead of just dreaming about
it...)
Does a magazine for creative or factual writing in Low Saxon exist in
your area? Or an e-mail list? That's what I would do.<<<<<
this message goes in cc to: klitsjeei at egroups.com
The Limburgish literary magazine Veldeke (this year 75 years old) sets
informally the standard, since they do not accept texts in any other
spelling as in the Veldeke spelling.
Veldeke has no formal authority, but the magazine is the only literary one
covering both provinces of Limburg. They have an annual literary contest,
book publications, including collections of smaller novels in the
"Limburgse literaire reeks"etc. Actually hardly anybody likes their system,
virtually everybody has to follow their rules, if he/she wants to get
published. A couple of years ago a strip of "Suske and Wiske" was withdrawn
a couple of weeks before publishing and "rewritten" under pressure from
Veldeke.
The Veldeke management could not agree about spelling rules, until recently
they "subcontracted" the exercise to Mr. Jan G. M. Notten, and force
everybody to follow that system since. Curiously the standard is not
formulated in Limburgish but in Dutch:
Jan G. M; Notten, "Aanwijzingen voor de spelling van de Limburgse
dialecten", 1983, Veldeke, 36 pp
quote (in Dutch):
"Het hoofdbestuur van Veldeke heeft in het jaar 1980 een commissie de
opdracht gegeven deze spellingsregeling (an older one) aan te vullen. Na
enkele jaren van werken bleek het voor de commissie onmogelijk tot
eensluidend advies te komen, waarna het hoofdbestuur, na de kringenraad
gehoord te hebben, aan de heer Jan Notten te Valkenburg aan de Geul de
opdracht heeft gegeven ... tot een advies... Dit advies is in een
gezamenlijke vergadering van kringraden en hoofdbestuur op 24 mei 1983
aanvaard."
"Uitgangspunten:
1. ... leesbaarheid ... bruikbaarheid...
2.... aansluiten met ..... (a.) ... de in Limburg heersende
spellingtraditie...(b) ... de plaatselijke gebruiken... (c)... de
Nederlandse spellingtraditie...
3. wij stonden voor de volgende keuze: a. een wetenschappelijk zo
verantwoord mogelijke spelling, die ook de kleinste klanknuances
weergeeft.... b. een fonologische spelling... fonemen weergeeft... slechts
de betekenisonderscheidende waarde van lettertekens is van belang. Wij
hebben gekozen voor mogelijkheid b.
4.... het niet willen weergeven van alle klanknuances... is de prijs die
men betaalt voor een eenvoudige, leesbare en vooral herkenbare spelling.
5. ... dat letterteken... dat men in overeenstemming vindt met de eigen of
beluisterde realizering...
6... richten wij ons in eerste instantie tot de Limburgers en pas in tweede
instantie tot onze overige landgenoten.
7. ... het belang van de lezer moet prevaleren..
8... slechts die lettertekens... die op een normale schrijfmachine te
vinden zijn...
As a result major characteristics of spoken Limburgish disappear, as e.g.
the bitonality:
"... wordt het verschil tussen sleep- en stoottoon niet aangegeven. De
Limburger beheerst dit verschil op natuurlijke wijze... in publicaties voor
het "gewone" lezerspubliek is dit overbodig, ongebruikelijk en zelfs
ongewenst, omdat het een "druk" spellingsbeeld oplevert..."
(Well I disagree, but I'm far from saying one should write Limburgish with
music score lines; quite often tonal difference marks the difference in
meaning between homonyms, though in most cases the semantics of the total
phrase is clear, despite of tonal errors)
etc. etc.
I don't think this is a very good example, but the damn thing is promoted,
imposed, by a very strong organization, and book publishers are morally
forced to follow it. Exceptions, I'm aware of, are municipal dictionaries,
quite often fully funded by the municipal authorities (and stressing
particularly all differences with the neighboring parishes).
I doubt this sad story contributes to the discussion of the subject,
but...anyhow
Regard,
Had oech gowd,
Roger
r.thijs at ieee.org
----------
From: Henry Pijffers [hpijffers at home.nl]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 03.AUG.2000 (03) [E]
Ron hef schreven:
>
> Ian and Henry wrote:
>
> > > Like I say, native speakers must have the final say. If not, well, we
> > > all know what's happening to High German at the minute. If the native
> > > speakers are ignored, they will get irritated, even with "major"
> > > languages! So I fear "radical" changes aren't always a good idea.
> > >
> > I agree that native speakers should have a big say in these matters, but > what I
> > meant was more like they'd manage it, not really creating something > themselves.
> > More like seeing to it that enough people give their input, and that they > stay
> > sensible and not go into endless discussions and things like that.
>
> Personally, I feel that there needs to be some sort of balance between
> "scientists" and "laypeople", with more emphasis on the former.
>
> <example cut>
>
> People who have no scientific component in their reasoning about orthographies
> tend to err on the side of conservatism and narrow-mindedness and tend to opt
> for systems that are far too complex, cumbersome and inconsistent, far too
> difficult to learn. Therefore, I feel that scientific guidance and tweaking
> are essential. Rejecting inclusion of "faceless academics" therefore seems as
> ill-advised as rejecting inclusion of users of the language who are not
> familar with scientific principles. Input from both sides is essential.
>
Of course you're right again Ron. I didn't mean to say that linguists
shouldn't
have anything to do with it. I'm all for both scientists and laypeople as you
call it. And even laypeople with a notion of linguistics I might add. People
who
(for lack of that notion) can't think logically about what they're writing can
only
hinder the process.
Experts can be narrow-minded too though. Take me for example, I'm an expert
in software engineering. A few years ago I was writing a messaging system.
I was talking about it to my little brother, how I needed to make a decision
between two options. And all out of the blue, without any expertise in the
field, he gives me a 3rd and much better option. I just got too narrowminded
and couldn't see the better. But because he never had any training or
whatsoever, his mind wasn't narrowed to only 2 options, and so he was able to
give me a 3rd.
This proves again we'll need people of varying colours.
grooten,
Henry
----------
From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Standardization
Henry wrote:
> Of course you're right again Ron. I didn't mean to say that linguists > shouldn't have anything to do with it.
I know you didn't. Ian implied it:
> From: "Ian James Parsley" <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 02.AUG.2000 (04) [E]
<...>
> It would be a big mistake to leave standardization to a bunch of
> faceless academics.
Then how about including only academics who do have faces? And I guess the
requirement of pocessing faces should apply to non-academic participants as
well. Or do only they come with faces by default? I really don't understand
why academic experts should be stereotyped as some type of unfeeling enemies
and should be assumed to be incapable of considering emotional and traditional
aspects in their approaches. Likewise, I don't see why non-academics should
be stereotyped as ignorant, emotion-driven bumpkins incapable of accommodating
logic and scientific considerations. Collaboration is of the essence, and
mutual prejudices are not conducive to its success.
First of all, there are plenty of academics who are speakers of the language
themselves and who sympathize on a personal level as well.
Secondly, emotional and traditional aspects of writing systems and their
planning have been discussed at length in academic writing, and anyone who
reads serious literature about orthography planning knows that native
speakers' preferences must be and are routinely considered.
This is why, for instance, post-Soviet language planners decided to base
orthography reforms for Uyghur (a Turkic language of Western China and of
Kazakhstan) on a return to the Arabic script, while the orthography reform for
Azeri and Turkmen (also Turkic languages) was based on the popular desire for
a switch from the Cyrillic-based system to a Roman-based system similar to the
system used in nearby Turkey, because Azeri (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran),
Turkmen (Turkmenistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan) and Turkish are very closely
related and mutually pretty much intelligible, perhaps also because of
Westernization ambitions in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan similar to those in
Turkey. After lengthy discussions and experiments with switching from
Cyrillic to Arabic-script-based systems, the Turkic languages Uzbek
(Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan) and Kyrgyz (Kyrgyzstan) joined the
Roman-script-based club. The Arabic script as used for Arabic and Farsi is
quite unsuitable for Turkic languages and would not have been chosen in a
purely scientific, clinical approach, but in the case of Uyghur emotional
attachment overrode all else, and experiments with Cyrillic and Roman were
abandoned; yet, experts were allowed to adapt it to the needs of this
particular language (e.g., introducing full vowel representation).
I think that this is the type of compomise solution we talked about. Should
attachment to a German-based standard orthography prevail in the case of Low
Saxon (Low German), hopefully it will at least be modified in such a way that
it is suitable for all varieties of Low Saxon, is efficient and easy. It is
not so important what script and spelling conventions are used as long as
there is consistency and ease of learning. Another consideration ought to be
that *all* phonemes be represented, even where these are prosodic (such as
phonemic tones in certain languages), namely "superlength" or the "dragging
tone" in the case of several Low Saxon dialects. This has the added benefit
of making it easier for foreign language learners to pronounce written words
correctly. (Phonemic tones are not written for instance in Slovene,
Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Norwegian, Japanese, quite a few African languages,
and in the Veldeke-dictated Limburgish system Roger talked about above. The
_stød_ phoneme, a sort of glottal interruption, is not written in Danish, but
it is in Vietnamese. Learners of these languages must rely on dictionary
annotations to identify these unwritten phonemes.)
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
----------
From: Andy Eagle [Andy.Eagle at t-online.de]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 03.AUG.2000 (02) [E]
> From: Thomas [t.mcrae at uq.net.au]
> Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 02.AUG.2000 (03) [E]
>
> John Tait wrate....
> > From: Lowlands-L <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 02.AUG.2000 (03) [E]
> > (1) The Tory
> > representative at the last-but-one SLS conference wanted to be assured
that
> > any Scots taught in schools would be good Scots;
Thomas wrate:
> For once I must agree with a Tory. A major problem with Scots is currently
> spoken in the muck ups with singular and plural. e.g. 'They coos IS gawn
> doon the road'. 'Is THEY a buik Ye're readin' ?' 'These men IS sojers'.
Such
> material is not traditional in any way, merely the language of illiterates
> that has crept into common usage. Alas I've even seen examples on this
List.
> Care must also be taken to get rid of obsolete words that have not been
used
> by the community at large for many years. 'Dreich' for example has been
> largely replaced by 'Dry'. I like the former but in my areas at least I
only
> heard it used once by a sheriff in court.
> To develop a language has to evolve, to stick to the old for the sake of
the
> old hampers development.
Siclike uiss o singular an plurar is sae auld as the braes:
Fae Universal Peace Not Possible, Sir Gilbert Hay 1456
And specialy the mannis harnis is full in the full mone...
Fae The Portuus of Nobilness (1508)
.., thar is xij wertuis behuffull And that shawis...
Fae Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, Sir Robert Lindsay 1554.
...Wee had thrie ky, that was baith fat and fair...
Fae On Praying in Latin, Nicol Burne 1581
...the peopill kneu not quhat all thay ceremonies signifeit, qhilk vas
keipit be the preistis...
Gin its no tradeetional its been creepin intae the langage o illiterates for
a gey an lang time.
Andy
-------
From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Standardisation
Carl John wrote:
>Some Dutch students told me they had problems with dt-spellings ... (ik
word, jij wordt etc.) and were quite astonished to know I hardly made any
such mistakes myself. The explanation is of course quite simple: the Dutch
dt-spelling is perfectly regular from the grammatician's point of view, but
in order to apply the rules correctly, you have to be aware of the
morpho-syntactic system of the Dutch verb endings. As a foreign learner, you
learn to master this ... while studying the verbal inflexions. ... a native
speaker ... never has to study the grammar of his own language.<
>People don't necessarily have a hard time learning to spell just because
there is no regular correspondence between the spoken and written form of a
word. This makes some sense to me: after all, there is - to my knowledge
(please correct me if I'm wrong!) - no evidence that native speakers of
English, or other languages with "irregular" spelling, make more spelling
errors than speakers of languages with more "regular" spelling systems.<
The first point seems a little strange. Although Dutch children may not
learn Dutch grammar their teachers presumably try to teach them to write
correctly. If the d/dt confusion is a persistent problem for older people
this suggests they haven't done their job very well.
Regarding the second point it seems to me that it ought to be easier to
spell in a language in which it is possible to write down most words just on
hearing them. You don't have to learn to spell them. It would be interesting
to know, though, whether anybody has made such a comparative study of
spelling proficiency. One would, presumably, have to find ways of
compensating for the possibility that "spelling" is taught more intensively
in the case of some languages and for degrees of difference between the
written and spoken language.
John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk
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