LL-L: "Plautdietsch" 05.JUL.2000 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 05.JUL.2000 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Marcel Bas [mrbas_26 at hotmail.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Plautdietsch" 04.JUL.2000 (02) [E]

Dear all,
Criostoir wrote:

>I have heard conflicting reports of the linguistic
>influence of the influx of Central Asian Germans from
>Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan and other areas of their
>'exile'.
That reminds me of a documentary broadcasted by the Dutch national
television about six years ago. I taped the whole documentary; it was about

the Siberian Mennonite community of Neodatchimo (meaning: 'no luck'). Jakob

Neufeld was the minister and everybody spoke their Niederdeutsch very well.

The documentary stressed mainly the sadness of having to live in a
religious
and ethnically different community that was dwindling because of migration
to Germany. They were well aware of their history and their cultural
history
and about (Dutch) Menno Simons being , telling that they went from the
North
of Germany to the Ukraine, moving further towards Siberia. When Stalin
ruled
Russia their community was very lively and their faith only grew. Now, the
minister says, times are bad; materialism and freedom of movement make
people move abroad.
It was a very interesting documentary with Dutch subtitling so I could hear

the language word by word.

>I recall vaguely a brief article in the Economist some
>time ago that mentioned the arrivals spoke "an archaic
>dialect of German"

That is yet another inaccurate way of categorising dialects done by the
magazine; as if the real language is German and the dialect the variety.

After their migration the Mennonites from Neodatchimo were enjoying life in

Germany; especially the luxury was nice, but whole cultural communities are

dying out of course.

Regards, Marcel Bas.

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Plautdietsch

Dear Lowlanders,

I think that at this point it is necessary to remind ourselves that not all
"Russia Germans" (i.e., assumedly ethnic Germans from what used to be the
Soviet Union) "repatriated" in Germany are Mennonites and Plautdietsch
speakers or descendants of such.  Especially in the 17th and 18th
centuries, and also later, a variety of people, especially artisans, from
German- and Low-Saxon-speaking areas emigrated to Russia, where they were
welcome at the time, and many of their descendants retained some awareness
of their ethnicity.

There have been reports of and also documentaries about numerous cases of
remigration eastward, mostly as a result of feeling overwhelmed, alien,
unwanted and socially isolated in Germany, preferring forfeiting a German
pension in exchange for regaining a sense of community back in Siberia or
Central Asia.  Thus, cultural alienation is seen as important not only
among German xenophobes and naysayers generally (many of whom consider
these people "Russian", and some of whom complain that a similar policy of
remigration does not apply to ethnic Germans in Australasia, the Americas,
Southern Africa and elsewhere).

As most of us know, Plautdietsch and other Low Saxon (Low German) varieties
are not "dialects of German."  However, finding such statements in the
popular media ought not surprise us, given the fact that this is still
being taught in most academic Germanistics departments.

Please also remember that many Mennonites can be argued to be ethnically
predominantly Dutch and/or Frisian, even though most of their ancestors
lived in Northern Germany (as it was then) before their eastward
migration.  Many of those in the Soviet Union claimed to be "gollandcy"
(Dutchman), especially when anti-German feelings were very strong.

As I understand it, "anti-German" sentiments in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
other Central Asian countries are not very or rarely specifically
German-oriented but are rather part and parcel of what might be seen as
renewed "native" assertion.  They are directed at resident "Europeans"
generally, mostly of course ethnic Russians who are in the majority, some
of whom have lived there, sometimes for generations, with clearly
colonially attitudes, largely rejecting and ignoring the cultures and
languages of the original inhabitants (and this applies to many Siberian
communities also).  Even now that Kazakh, Kyrghyz, Uzbek and other (mostly
Turkic) languages have been officially returned to prominent and even
predominant positions, many European-descended residents keep on living in
their own, mostly Russian-speaking worlds and pretty much refuse to learn
the local languages or make just lame attempts to learn them (mostly when
forced to do so).  I have first-hand experiences with these types of
colonial attitudes toward Central Asians on both sides of the Sino-"Soviet"
border and am of the impression that many claims of "anti-this-or-that"
ought to be taken with a grain of salt and are mostly fronts for
disagreeing with policies aimed at restoring "native" power.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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