LL-L: "Language conflicts" LOWLANDS-L, 24.JUL.2000 (07) [E/S]

[Lowlands-L]

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  L O W L A N D S - L * 24.JUL.2000 (07) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language conflicts

Dear Henry,

You wrote:

> Another thing: I just lost 2 friends the other day, in a very sad way.

I'm very sorry to hear that you were disappointed in that way and have been
made to feel disrespected, to the degree where you feel that it destroyed
your friendship.

Of course, your feelings cannot be argued with, and I certainly understand
your sense of loss and frustration.  Even though this may be no consolation
to you, I ask you to try and think of the incident as part and parcel of a
long history of denigration of our common ancestral language, as something
that probably has been happening somewhere everyday for a long, long time.
Yes, it keeps on happening even now, after the signing of the European
Language Charter and consequent official recognition of Low Saxon (Low
German) as a regional language in the Eastern Netherlands and Northern
Germany (as *two* languages if some people have their way).  I see your
"friends'" arguments as the usual product of this history of denigration
and alienation, a longstanding tradition of wishing or pronouncing the
original language of the region dead, a tradition that began centuries ago,
a tradition that sadly has spread to those who ought to cherish the
language as a part of their own heritage.  Perhaps, if you look at it that
way, you will have more of a sense of compassion regarding those people.
It is they and their children who are the actual victims.  It is they who
are missing out on something that could have made their lives richer.

It is true that the language has a relative stronghold in the "lower"
classes and in rural communities.  However, you are quite correct when you
say that it is not a purely low-class and rural language.  Yes, I
personally know quite a lot of people who use and cherish it and who are
neither "low-class" nor country folks.  In fact, there are many extremely
well educated and well-to-do people among them.  Yes, even politicians are
now using and defending the language openly.  However, they are in the
minority.

You see, if you say "low-class" and "country" often enough you hope that
this will lead to reality, like a magic incantation.  In fact, it is
probably quite an effective way of chanting the language to death.  Quite a
few people will believe it and will say, "No, I don't want to be known as a
bumpkin; so I'd better not use that language."  Perhaps those "friends" of
yours are cases in point.

Alienation of children from their linguistic heritage is one of the most
commonly used strategies leading to language death.  This has been shown in
past policies regarding Native Americans.  Even if the language hangs on
for a while, and even if there is a change to a more enlightened approach
toward the end, a point of no return may be reached.

Not too long ago I read about the death of Sorbian (Lusatian, two West
Slavic languages used only in Germany) in most parts of what used to be
Lusatia (Lausitz).  Lusatia is now a small region of highland, heather and
swamps stretching between the swamp lands south of Berlin to the hilly
country a bit north of the Czech border, and Sorbian varieties are now used
only there, by a minority of inhabitants.  Originally, Lusatia was a much
larger region stretching from just east of the German-Polish border to
about the center of what is now the state of Saxony.  Sorbian (_serbc^ina_)
was the language of the land, and Zhorjelc (Görlitz) was the capital and
also housed the Sorbian Academy for a long time.  (It was the home of my
maternal grandmother whose family name was Sorbian and whose cultural
heritage had obvious Sorbian features, even though the Sorbian language had
been abandoned.)  There are records from just before the language
disappeared from Görlitz and other areas (in the 17th century, I believe),
records in which committees of Sorbs themselves propose that their
ancestral language be banned from certain spheres, that it was "unfit" for
use in churches, for instance.  At "best" they had been forced to sign
these documents by their German overlords.  At worst they had been
indoctrinated long enough to come up with the proposals themselves.

A Danish friend of mine served as a schoolteacher in a community in
Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland.  In the late 1960s, he and some colleagues and
education planners, thinking themselves all progressive, went to a lot of
trouble by leaning Greenlandic, by training native Greenlanders as teachers
and by increasing Greenlandic contents in the curriculum.  The result was
protests by the students' parents, not only by the Danish-speaking ones but
mostly by the Greenlandic-speaking ones.  They thought that Greenlandic was
a waste of time, worthless in education, and that their children would be
better off, would have better chances in life if they used Danish and
English.

That's what our parents' or grandparents' generation had been made to think
of Low Saxon (Low German) vis-à-vis German and Dutch.  Even as speakers
themselves, they bought the line that "Plat(t)" is the sign of "ignorance"
and/or "backwardness," and that's why so many of us missed out unless we
took some initiative ourselves or were lucky enough to live in a Low Saxon
stronghold like you do, Henry.  Once settled, views are slow to change, and
you got a dose of this.  I just hope you will not take these things too
personal but will keep on using the language with your head held high, or
even in the fashion of "in your face!"

Hold Die fuchtig!

Gröötnissen,
Reinhard/Ron

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