LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 06.MAR.2000 (02) [E]

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From: "Ian James Parsley" <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 05.MAR.2000 (03) [E]

Ron,

Yes, I would also say we are in agreement on the fundamental points,the
main one being that standardising a language is a much bigger task than most
would realise.

Not only do I not like the idea of "language engineering", I would
agreethat it would be doomed to instant failure (who ever pays any attention to
the decrees of la Academia Espanola?).

Inevitably standardisation involves some form of artificiality -language is
general is something we speak, and therefore anything we write is, toan
extent, artificial. You are right that somebody somewhere will get tocall
the shots, I suppose we are entering the realm of politics when Isuggest
that that somebody (or group of people) have to at least *look* as if
they're acting on what people are actually writing.

In fact, I didn't mean to suggest the writing of an authoritative grammar -
what I meant was that people seem to think that by "written standard"we
mean "standard spelling". When I say "written standard" I mean a"standard
grammar" to be used in writing. As long as the orthography is in someway
consistent (in Scots, for example, if you go for "sheuch" you shouldalso go
for "eneuch", "teuch" etc.), the only real hurdle to understanding is the
grammar.

However, I do in fact suggest the writing of an authoritative grammar.In
the absence of such, most people decide when they're writing Scots (orLow
Saxon or whatever) that since grammatical rules vary from dialect to
dialect, they'll just use English grammar (or High German or whatever).This
is the start of a decline - in the absence of a separate grammar forScots
writing, people are then inclined to invent spellings and words to make
Scots "look" different from English (or Low Saxon different fromGerman, I
would imagine). However, if they had the grammar right in the firstplace,
there would be no need for such orthographical or lexical invention.

Consider, for example:

'A follae tha fitbaa an tha rugby' (I follow football and rugby)
'A brak tha airm' (I've broken my arm)
'Them's guid apples' (Those are good apples)
'Thae dishes is tae wesh' (Those dishes are to be washed)
'Ir ye lang heir?' (Have you been here long?)

In these five sentences, I have used not a single word in Scots that has
separate derivation from English (in other words I've used the same lexical
items). However, the sentences are entirely different in construction. Most
Scots writers, however, particularly in Ireland I daresay, are inclined to
forget such differences and make up vocabulary (something like 'A gae efter
fitbaa an rugbie' or 'A hae broke ma airm'), and the result is gibberish (my
earlier spelling "Jibberish" was from a Belfast Telegraph article, I should
have made clear!).

I agree with everything you say, however, about how difficult a task that
is. With Ulster-Scots specifically there already exists a grammar. However,
the author himself admits to being an "Ulster Scot" more than a"linguist".
It filled a void in Scots language study excellently, but among linguists in
Northern Ireland it was not wholly well received because of its linguistic
errors (e.g. why do nouns and numbers appear in the same chapter, when
numbers are adjectives). But then, would a grammar written by a"linguist"
rather than an "Ulster Scot" be any better? Because Ulster-Scots is arural
language and you don't get too many farmers with degrees in linguistics!

You hit the nail on the head by mentioning time is of the essence. The
problem with Ulster-Scots is that we need a fully-researched grammar,but we
haven't time to research it...

You are also completely correct that by creating a standard for the major
dialects of any minority language runs the risk of the languages becoming
independent, particularly as there are an awful lot of people in Ireland who
for a variety of political reasons would be quite happy to see "Ullans"
recognised as separate from "Scots". There is no doubt that "Ullans" is
rather different (as indicated on the LOWLANDS-L introductory page ifyou
read Scots and Ullans), but I cannot see any future for them, particularly
not for Ullans, pursuing promotion on their own. Creating separate standards
is a logical and probably just step, but it does run that risk, no doubt about
it.

As for "standard orthography", you are right again. Most Scots literature is
written in an Anglicised orthography, and where this is not the case it
tends to be written "as it sounds" (and thus dismissed as "dialect
writing"). A standard spelling system may be harder to come by even than an
agreed grammar. As you say, you have to take into account all dialects as
much as possible, but also traditional spellings from literature where
possible. For example English 'good' is nearly always written 'guid' in
Scots now, but this is very rare in traditional literature that I've read.

Striking a balance is an unenviable task, but the survival of the language
may just depend on it.

Best wishes,
-------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"

----------

From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
Subject: "Language politics"

> Roger R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
> Subject: Language politics

Ron's points agree very closely with how languages have faired in the
history of the British Isles, as far as I understand it.

> and prescriptive fashion.  Such an approach would be doomed to
> instant failure,
> if only because of rejection and resistance among the language users.

Language engineering has been attempted in Scots by enthiusiasts in the 20th
Century. We need a more specific term than "language users" in this context.
Only native speakers object to this sort of language, while the non-speaking
enthusiasts can continue merrily on their way writing in the artificial
standard and railing at native speakers for refusing to read or write "their
own language".

> However, *any* type of standardization comes with *some* element of
> artificiality, even *if* you allowed it to take a long time
> ...
> "law" that states what is right and what is wrong.  If not, the
> process would
> take an indefinite length of time, and nothing will ever be resolved.

I don't think the amount of time here need be very long, provided a lot of
writing is being done in the language. English, for example, started out
with four written standards which subsequently merged into one. Scots,
covering a smaller area and much smaller population, should standardise in
writing all the more quickly, and indeed for mainland Scots has been
reasonably standardised for centuries, only ill-advised language engineering
attempts in the 20th century have wrecked this semi-standardisation (I
ignore the writings of people who attempt to write exactly as they speak -
this is completely out on a limb and can hardly influence the standards of
people living 50 miles away).

I think the problem here is not one of quality but of quantity. It doesn't
matter if your spelling's illogical or your grammar and vocabulary disagree
to some extent with speakers from otherregions, if lots of stuff is written
in the language a standard will soon emerge, especially after scholars and
translators see that there's enough of the language about to start making
money out of it. The trouble is that not much is written in Scots. It's
putting the cart before the horse to say that we need a standard for the
sake of language survival - the language has to be thriving before a
standard will emerge. There is a different way of thriving and that is to
get not only official recognition but active support from the government. It
seems unlikely that anything beyond official recognition can be achieved for
Scots at the present time (if even that), though that would be a start.

> You suggested the writing of an authoritative grammar.  While I in no way
> disagree with that, let me play the devil's advocate and ask you

An interesting aspect of the standardisation of English is that standard
English seems to have a much simpler grammar than most of the other major
dialects. Since standard English seems nevertheless to be based on a
specific dialect it might be concluded that the simplest existing written
standard was the one that became universal. Usually it's taken to be the one
based around London, but while the size of the population speaking a
particular dialect is a major factor in spreading that dialect, I'm not so
sure that this applies to the written language: London itself has a
distinctive speech with a more complex grammar than the written standard,
that does indeed propagate out into the contryside and in this century also
along the major roads to other cities, but not into the written standard. It
may be that people, faced with writing or teaching standards that don't
match their own speech, will choose the simplest, or even simplify for
themselves. I find myself doing this in developing a narrative style for my
Scots novels and stories. The most complex parts of speech in Anglic
languages are the verbs and I find that in Scots there are some naturally
simpler forms that, though not spoken anywhere as far as I know, when used
also have the advantage of producing Scots that lines up with the tradition
of Burns, Fergusson, Stevenson and most of the other copious Scots writers
of the past few centuries, even though there's evidence that they didn't
talk that way either.

As for the "time is of the essence" problem, well, again, it's not a large
amount of time that's required, it's a large quantity of writing by a large
number of people.

> instead is that those dialect groups would then develop into
> separate languages,
> at least as far as the perception of the ordinary speaker is concerned.

Not that this would matter, unless the agenda is political?

> Personally, I feel that the task of standardization tends to look more
> formidable than it really is.  This is so when there is no standard

Yes this and what followed I agree with wholly - but people must write, and
write a lot, for a standard to emerge.

As for language survival, I don't think government recognition is enough, it
has to have active support of the government. I can't see this happening for
Scots anywhere in the foreseeable future.

Also, Scots won't die out just because it's English that's taught in the
schools - it would have died out centuries ago if this were the case. When I
was a child I would come home from school and my parents would correct any
mistakes I made in my Scots as a result ("It's 'licht', no 'light', "it's no
'shoes' it's 'shuin'") and even correct grammatical errors I made purely
within Scots ("It's 'bid', the'r nae sic word as 'bydit'). This phenomenon
seems a lot rarer these days. A language dies out because people decide it's
not worth the trouble of passing on to their children. This is the
experience of Norn and Cornish, whereas Welsh, which was much more
ferociously suppressed in schools than either of those, is the only one
that's not in danger of dying out. It only died out in the industrial south
east, due to an influx of immigrant workers from England (very much as with
Glasgow in Scotland).

In short, if people want to speak a language and pass it on to their
children, it'll live as a spoken language. If people write it a lot, it'll
acquire written standards, otherwise you might as well forget it, unless you
think you can persuade the government to actively promote it over and above
it's chosen favourite. This is easier in some countries than others, but I'm
pretty sure Britain isn't the best place to be for this.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
http://www.fleimin.demon.co.uk

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