LL-L: "Literature" LOWLANDS-L, 20.NOV.2000 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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  L O W L A N D S - L * 20.NOV.2000 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Steven Williams [steaphainwilliams at hotmail.com]
Subject: Brothers Grimm

Many years ago I bought a copy of the Brothers Grimm`s complete fairytales
(in German) and I found some of the texts written in what seemed to be
Plattdeutsch. Am I right in my suspicions or did they write the stories in
question in some kind of <pretend> German.
<steaphainwilliams at hotmail.com>

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

Steven,

You wrote:

> Am I right in my suspicions or did they write the stories in
> question in some kind of <pretend> German.

Yes, indeed.  Several of the "Grimms'" fairytales are in Low Saxon/Low
German dialects.  (Why use the *German* name _Plattdeutsch_ when writing in
English?)

As you probably know, collecting and recording folktales was a part of the
Grimm brothers' "philological" pursuits.  Especially Jacob is a well-known
19th-century linguist, or "philologist" in an age in which the studies of
language and literature were less strictly divided than they are now.  The
politically correct line at their time, as it was until recently and as it
continues to be in many people's heads, was that Low Saxon, the direct
descendant of Old Saxon, was a part of German, the direct descendant of Old
(High) German.  The brothers' field trips took them north of their Hessian
homeland into Low-Saxon-speaking regions, and they included in their
collection tales from those regions, related to them mostly by older women,
the usual keepers of folklore and oral literature.  How faithfully the
brothers recorded the stories is not known, I believe.  Surviving
manuscripts with notations and corrections seem to indicate that they
edited them heavily (also the German ones).  This also casts some doubts as
to the reliability of the language in the Low Saxon tales, especially since
this was a foreign language to the brothers.  However, at least the tales
offer interesting glimpses into the dialects as they were in the 19th
century.

I am under the impression that the Low Saxon tales in the collection tend
to be the lesser known ones in the collection.  This may well be because
most German speakers do not understand them, or they understand them
poorly.  Indeed, I have seen some German translations of these tales, to
make them accessible to Germans at large.  Another reason for the fact that
these tales are not as well known may well be that many translators into
other languages had real problems with these supposedly "German" tales.

Here are some of the Grimms' collection tales that I know to be in Low
Saxon, though the list is probably not complete.  The parenthesized
translations of the titles are mine, not the "official" ones.

Von dem Fischer un syner Fru (About the Fisher and his Wife)
Von dem Machandelboom (About the Juniper Tree)
Knoist un sine dre Sühne (Knoist and His Three Sons)
Dat Mäken vun Brakel (The Girl from/or Brakel)
Up Reisen gohn (Taking a Journey)
Oll Rinkrank (Old Rinkrank)
De Gaudeif un sien Meester (The Pickpocket/Thief and his Master)
De dree Vügelkens (The Three Little Birds)
Ferenand getrü un Ferenand ungetrü (Ferdinand Faithful and Ferdinand
Unfaithful)

Best regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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