LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 15.MAR.2001 (01) [E]
Lowlands-L
sassisch at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 15 16:56:41 UTC 2001
=======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 15.MAR.2001 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/sassisch/rhahn/lowlands/>
User's Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
Archive: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html>
=======================================================================
A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic, Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
=======================================================================
From: Colin Wilson [lcwilson at starmail.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 14.MAR.2001 (06) [E]
At 16:32 14/03/01 -0800, R. F. Hahn wrote:
> (c) What, if any, is the official status of Scots at present?
Confused. In different ways the British, Scottish and both Irish
governments have accepted the status of Scots as a language
different from English. However, in Scotland the practical
consequences of this aren't much different from the previous
(unstated) policy of eradication.
Scots still has no serious place in broadcasting, in either the
public or private sector. In schools, there is more tolerance
than there used to be, and in most places it isn't seen as a
punishable breach of discipline simply to be heard saying something
in it. However, there's no coherent overall policy towards it, and
any attention it receives in schools depends on a decision by
individual teachers to find the time and resources. A government-
funded organisation, the Scottish Arts Council, gives out small
(one might even say "token" or "derisory") sums of money to support
the use of Scots in the creative arts.
There are no roadsigns showing Scots forms of place-names (except
where those are the only forms used) even when the English-
language forms are artificial and have no actual usage, e.g the
Aberdeen district of Fittie which is known officially as "Footdee".
There is no right to send mail to an address with the place-names
in their Scots forms (even if, in practice, it will be delivered
provided that the postcode is correct).
As recently as 1999 the Scottish Office (the arm of the British
government responsible for Scottish affairs, before we got
autonomous self-government) was denying that anyone speaks
Scots as a first language, as their reason for not translating
official publications into Scots.
In 2000 the Convener (chair-person) of the Scottish Parliament's
European Committee, Hugh Henry, wrote a newspaper article
ridiculing Scots and also denying that anyone speaks it, his
evidence for this being that *he* doesn't speak it. The previous
First Minister, the late Donald Dewar, was of the same view
although at least he didn't go so far as to write any newspaper
articles. By all accounts the present First Minister, Henry
McLeish, is not personally opposed to Scots to the same degree.
This is the position in Scotland. The position in Ireland is very
different, but there are others much better placed than I to
comment.
*********************************************************************
Colin Wilson the graip wis tint, the besom wis duin
the barra wadna row its lane
writin fae Aiberdein, an sicna soss it nivver wis seen
the ile capital o Europe lik the muckin o Geordie's byre
*********************************************************************
----------
From: Marco Evenhuis [evenhuis at zeelandnet.nl]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 14.MAR.2001 (06) [E]
Ron sked:
> (2) Is anything being done to have Zeelandic recognized?
>
> (3) What is the current recognition status in Belgium? Have any
> languages other than Dutch, French and German been recognized,
> and if not, what kinds of efforts are being made?
A group of Dutch linguists wrote a report that forms the basis of an
official request at the Dutch government for recognition of Zeeuws/Zeelandic
by the province of Zeeland. That request went out only three weeks ago.
Recognition as described in the European Charter for Regional and Minority
Languages, that is.
Since Limburgish and Low Saxon are correctly mentioned as a precedent in
that report (and the situation in Zeeland hardly differs from that in e.g.
Limburg), one would expect to be recognized soon. But the 'Nederlandse
Taalunie', that usually advises the Dutch government in matters like this,
now says to regret Low Saxon and Limburgish ever being recognized. They
consider the Zeelandic request for recognition as a testcase to prevent it
from being recognized.
There's an interesting time in head of us...
The Belgium has not yet ratified the European charter. So there are no
official efforts being made to recognize varieties as Limburgish,
West-Flemish, Letzebuergesch (in the Arlon region) and Walloon (which in
fact enjoys some official support by the French Community).
But at least from the Belgian province of Limburg and in the 'Pays d'Arlon'
there is some pressure on the federal government to ratify the charter or,
if that's for some reason impossible, profide another type of recognition or
support for Limburgish and Letzebuergeresch. I bet Roger knows more about
that one, though...
regards,
Marco
----------
From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 14.MAR.2001 (06) [E]
A chairde,
Thanks to Ron for his assertions concerning language
recognition within states. Here I can at least
represent the status of Cornish and Welsh, and, at a
stretch, Irish in the north of Ireland (which is under
United Kingdom sovereignty). Whilst I am aware that
these strictly speaking fall out of the remit of
Lowlands-L their experience may enlighten the list
with regard to legalities concerning Lowland
languages.
1) Cornish.
From experience, I can inform you that there has
been no official recognition of Cornish - in
whatever form or reconstruct - whatsoever, in either
a de jure or de facto sense. This is greatly
complicated by factors such as tourism, Cornish
nationalism, peripheral regionalisation, etc.
Cornish enjoys only an extremely limited profile in
a strictly symbolic and emblematic sense but
nothing more. Cornwall County Council's motto, for
instance, is "One and all" in English and Unified
Cornish ("Onen hag oll") but otherwise there is no
evidence for any recognition of Cornish even as the
ethnic or historical language of Cornwall,
presumably as this would conflict with governmental
notions of Cornwall as a "county of England".
Cornish place-names are occasionally used on the
"welcome" signs at town and city limits, but this is
contentious as reconstructed forms of placenames are
used, i.e., "Kammbronn" as the Cornish version of
Camborne, where, in fact, the place-name is
documented as "Camburn" in native texts of the
15th-18th Centuries. Other than these emblems,
however, there are no Cornish/English bilingual
roadsigns, even in areas such as west Cornwall where
language enthusiasm is a defining factor. (For
example, Mebyon Kernow - the Cornish nationalist
party - polled 40.2 percent of the vote in Camborne
West ward in local elections, taking the seat.)
There is no money available for Cornish language
education nor are there any grants available to
promote the Cornish language, even in the tourism
sphere where it could be argued that Cornwall's
status as a Celtic realm would work strongly in its
economic favour.
Cornish is not taught in school except as an
extra-cirricular activity after school hours, and
this ceases at secondary level education (i.e., from
11 years of age onwards). Cornish is not even
optional as a "foreign" language.
There is minimal Cornish language presence on Radio
Cornwall (some thirty minutes a week although this
fluctuates) and there is a regular Cornish sermon in
Truro Cathedral. There is a small but vibrant
Cornish language press which enjoys presence in
local libraries. Camborne Library has an extensive
Cornish language back issue section and subscribes
to all the main Cornish language journals.
There is no Cornish language presence whatsoever in
business or in local chambers of commerce. Cornish
is not recognised as a trading or legal language and
cannot be used in courts, legal documents or in
interactions with the police, medical services or
local government. Indeed, were one to attempt to use
Cornish in interactions with the police one would be
charged with obstruction or told to speak in
English.
Cornish is available in night classes at Cornwall's
only instutute of Higher Education, Cornwall
College, but otherwise Cornish has no role whatever
in further education and ceases to exist beyond
primary school education, as I have stated.
Cultural events are the sole domain in which
Cornish has established a recognisable presence,
with the creation and maintenance of a Cornish
Gorseth (Eisteddfod) which uses Cornish as its
working language, and various intermittent
culturo-nationalistic displays, including in theatre
and in film, which are typically produced in
collaboration with other Celtic countries for such
events as the Inter-Celtic film festival.
However, in all this, one is left very aware that
Cornish owes its prominence to individual initiative
and that it enjoys no official government support,
recognition or even tolerance.
I hope this is of some help. I shall return to the
issue of Welsh and Irish when I have more time.
Go raibh maith agaibh,
Críostóir.
----------
From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Language politics"
> From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
> Subject: Language politics
>
> (4) What is the current recognition status in the United Kingdom?
> (a) Has *any* language other than English been officially
> recognized?
I'm pretty sure that English is the only "official" languaage of the UK.
> (b) Have the ambivalent states of Welsh ("legal but not
> constitutionally enshrined"), Cornish ("not legal but
> recognized as a legitimate autochtonous language") and
> Gaelic ("not legal but used by some public bodies") been
> changed to official? (This is not Lowlands-related but is
> relevant regarding the principle of things.)
These were all correct a few years ago and I haven't heard anything to the
contrary since.
> (c) What, if any, is the official status of Scots at present?
None.
Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
- C.W.Wade,
'The Adventures o McNab'
----------
From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Language politics"
Some of the list languages have ISO 639-2 codes assigned
to them:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/
For example, Low Saxon is nds and Scots is sco.
Examples of use of these are given on the ISO site above,
such as identifying the language in which a document is
written or the language capabilities of delegates (I
think that means "people"?) at a meeting.
Obviously these are quite useful - when you go to a meeting
where they do ask for your language capabilities in this
form, you can put forth without fuss, you can make requests
to programmers of language software for your own to be included,
you can at last distinguish Scots from Gaelic, Low Saxon from
German &c in a way that officials can't argue about.
I was wondering what other use they could be to us as
enthusiasts for a particular language, especially when
that language has no other form of official recognition.
For example, in writing a letter to an official body,
perhaps the ISO code could be quoted after the first
mention of the language, eg,
"I am writing with regard to the possible use of Scots
(ISO 639-2 code "sco")..."
Then if the recipient inquires about this, an explanation
could be provided, ie it means that there is a significant
amount of documentation in the language, it's recognised
by the US Library of Congress &c.
What other uses could such codes be put to?
Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
- C.W.Wade,
'The Adventures o McNab'
----------
From: Ian James Parsley <parsleyij at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 14.MAR.2001 (06) [E]
Ron,
With reference to the UK, I daresay that English
itself has no real official status.
All I know about Welsh is that, in certain contexts,
it is obligatory to publish information in English and
Welsh. This would apply, for example, even to posters
in Cardiff University. There are no hard-and-fast
rules as to which language should appear first.
However, the translation must be faithful to the
original text (whichever way around it goes), and if
there is a legal dispute the English text is the
decisive one. But other list members will know more
about this than me.
The status of Scots is more uncertain. It would be
difficult to apply the above rules in any case, given
the difficulty in defining Scots to start with. The
'Ulster-Scots Agency' is known officially as 'Tha
Boord o Ulster-Scotch', despite the fact 'Boord' would
mean 'Board' rather than Agency, and the Agency *has*
a Board which is a distinct thing. The cross-border
language body (which also deals with Irish) is known
as 'the North/South Language Implementation Body',
'translated' into Scots as 'tha Boord o Leid'. Again,
this is not the same thing, and furthermore few Scots
speakers would recognize the use of 'Leid' in that
context ('langage' would be more accurate). This would
not be acceptable for Welsh.
Another minority language in the UK, of course, is
Irish, whose status is also somewhat uncertain and up
for debate.
Regards,
=====
------------------
Ian James Parsley
www.geocities.com/parsleyij
+44 (0)77 2095 1736
JOY - "Jesus, Others, You"
----------
From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language politics
Dear Lowlanders,
Thanks for all the interesting responses to my questions so far.
So I take it Limburgish *has* been officially recognized in the Netherlands.
Marco:
> But the 'Nederlandse
> Taalunie', that usually advises the Dutch government in matters like > this,
> now says to regret Low Saxon and Limburgish ever being recognized.
I do not think that should come as a huge surprise, going by the name
"Nederlandse Taalunie" ("Nederlands Language Union") alone, assuming that
"Nederlands" (usually loosely translated as "Dutch" in English) has by many
been considered some sort of superstructure conglomeration that includes all
autochtonous language varieties of the Netherlands except Frisian. (I am sure
some would want Frisian to be included also if they could get away with it.)
I think there is a general fear on the part of many Europeans that once you
recognize one minority language a horde of others will be knocking on the door
and demand the same. It will be a long process to get Europeans used to the
thought that recognizing diversity is not a root cause of "Balkanization,"
that, on the contrary, recognized and respected minorities are more likely to
be loyal to the state that recognizes and respects them.
It is not impossible that we are still dealing with the specter of the old
European ideal "one country - one language" here, where language boundaries
are expected to coincide with political boundaries, and if they don't they'll
be forced to. This is done more easily in some cases than in others. It is
relatively easy to maintain that Dutch, Low Saxon, Zeelandic and Limburgish
are one language and that Scots is a part of English, because of the close
genealogical relationship between them. (For the same reason it is fairly
easy for Poland to maintain that Kashubian is a Polish dialect group, for
Denmark to maintain that Southern Jutish is a Danish dialect group, and for
Sweden to maintain that Scanian is a Swedish dialect group.) It gets a little
harder maintaining that "Low German" is a part of German (considering that
German speakers do not understand it unless they are extensively exposed to
it), but it has been done, as we all know.
Similar misgivings are being expressed on in Northern Germany vis-à-vis
official recognition of Low Saxon ("Low German"), though apparently rarely
overtly so, as seen in the various stalling tactics regarding language policy
implementation.
I also suspect that there is the problem of the old assumption "one ethnicity
- one language." Low Saxon speakers of Germany are considered ethnically
German (as a result of Germanization); their language varieties must therefore
be assumed to be German. I am not so sure about Low Saxon speakers in the
Netherlands, but as far as I know they are not considered a separate ethnicity
from the Dutch either, thus are "Nederlanders," and their language thus ought
to be seen as a part of "Nederlands." The same is probably true of Limburgish
and will at least be an unspoken issue in the struggle for recognition of
Zeelandic. Pretence on the German side that Low Saxon of Germany is separate
from Low Saxon in the Netherlands may well be a part of this thinking mode.
Limburgish is used in the Netherlands, Begium and Germany. In Germany, the
Limburgish varieties are conveniently lumped together with the Low Saxon ones
under "Low German." If Limburgish is recognized in the Netherlands and
Belgium, it will be a predicament for the German. In the case of Low Saxon,
separation along the German-Netherlands border has by some been explained by
pointing out that the dialects of Germany have been German-influenced and that
those on the Netherlands side have been Dutch-influenced and that this has
resulted in estrangement. I guess, the same argument can be used regarding
Limburgish.
Sandy:
> Some of the list languages have ISO 639-2 codes assigned
> to them:
>
> http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/
>
> For example, Low Saxon is nds and Scots is sco.
> What other uses could such codes be put to?
Sandy, I can't really tell you what good these classifications do other than
putting these languages on the map, and I don't know how Scots managed to
stand up and be counted. Low Saxon got onto the list because I "pestered" the
committee about it. They requested information, such as about status, use,
literature, which I gave them, naturally along with an argument in favor of
recognition (e.g., mentioning that other languages in similar situations had
already been recognized). Going by snippets of their debate I got to read, I
got the impression that not all members agreed at first. (After all, most
libraries in the world still go by the old Germanistics-departments-dictated
system that treats "Low German" as a part of German and "the Saxon dialects of
the Netherlands" as a part of Dutch, and changing that would be cumbersome.)
However, they did agree in the end, and this has put Low Saxon *as a whole*
(i.e., both in Germany and the Netherlands) on the map starting with the
influential U.S. Library of Congress. As one LL-L subscriber, who used to
work at the Library of Congress, told me, this is a big deal, certainly is a
good beginning. After much debating, it was decided to use the code NDS to
stand for "NeDderSassisch," "NeDerSaksisch," "NieDerSächsisch," etc., as well
as for "NedderDüütSch," "NederDuitS," "NiederDeutSch," etc.
I see that Limburgish has not yet been included. Perhaps someone ought to
contact the International Organization for Standardization (iso639-2 at loc.gov)
about it.
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
==================================END===================================
You have received this because your account has been subscribed upon
request. To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l"
as message text from the same account to
<listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or sign off at
<http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
=======================================================================
* Please submit contributions to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
* Contributions will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
to be sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or at
<http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
* Please use only Plain Text format, not Rich Text (HTML) or any other
type of format, in your submissions
=======================================================================
More information about the LOWLANDS-L
mailing list