LL-L: "Low Saxon" LOWLANDS-L, 09.OCT.2001 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 09.OCT.2001 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachian, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic, Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: AMeyfarth at t-online.de (Anja Meyfarth)
Subject: LL-L: "Low Saxon" LOWLANDS-L, 04.OCT.2001 (01) [E]

Moin moin!

Ron wrote:

> It was good to be away for a while (on vacation), but it is just as good to be
> back, also on Lowlands-L, which Sandy Fleming ran so ably in my absence.

Nice to have you back!

> Linguistic Observations:
>
> Since I was visiting Northern Germany primarily for family reasons, and only
> briefly so, I was unable to do as "thorough" an "assessment" of things Low
> Saxon (Low German) as I usually do on my visits, although none of my visits
> ever consists of much more than a series of glimpses by a quasi-outsider.
> However, this time around I did at least manage to search for Low Saxon
> material in a number of bookstores in Hamburg and Lunenburg
> (Lüünborg/Lüneburg), talk with several people of different ages and with
> different levels of interest about the language, and received some in-person,
> in-depth information from Clara Kramer-Freudenthal (who is also a LL-L
> subscriber) and from Jürgen Hebold, a common friend and language activist, who
> sent me off with a large bag full of recent publications.  (I will list some
> noteworthy titles at the end.)

It´s a pity that you couldn´t come to Bad Bevensen. We held our annual meeting
from friday 21st till sunday 23. The "Bevensen Dagfohrt" (or in High German
"Bevensen Tagung für niederdeutsche Sprache") is held every year in september.
There meet authors and audience to work on a special theme. It´s always shere
fun. This year we dealed with theatre: How to write a play. The title of
the meeting was "Wiiliam, maak dor keen Drama vun..." ("William, don´t make a
drama out of this...") Everyone is learning a lot and it´s always like a
family meeting.

> On two occasions,
> when I asked young bookstore sales assistants where their _niederdeutsche_
> books were, they asked, _(Meinen Sie) plattdeutsche?_  In one store, the owner
> did understand and, assuming my ignorance, gave a mini-lecture, saying among
> other things, _Das ist ja eigentlich auch eine Art Fremdsprache_ ("Actually,
> that's some sort of foreign language too."), to which I replied, _Ja, leider_
> ("Yes, unfortunately.").  I asked why in that case she shelved the books under
> _Heimatkunde_ together with books of local interest instead of under
> _Sprachen_ ("Languages").  She explained that she was merely following
> tradition and that it was assumed that the average customer was not ready for
> such a "radical" reclassification.  This type of explanation -- "We have to
> keep things traditional and simple for the average, ignorant Jo" -- is the
> usual excuse for treating the language as a "down home" topic and thus for
> perpetuating the image of it as _Mundart_ ("dialect") rather than as _Sprache_
> ("language"), as a language among other languages.

That´s quite typical, sometimes one has to be lucky to find low saxon books
at all.

> Low Saxon book offerings vary greatly from store to store.  Even in store
> chains it seems to depend on the individual book buyers' personal choice.
> Thus, I found radically different offerings in two downtown branches of
> Thalia, no more than a ten-minute walk's distance from each other.  The
> better, wider choice was found at the smaller of the branches.  Parochial and
> comedic works predominate by far, and some stores stock no "serious" titles at
> all, not even dictionaries.  I did not find any copies of serious literary
> works at all, such as those by Waltrud Bruhn.  The smaller Thalia branch did
> offer the readers for schools in Schleswig-Holstein.  (See below.)  I found
> better selections in Lunenburg than in Hamburg, Lunenburg being a much
> smaller, provincial city.  Serious students of the language would need to rely
> on libraries (especially Hamburg's Carl-Toepfer-Bibliothek) and would need to
> research offerings and order books through certain stores.  In other words,
> ordinary bookstores do not usually represent what is really available.  They
> tend to stock only what they believe to be demanded by the public, and thus
> they dictate by way of imposed limitation.  As a result, the ordinary
> interested person who relies only on local bookstores and does not conduct any
> research beyond that will be made to believe that light, trivial entertainment
> is all that is available in the language, and this serves to perpetuate the
> image of the language and its literature as provincial and inconsequential.

Especially in Hamburg the low saxon books are meant as souvenirs for tourists,
that look for "typical" books. For them it is easier to take a book with
"Döntjes"
(funny tales) than to take a book that needs hard reading and thinking.
And the Quickborn-Verlag is making the greater part of the money with Rudolf
Kinau who wrote about his golden childtime (in a very poor family in times
that were no golden at all). By that their financing other, serious authors.

> By and large, the electronic and print media also help to perpetuate this
> image.  Where Low Saxon is included in local newspapers it tends to be
> relegated to small, chatty columns.  Its use in television tends to be minimal
> and limited to light entertainment.  Hamburg's Ohnsorg Theater, which
> specializes in Low Saxon plays, still adapts its plays for TV: in German
> translation with an "accent."  It is only on the radio that you hear "serious"
> news in Low Saxon, usually in abbreviated form, and once in a while serious
> radio plays are broadcast.

There had been low saxon news in television once a week, but only in
Slesvig-Holstein. It disappeared, why, I don´t know. The radio plays are
broadcasted every second week, so thats a tradition from the early days of
broadcast. I could be more and we all hope that it will get more again.
As a matter of fact you didnt happen to see "Talk op platt" which is quite
seriuos although it could be better. But they were still on holiday in
september.

> In short, I came away with the impression that, despite recent political
> gains, marginalization of Low Saxon in Northern Germany continues, that most
> of its speakers continue to use the language mostly outside public arenas,
> that most people still do not think of it as a legitimate, independent
> language, that those who are seriously interested in it must still go out of
> their way, must join marginal minority networks to gain access to the full
> range of publications and performances in the language.

All he needs is the full program of the publishing houses or take a look
on the web side of the INS (Institut für niederdeutsche Sprache, Bremen). That
can be found over www.bremen.de. An interested book store would nevertheless
be a great help.

Dear Ron, have a great times reading the books you could get hold of.

Greetings,

Anja

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Low Saxon

Moin, Anja and Lowlanders!

Thanks for your nice response and wishes, Anja.  Much appreciated.  Your
meeting in Bad Bevensen sounds like a terrific experience, and I am happy to
hear that such creative things are being put together.

> All he needs is the full program of the publishing houses or take a look
> on the web side of the INS (Institut für niederdeutsche Sprache, Bremen). > That
> can be found over www.bremen.de. An interested book store would > nevertheless be a great help.

I agree that it (http://www.hprg.de/ins-presse/) is a very good and valuable
source of information for those who can read German.  Those folks deserve a
big pad on their backs for providing this service.  However, while it is a
wonderful resource for anyone interested on any level, the information given
there is, after all, and naturally, limited, i.e., selective, and those who
are seriously interested cannot rely on it as their sole source of
information.  For example, the winners of the Freudenthal Prize for Low Saxon
Literature used to be announced at that website every year, promptly.  This
year the winner has not been announced, although winners of other competitions
have been announced since then.  I do not know if this is a merely accidental
omission or if there is a connection between it, the Institute's consistent
omission of any reference to Low Saxon in the Netherlands in their
publications and news releases, and the fact that this year, for the first
time in its history, the Freudenthal Prize winner is a Low Saxon writer from
the Netherlands, i.e., Henk Krosenbrink of the Dialektkring Achterhook en
Liemers.

Yes, the resource you mentioned is a very important one.  However, anyone who
seeks to be more widely informed about the various goings-on regarding the Low
Saxon (Low German) language, in a less selective way, needs to use other
resources as well, even if this be limited to the Internet.  This is one of
the main reasons why I am bothering with "Nu is de Welt platt!"
(http://www.geocities.com/sassisch/rhahn/low-saxon/plattewelt.htm), where I
list all the Low Saxon (Low German) organizations (anywhere in the world) I
know of and link to their websites or to relevant websites wherever possible.
Naturally, this is a work in constant progress and relies heavily on help.

Again, thanks, and regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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