LL-L "Language contacts" 2002.07.13 (06) [E/LS]

[Lowlands-L]

Oops! This was supposed to go out under the current heading. I blame the
oppressive summer heat. RFH
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 L O W L A N D S - L * 13.JUL.2002 (06) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 Web Site: <http://www.sassisch.net/rhahn/lowlands/>
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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: globalmoose at t-online.de (Global Moose Translations)
Subject: LL-L "Language contacts" 2002.07.13 (02) [E]

Dear Lowlanders,

yes, I feel the same way about this as Fiete does; the concept of "one"
Lower Saxon dialect confuses me a lot.

I grew up in a village in Southern Lower Saxony, in the Solling region
of
the Weser "highlands", just west of the Harz mountains. My mother hails
from
Mecklenburg, so whatever Platt I heard from her and her brothers was
closely
akin to the writings of Fritz Reuter. My father's paternal ancestors
were
shepherds in the Harz for many centuries, while his mother grew up on a
farm
in the Lüneburger Heide. Plus, my mother's employer, who was a close
friend
of the family, grew up near Hamburg and spoke coastal Platt to me a lot
(I
posted her Christmas poem, "Kujees kümmt", on Lowlands years ago).

So I was exposed to no less than five different flavours of Platt as a
child, of which the Sollinger Platt was the "broadest" by far, and the
hardest to understand. Later my family moved to the renowned city of
Hamel(i)n on the Weser, and there I encountered yet another flavour. So
I am
afraid I never learned to speak Platt "properly", i.e. in any pure
flavour
that any of the mentioned groups would have accepted as "theirs"
(although I
am probably closest to Mecklenburger Platt, since it was "mameloschen",
so-to-speak - and I have never even been to Mecklenburg).

Later, in university, I overheard two friends talk to each other in what
sounded to me like Polish, although I could have sworn they were from
Northern Germany (especially with a first name like "Hark"). I asked
them,
and they laughed and told me they were both from the island of Föhr.
Even
growing up with Platt, I had not been able to identify it - it was that
different!!

On my first visits to the Netherlands, I could make myself understood
just
fine speaking Platt - which I was then able to do "naturally", without
thinking about it. But ever since I have been fluent in Dutch, I have
found
myself unable to speak even my mongrel Platt any more, because what
comes
out is always Dutch. And I would feel really silly trying to speak Platt
these days and fishing for words like it was a foreign language! The
only
times when it still comes out is when I feel excited or angry, then it's
always "Jau!", "Man tau" or "Smiet man jümmer wech!".

So here's my tale of woe - the "real" Platt seems to elude me to this
day.

Greetings,
Gabriele Kahn

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language contacts

Gabriele wrote (above):

> Later, in university, I overheard two friends talk to each other in what
> sounded to me like Polish, although I could have sworn they were from
> Northern Germany (especially with a first name like "Hark"). I asked > them,
> and they laughed and told me they were both from the island of Föhr. Even
> growing up with Platt, I had not been able to identify it - it was that
> different!!

Could that be because they were speaking a different language, namely
the Insular North Frisian variety (Fering) of Feer/Föhr, which is easily
mutually intelligible only with the (Öömrang) variety of the Isle of
Oomrang/Amrum?

So far I have never encountered a Lowlands Saxon ("Platt", "Low German")
variety I did not understand.  If it was called "Platt" or "plat" and I
didn't understand it, it was because it was not a Saxon dialect but a
Low Franconian, Limburgish or Rhenish dialect. (In Germany so have been
lumped together with Lowlands Saxon ones under this one "Platt" label.)

> yes, I feel the same way about this as Fiete does; the concept of "one"
> Lower Saxon dialect confuses me a lot.

I would respectfully (and I mean it) submit that this is because of a
conceptual misunderstanding, probably in part induced by the two
malevolent ghosts that keep haunting tribalist Europe's thinking, their
names being "Uniformity" and "Purity."

No one in their right mind would suggest that there be a single dialect
of Lowlands Saxon ("Low German"), unless it could be some separate
formally written variety for non-personal and non-artistic communication
(which will never happen).  What some hopefully sane people are talking
about is that (1) people relax, stop being stifled by the inherited fear
of impurity, and (2) bridge any gaps that can be bridged, for instance
by coming together and by coming up with a uniform (and internationally
acceptable) way of writing the various dialects, so that interdialectal
communication be at least as easy as it is in spoken form.

(1) There is no such thing as a pure language/dialect -- no, not even in
Iceland (where foreign words are filtered out of the written standard)
and in the post-Soviet Baltic countries (where, like in France, language
committees and the language police have been patrolling the streets in
search of evil foreign words on public display).  Our languages and
cultures thrive and blossom in large part *because* of
cross-pollination, mutual inspiration and a sharing of supra-regional
and inter-human experiences and expressions.  As long as people
communicate and mix with each other, there is no such thing as a pure
language, culture or race (if you subscribe to the concept of "race,"
which I don't), and we all know from the not so distant past where these
obsessions with purity can land you.  The sooner we throw out these
purist pipe dreams the sooner we will relax and actually get something
done re saving our language(s), first of all by creating a general sense
of the language as a whole.  Deliberately and forcibly introducing words
or expressions from other languages or dialects is an extreme thing few
people would advocate.  However, what's with the North German obsession
with "pure dialects," angry calls and letters to radio stations whose
anchor persons dare to mix dialects, or writers being ridiculed for
doing the same in their published works, and editors insisting on giving
the author's exact place of birth and native dialect (apparently for the
reader to check the work for authenticity and purity of language, based
on the assumption that people don't leave their native places and roam
around)?  Give me a break!  Nu maal sinnig!  Folks, relax!  If you don't
you'll "purify" your dialects and the entire language right out of
existence under the motto "Lever dood as mengeleert!" ("Rather dead than
mixed!").

(2) No, contrary to common, paranaoid assumptions, instituting such a
generally applicable orthographic *system* would *not* destroy
linguistic diversity, would not change dialects.  People could still use
their dialects in writing, just write them so speakers of other dialects
can more easily understand them.

Folks, I know that above I said a few things that may be perceived as
overly critical, even as _Nestbeschmutzung_.  It's not intended to
attack anyone, just to make people snap out of the stifling, limiting
pattern of assumptions that make them resistent to change while the
language they profess to love is on a respirator in the intensive care
unit.  Besides, I'm a born and raised European, even if a "tearaway," am
thus talking about my own people and get to say a few "harsher" things
about them.

Leve Lüüd', wenn wi wat för us Spraak doon wüllt, denn möött wi anfangen
ahn Bang över d'n Gaarntuun to kieken, bit wied hin an de Kimm.

Grötens un Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron

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