LL-L "Language survival" 2003.04.14 (11) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Thomas Byro <thbyro at earthlink.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2003.04.13 (07) [E]

Everyone

I think that there is more behind the dissappearance of languages and
dialects that simply government sponsored oppression.  Such oppression can
have the opposite effect.  My cousing Istvan, although married to a Rumanian
woman and living in Bucharest, resolutely defended his right to use his
native Hungarian language and even went so far aS TO persuade the American
billionaire George Soros to contribute millions to fund the Count Teleki
Institute for Higher Learning in Sovata, Rumania.  A language also has to
provide food for the mind.  I grew up in an area that was overwhelmingly
Plattdeutsch speaking.  My parents though had by far the largest personal
library in the area, hundreds of books but all in Hochdeutsch. I never even
suspected that books in Plattdeutsch existed.  Ron has suggested that part
of the problem is that a standardized spelling does not exist for
Plattdeutsch.  A conversation I had this weekend suggest that the same
problem exists with other languages, such a Pennsylvania Dutch.

I stopped off at Haags Hotel in Shartelsville, PA this past Sunday to pick
up a cup of coffee on the way to New York and spoke to the hotel keeper.  He
said that the people in the area tend to speak Pennsylvania Dutch until
there is a stranger present, then they revert to English.A big problem
though, he felt, was that no standardized spelling and grammar existed.
This has made the publishing of books in the language a less than successful
venture.  Perhaps this is something that should be tackled in the lowlands
language areas as well.  People need the intellectual stimulation of books
and anything that impedes the publishing of books should be eliminated.

Incidentally, he told me that they received a visitor from Schwaben several
weeks ago.  The gentleman sat down at the bar and was able to converse with
the locals without any serious difficulty.  This in spite of the fact that
the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Dutch came here over 300 yeras ago.

Tom Byro

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