LL-L "Language policies" 2004.12.18 (02) [E]

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language policies" 2004.12.17 (01) [E]


Gary wrote:
"It just seems a shame that we Europeans are willing to make (what I see as)
these grand token gestures without sorting out the real language issues
within our countries."

I agree, absolutely - as I wrote earlier, I believe the Irish Government
half-hearted, duplicitous "do as we say rather than as we do" policy towards
Irish is about the worst possible model for language revival. True revival
in Ireland has only taken place when communities themselves, often just
individuals, have grasped the nettle and sorted it out on their own. I
suppose that has always been the case with language normalisation or
revival, from the Finnish-language enthusiasts in the Grand Duchy of Finland
(where Swedish was the official language) to the Israelis with Hebrew...
governments just don't trustworthy on the issue.

Gary also wrote:
"As I've said before, I always feel jealous of people who have a minority
language as
their mother tongue."

I suspect a lot of language enthusiasts do. Neither Cornish nor Irish is my
mother tongue: Nottingham English is. Perhaps we have a greater sense of
loss because we're not native speakers and seek to command the linguistic
tide to turn. Certainly non-native speakers have always been prominent in
language movements, especially in Ireland and Britain. It is also the case
with Irish and Welsh and other minority language that many native speakers
rebel against having a minority language in the first place, shifting to
English (or French or Spanish) in their teenage years, only to shift back to
their mother tongue once they realise its cultural worth. And some never do.

Ron wrote:
"Please believe me that I don't mean it to come across as patronizing when I
give praise you for having just demonstrated exemplary List conduct. It is
easy to get frustrated and even angry when discussing contentious issues of
this sort, and the two of you have shown how to do this with ingenuousness
yet with restraint, affability and amity."

Thanks! Glad I did it right.

Ron also wrote:
"After all, English had largely retreated to the "common" segments of
society. Reinstating it within the higher echelon took a lot of effort and
probably money, and even then you could have argued that it was in large
part done for symbolic, nationalistic reasons. However, had it not
happened, many of us would now be using French rather than English."

If I may indulge in some characteristic counter-factuals, Ron, we would have
been presented with the strange situation if French had succeeded in England
of English only surviving in a few mediaeval colonial enclaves - "the little
England beyond Wales" of the Gower in south Wales and in Ireland in the form
of Yola and Fingalian. Of course, this could have led to greater status for
Scots which I believe was in a better position vis-a-vis itself, Norman
French and Scottish Gaelic in Scotland. Instead of having a Gaeltacht,
Ireland would have a tiny Galltacht clinging to its extreme south west
coast... perhaps visited by scholars and linguists who wanted to study the
"Chaucerian dregs" of a tongue that almost completely vanished in England
itself, in much the same way the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway are
visited by the academic community now for Irish.

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Criostóir.

----------

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

Hi, Críostóir!

Those are noteworthy points and postulations.  Thanks.

I feel you brought out an interesting set of facts and thoughts, such as the
tendency of governments toward paying little more than lipservice in
language matters, or handing decision making to elite groups of instated,
supposedly expert scholar (whose fame may not always entirely be due to
their scholarly work but also to their networking, and whose work is
dependent on government funding).

As you said, frequently real changes have been brought about by individuals
and small groups, including non-native speakers (who tend to have a hard
time getting credibility and respect).

Thus, the power of individuals ought be underestimated.  Oftentimes it was
writers that gave ailing languages boosts, such as Klaus Groth and Fritz
Reuter in the case of Lowlands Saxon in Germany, Robert Burns in the case of
Scots, and  Handrij Zejler, Marja Krawčec and Mina Witkojc in the case of
Sorbian (Lusatian) -- even boosts given to healthy but previously
"insignificant" languages as for instance given to Danish by Hans Christian
Andersen and to Finnish by the oral literature collector Elias Lönnrot.

It is often said that if a language dies or survives ought to be a matter
for the native speakers to decide.  Let's play the devil's advocate here by
saying that "the native speakers" may hardly be assumed to be a homogeneous,
unanymous group and that, as a result of hostile climates and inferiority
complexes stemming from indoctrination and neglect, native speakers often
have what to me seem like "warped perspectives" in these matters, usually
due to being torn between love and loathing, with an overriding sense of
resignation.  For example, many Lowlands Saxon speakers in Germany,
especially in larger cities, have given up hope of language survival, may
even go along with the view that language death is a thing whose time has
come, yet these folks still love the language, only think it's a piece of
heritage whose time has passed, just as their own time lies in the past --
relics with relics about to disappear. During their retirement, when they no
longer need to conform to the majority, they may pursue some activities
involving the language, and this sometimes seems to me like having a last
big bash for old times' sake.   When you look at the literature about the
language you will find that these attitudes have been known since at least
the 18th century, and since that time the imminent death of the language has
been predicted.

Lusatia used to be a fairly sizeable land, stretching from about Dresden or
Leipzig to a part of Lower Silesia that is now under Polish administration.
Under German pressure, especially under pressure from church authorities,
native Sorbian speaker committees decided (or are *recorded* as having
decided) to ban Sorbian from church services and then from city council
proceedings.  They had been led to believe that their native language
deserved to be banned and abandoned, and they did so, also in the then
capital city Zhorjelc/Zgorzelec/Görlitz.  We don't know how long people hung
on to the language in their homes, but we do know that soon after that it
had disappeared and almost the entire area had become German-speaking.  It
disappeared for good, and with it much of Sorbian culture and creativity.
It so happens that a few Sorbian dialects survived in a small enclave, on
high moores and in swamps that were less accessible, had poor soil and were
generally undesirable among Germans (or Germanized Slavs), except for those
that settled there to exploit the cheap labor of the "Wends."  This is the
area that is called Lusatia now, a small area with "quaint" towns and
villages that meanwhile either became tourist traps or gave way to open-pit
mining.  And young Sorbs are still leaving their homes and abandoning their
language.

My point is that it's pretty darn convenient for majority power to create a
hostile environment for languages and economic incentives for abandoning
them and then say it should be up to the native speakers themselves to
decide if these languages should be maintained.

And then there is the search-and-find of "the last native speaker," a sort
of official burial ceremony, a marker that signals permission to begin using
the past tense when speaking of a language.

As has become fairly evident in the case of Cornish, language proficiency,
albeit usually somewhat deficient, continued even after Dolly Pentreath's
death in 1777. So it is not correct to say that the Cornish revival movement
resurrected the language -- revived (and given a bit of plastic surgery),
but not actually resurrected.  This seems analogous to declaring that
("Queen") Truganini (1812-1876) was the last Tasmanian Aborigine.
Descendants of aboriginal Tasmanians remain -- I have met some myself -- but
they and their movement are in some quarters considered fakes ("descendants
of part-aborigines from Mainland Australia"). Who knows if speakers remained
after the last reported speaker of Draveno-Polabian died in the Lunenburg
(Lüneburg) area at the very end of the 18th century?  Chances are that this,
too, was just used as a time marker and that pockets of these farwestern
Slavonic varietes survived for a while.*  However, unlike in the case of
Cornish, the language was actually abandoned, apparently due to the apparent
absence of a pro-Slavonic movement in that area.

It is worth bearing in mind that we are here dealing with more subtle,
sophisticated methods of assimilating minorities.  Similarly, in the old
Eastern Bloc country minorities tended to be paraded for show while their
languages and cultures were, if not "discouraged," "starved" to death by
neglect.  Elsewhere it may not have been as subtle, as in the 20th-century
Japanese attempts at integrating the Ainu population or the treatment of
Kurdish and Slavonic in Turkey and Greece respectively.  (I am not
finger-pointing and singling out, am just picking out some recent examples.)

Sure, there are the "what-ifs" ... Perhaps they aren't all that irrelevant
in that they can show us what courses of events can be triggered by
relatively minor decisions.  What if ...? Well, Western Australia and the
United States may have become Dutch-speaking, or German-speaking if the
Netherlands had not managed to gain independence, and South Africa may have
become the land of the last "intact" "Dutch" enclave.  As you said,
Críostóir, Scots may have had a shot at dominating Britain had it not been
for a small group of (mostly Cornish!) scholars that fought to reinstate
English after Norman occupation.  Outside the Lowlands, all or most of
Iberia may now be Arabic-dominated, and, if things had continued, a
relatively tolerant, vibrant and multicultural society (the al-Andalus
civilization) may have born even greater fruits had events not led up to the
Inquisition. Arabic or, perhaps more likely, Italian may have come to
dominate what is now Latin America.  Would there have been a "continent" of
Europe had it not been for the Crusades and for Mongol-led invasion?  Would
we have anti-Semitism and today's international Middle East problems if the
West would have acknowledged the Crusades as one of history's greatest
injustices, one of the greatest holocausts?  There are many "what-ifs" ...
A waste of time?

Críostóir:

> Thanks! Glad I did it right.

Let it be said at this opportunity that this was not some fluke, that the
List would not be the same without your energy and input.

Regards, Happy Holidays and ...
Hold fast!
Reinhard/Ron

* The Lord's Prayer in (more or less strongly Saxonized) Farwestern Slavonic
varieties (of what is now Northern Germany) and the dates of their
recording:

Polabian Proper (Linonian), Ratzeburg on Laba/Elbe, 1691:

   Noos Wader, tada tö jüs wa tuem Nibisien,
   Sioncta mo-wardoot tüi Seimang (~ Jeimang);
   Tüi Rieck cumma;
   Tua Willia mo-ssa schiniot wa Nibisjen, eak wissei soquoi noo Ssime,
   Noossi daglitia Sjeibe dii nam daans;
   Un wittodüman noosse Greichie,
   cook moy wittodujeme noossume Greihynarim;
   Ni farforii nas wa Versoikung;
   Erlösü nas wil tigge Goidac.  Hamen.

Draveno-Polabian, Danneberg, 1711:

   Nôs hôlya wader ta toy chiss wa nebisgái.
   Sjunta woarda tugi geima.
   Tia rìk komma.
   Tia willa schingôt koke nebisgáy, kok kak no sime.
   Nôessi wisse danneisna stgeiba doy nam dans.
   Un wittedoy nom nôsse ggreîs tak moy wittedogime nossem gresnarim.
   Ny bring goy nôs ka warsikônge.
   Tay lôsoáy nôs wit wissókak Chundak.

Draveno-Polabian, Lüchow, 1795:

   Nesse wader, tu toy Jiss wa nebis hay.
   Siungta woarda tygi cheyma.
   Tujae rick kommae.
   Tia wiliae szmweh rok wa nebis hay, kak no zimie.
   Un wy by doy nam nesse chrech kak moy.
   Wy by dayne nessen chresmarym.
   Ni bringwa nass na wasskonie.
   Day lizwaynes wit wyskak chandak. Amen.

Draveno-Polabian, Bülitz, 1822:

   Eyta nossi tang toy bist en Neby.
   Sjenta werde tija geyny.
   Kommoja tija Ritge.
   Tija Wilja blyoye kock en Neby koick en Simea.
   Nossi wisse danneisna stjeiba, dogeyra nôss dà ns.
   Un schenkôs nossi weineck, kock wy schenkôt nossi weinecker.
   Un bringoye nos en wienick wersöcke.
   sseze die sölva nôs de ggrêck,
   wyltiya blift to Ritge, ti Môcht un warchene Büsatz
   nigangka un nirugnissa. Amen.

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