LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.11.12 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 12.NOV.2004 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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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: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.11.11 (07) [E]

>>>>>> Thanks for your clear explanations again. Yes, I was referring to the
large North Saxon dialect group.
By the way, I'd agree that in the Netherlands the Low Saxon of the province
of Groningen - including the Northern and partly Easter
parts of Drenthe - belong to the same dialect group, but not the
Stellingwarven dialects spoken in Fryslân.
Although Stellingwarfs shows some important similarities to the North Saxon
group, like Einheitsplural on _-en_ in stead of _-t_,
and _jou_ versus _ou/oe_ personal pronoun (sec. pers. sing.), for the rest
it's almost identical with South Western Drenthe
and Western Overijssel/Salland/North Eastern Veluwe dialects. And all the
latter are closely related to another Dutch LS subgroup,
that of Twente and the Achterhoek. That group, and the Eastern dialects of
it especially,  form in many ways the transition to
Westphalian LS.

Maybe one could say there is a separate South Western Low Saxon subgroup,
spoken in Overijssel, Gelderland, Southern Drenthe
and Eastern Friesland in the Netherlands, and in Westmünsterland and
Bentheim in Germany.
For me, whose "motherdialects" are both South Western Drenthish and
Achterhoeks, the dialects of this group feel as if they are the
same as the one I know. The others, in Groningen, Northern Germany and also
the real Westphalian and Eastphalian groups, are related
but still a bit more distant. And that has nothing to do with the
spelling...

It's a shame that so many people in German seem to have this strange
attitude towards Low Saxon. Maybe they're just not so much interested
in what's happening in a small neighbouring country like Holland. For us
Dutch Low Saxon speakers, the German border is never very far off,
mostly within less than 100 kilometres. But that doesn't count for the
majority of Germany of course, Hamburg is not so close to Groningen,
maybe half a day travelling by car. That might play a roll too, as well as
the fact that Germany is big enough to form more or less a small continent
itself, where as the much smaller Netherlands have always been dependant of
other countries so much.

Anyway, what you said about Dutch Low Saxon speakers being aware of related
dialects in Germany is true.

Ingmar

----------

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.11.11 (07) [E]

>>>>> An additional remark to this subject:
According to a map in Kloeke's "Herkomst en groei van het Afrikaans",
originating from Der Grosse Brockhaus IV/1929,
the whole North Eastern part of the Netherlands was not inhabited by Sachsen
(Saxons) but by Chamaven (Hamavians?)
in the early middle ages. Excluding Groningen, where Mittelfriesen (Middle
Frisians) dwelled. On this map, the Sachsen
lived in what is now Westphalia and Niedersachsen. In Ostfriesland (Germany)
we find Ostfriesen, in the Western Dutch
provinces of Holland and Zeeland the Westfriesen are located.
These Hamavians were part of the Franconian people, called Chamavische
Franken at this map.

If this situation would be still the same, that might mean that the language
of the Eastern Dutch provinces including small
parts of Germany is not Low Saxon but Hamavian Franconian. The name Hamaland
or Hameland is still used sometimes for the
Achterhoek region and neigbouring Westmünsterland, but used to include the
Veluwe, Twente and Southern Salland too.
Its main city/capital was Deventer in Southern Salland.

Maybe therefor it might be a good idea to rename what I called before the
South Western Low Saxon group into Hamavian or
Hamelands group.

> >>>>>> Thanks for your clear explanations again. Yes, I was referring to
the
> large North Saxon dialect group.
> By the way, I'd agree that in the Netherlands the Low Saxon of the
province
> of Groningen - including the Northern and partly Easter
> parts of Drenthe - belong to the same dialect group, but not the
> Stellingwarven dialects spoken in Fryslân.
> Although Stellingwarfs shows some important similarities to the North
Saxon
> group, like Einheitsplural on _-en_ in stead of _-t_,
> and _jou_ versus _ou/oe_ personal pronoun (sec. pers. sing.), for the rest
> it's almost identical with South Western Drenthe
> and Western Overijssel/Salland/North Eastern Veluwe dialects. And all the
> latter are closely related to another Dutch LS subgroup,
> that of Twente and the Achterhoek. That group, and the Eastern dialects of
> it especially,  form in many ways the transition to
> Westphalian LS.
>
> Maybe one could say there is a separate South Western Low Saxon subgroup,
> spoken in Overijssel, Gelderland, Southern Drenthe
> and Eastern Friesland in the Netherlands, and in Westmünsterland and
> Bentheim in Germany.
> For me, whose "motherdialects" are both South Western Drenthish and
> Achterhoeks, the dialects of this group feel as if they are the
> same as the one I know. The others, in Groningen, Northern Germany and
also
> the real Westphalian and Eastphalian groups, are related
> but still a bit more distant. And that has nothing to do with the
> spelling...
>
> It's a shame that so many people in German seem to have this strange
> attitude towards Low Saxon. Maybe they're just not so much interested
> in what's happening in a small neighbouring country like Holland. For us
> Dutch Low Saxon speakers, the German border is never very far off,
> mostly within less than 100 kilometres. But that doesn't count for the
> majority of Germany of course, Hamburg is not so close to Groningen,
> maybe half a day travelling by car. That might play a roll too, as well as
> the fact that Germany is big enough to form more or less a small continent
> itself, where as the much smaller Netherlands have always been dependant
of
> other countries so much.
>
> Anyway, what you said about Dutch Low Saxon speakers being aware of
related
> dialects in Germany is true.
>
> Ingmar

---------

From: Henry Pijffers <henry.pijffers at saxnot.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.11.11 (07) [E]

Ron schreev:
>
> I believe you are referring to the North Saxon dialect group, which, at
> least in area, is the largest.
>
Ron, are you aware of any good estimates regarding numbers of speakers?
I noticed your own estimates in the ethnologue at christuxrex.org, but
that doesn't say anything about the number of speakers per region.

> As a general rule, German speakers of North Saxon dialects have little
> to no
> problems understanding *any* dialect used in Germany, either spoken or
> written.
 >
I've spoken with a few speakers of North Saxon dialects, and they didn't
have much trouble following my dialect either. One example is this
German colleague I had from Rostock, he had trouble speaking to my other
(Dutch-speaking) colleagues, but we were able to speak pretty well in Saxon.

On a side note: I also showed him some texts I had in an orthography
similar to ANS, and he had no trouble reading that either.

> Yes, speakers in Germany, except those close to the border, do stumble
over
> what may or may not be considered Dutch loans in the dialects of the
> Netherlands.
 >
I'd like to make a list sometime of Dutch loans in Saxon dialects of the
Netherlands. Has anyone started such a thing yet?

> The point of this diatribe I'm in danger of getting lost in here is
> supposed to be that much of what you hear tends to be overblown.
Diversity? Yes.
> Communication problems? Not a lot, at least not when the spoken word is
> involved.
 >
One more example: Kenneth and I both write in ANS and NYS (my own thing,
basically ANS with a few small differences) to eachother, and have no
trouble understanding eachother. Right Kenneth? Yet he speaks a
North-Saxon variant, while I speak a somewhat archaic West-Saxon variant.

> In short, as I see it, the remaining obstacles are these, in this order:
>
> (1) language education > awareness > (re)unification
> (2) language-specific orthographic reform
>
> In my opinion, the second cannot precede the first.
>
I agree, though aren't that 4 separate things, in the order language 1)
education > 2) awareness > 3) reunification > 4) orthographic reform?

I think that 4 (ANS and others) will currently only be accepted by the
few people that have already undergone 1, 2 and 3. So how do you educate
the people...

Henry

----------

From: Henry Pijffers <henry.pijffers at saxnot.com>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2004.11.11 (06) [E]

Ingmar schreev:
>
>>>>>> Dear Henry,
>
> You're right, the Low Saxon language knows a lot of varieties.
> But I think the Northern German dialects of Niedersachsen has, or at least
> had, by far the most speakers and the widest territory where is is spoken.
> It's a rather homogenic variety, too, does not differ so much over a large
> territory, maybe as big as the whole Netherlands.
> The Dutch Low Saxon dialects are quite different from eachother and spoken
> by less people, each in small parts of the North Eastern provinces.
 >
I think your view is a little limited, but Ron can, and did already,
explain that much better.

> The Westphalian varieties are not so typical
 >
I beg to differ on that, but that's a different subject. Anyway, you
don't mean to say that the more different a variety is from other
languages, the more it should be used as primary example? I hope not.

> and speakers of Eastern Low
> Saxon (roughly ex-DDR) will have no trouble with the Nord Niedersachsisch.
 >
I don't either, neither with other Saxon dialects I have come into
contact with.

> Anyway, since Low Saxon is officially recognized as a real language, there
> has to be made a choice in this kind of cases when some standard of
> it is asked for.
 >
Why? Why make the same mistake as has been done with Dutch in the past?
(Although that mistake may have been rather deliberate.) Why not let
people have options, giving multiple variations.

> I would choose for ANS because other spellings are either too German or
too
> Dutch, and not easily understood by everybody.
> And ANS would reflect pronunciation a lot more accurate, because it was
> specially designed for Low Saxon...
 >
But there are other systems than just ANS. And how many followers
exactly does ANS currently have? I can't count any besides Ron, Kenneth
and myself. And I'm only counting myself because I see Ron and Kenneth
as a 2-person majority over me, with my own little system, which is in
fact pretty similar to ANS.

> That doesn't mean I would use it for my own variety of Dutch Low Saxon,
but
> that's only because of linguistical reasons...
>
That's interesting. What reasons exactly? If I can use ANS for my
variety, why can't you? I'm very "into" orthography at the moment, so
I'd very much like to hear your objections against using ANS or
something similar for your local variety.

good gaon,
Henry

----------

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

Ingmar (above):

> It's a shame that so many people in German seem to have this strange
> attitude towards Low Saxon. Maybe they're just not so much interested
> in what's happening in a small neighbouring country like Holland.

Well, Ingmar, what do you expect after centuries of ... well, let's call a
spade a spade ... propaganda that "Low German" is a German dialect group and
as such deserves no more attention and autonomy (i.e., no autonomy) than any
other German dialect group, with the indirect message "use your dialects,
but don't get any funny ideas (of separation/secession)!"?

All right, so some groups have always struggled for language status, but
most people weren't aware of that because it didn't exactly hit the daily
news.  So, all of a sudden along comes the European Languages Charter, _et
voilà _ success on a political level at the eleventh hour!  There are still
masses of folks, including native speakers, who are not really aware of
this, and if they've heard it mention it probably went right by most of
them; they don't really know what this means and what sort of opportunities
it offers.  They read the _Bild-Zeitung_ and other newspapers on that sort
of level, and they may at best watch snippets of the evening news, where
this issue isn't an issue.  It would be very naive to expect language
recognition to change the average person's mind overnight, certainly cannot
be expected to wipe away centuries of brain-washing and low linguistic
self-esteem just like this and make the language -- tadah! -- jump out of
all those closets and dance around in the streets.

Why, there are many native speakers who have sort of accepted the notion
that the language is about to be extinct and that that is probably all
right, that they belong to a dying breed, are like dinosaurs!

Add to this post-war developments in which at least city dwellers that grew
up after WW II  (and I know this because I a part of that population) threw
the baby out with the bath water by rejecting anything that even vaguely
fell into the category _Volkstum_ (regional traditions of the ethno-lingo
type), since these things had been thoroughly exploited by the Nazis for
their own sinister ends.   This includes commonalities between Germany and
the Low Countries and Scandinavia, by the way, which Nazi propagandists had
exploited in preparation for "annexation" (i.e., occupation) and for
courting collaborators.  (This is one of the reasons why some Germans have
jumped to false conclusions about Lowlands-L and have called me anything
from a Commie to a Nazi ...)  I think that this has something to do with
those vague cop-out statements I have received about "the Dutch" being "sort
of funny, over-sensitive" in response to my calls to include the dialects on
the Netherlands side (while my experience with folks on the Netherlands side
has been pretty much the opposite).  I would even go as far as to say that
educational levels, and thus levels of understanding, are generally higher
in the Netherlands than in Germany, certainly in the post-war generation.

Another thing you ought to consider is that in the Netherlands you can use
LS and be pretty much understood even by Dutch speakers who don't know the
language.  The difference between German and LS is much greater.  German
speakers usually don't understand it unless they are regularly exposed to
it.  Those outside the region often think they are listening to either some
sort of English or Dutch when they hear it spoken.

Henry (above):

> Ron, are you aware of any good estimates regarding numbers of speakers?
> I noticed your own estimates in the ethnologue at christuxrex.org, but
> that doesn't say anything about the number of speakers per region.

No, Henry.  I take all "estimates" with a large grain of salt, because they
are all over the place, ranging from one million to seven million in Germany
and from 1.5 million to three million in the Netherlands.  So far no
language census has been taken in Germany.  Some studies estimate the number
of North Germans knowing the language at just under 50%.  Personally, I
think this is inflated.  It may be the number of people that can ("sort of")
understand it.  Also bear in mind that there are people that think they
speak "Platt" but in reality speak _geel_ ("yellow"), i.e., watered-down
versions with moderate to heavy German interference full of literal
translations from German and even basic words that are "un-German" being
replaced by _patent-platt_ (German-based pseudo-LS) ones (such as _wer_ for
_(wou)keyn_ 'who' and _wie_ for _wou(ans)_ 'how').

> > The Dutch Low Saxon dialects are quite different from eachother and
spoken
> > by less people, each in small parts of the North Eastern provinces.
> >
> I think your view is a little limited, but Ron can, and did already,
> explain that much better.

I'm not so sure about that, Henry.  All I can say is that, while I
definitely recognize differences, I don't find the dialects of the
Netherlands vastly different from each other.  Again, it's orthography that
creates the impression that they are vastly different.  If what you write,
for example, phonemic /ei/ (ANS <ey>) as _aai_ in Groningen and as _ee_,
_ei_ or _ie_ elsewhere, and you do the same with other phonemes you'll end
up with very diverse *looks*.  Similarly on the German side, for instance
/ee/ ([e:] ~ [E:] ~ [eE] ~ [IE] ~ [iE] ~ [Ea]) being spelled _ee_ or _ää_ in
North Saxon and _iä_ in Westphalian, and then _äa_ in Mennonite LS
(Plautdietsch) ..., not to mention /aa/ being spelled _aa_, _ao_, _oa_, _o_
and _Ã¥_ ...  and then add to it the silly German _Dehnungs-H_ ("lengthening
h") ... The differences aren't all that great when you listen to the
dialects.

By the way, Henry, we may not (yet) agree on some orthographic details, but
I agree with everything you said above.  It seems that we are on the same
page.

> > That doesn't mean I would use it for my own variety of Dutch Low Saxon,
but
> > that's only because of linguistical reasons...
> >
> That's interesting. What reasons exactly? If I can use ANS for my
> variety, why can't you? I'm very "into" orthography at the moment, so
> I'd very much like to hear your objections against using ANS or
> something similar for your local variety.

Yeah, I meant to challenge you on this earlier.  What's that all about,
Ingmar, buddy?  It sounds a bit like "I encourage you all to use the ANS,
but I won't use it, because I'm different."  Tsk-tsk!  "For linguistic
reasons"?!  Are you being a silly goose, or are there considerations the
rest of us haven't thought about?  ;-)

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron

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