LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.13 (02) [E]

Mon Mar 13 17:46:54 UTC 2006

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   L O W L A N D S - L * 13 March 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.12 (04) [E]

> From: Theo Homan <theohoman at yahoo.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.11 (03) [D/E]
>
> From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
> Subject: L-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.10 (05) [E]
>
> [...]
>
> >  " sin seveser "
> ***
>
> ???
>
> vr.gr.
> Theo Homan

Tgau/Hoi Mijnheer Homan,

"Sin Seveser" is "Tot ziens" "Auf Wiedersehen" "See You" in Rhaethoroman.
It's easy to find by googling, and the other one "Tgau", you didn't ask for,
is the equivalent to italien "Ciao". I myself didn't know it till I found it
by googling for my last posting. Thanks for your request.

Doei
Karl-Heinz Lorenz

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.12 (04) [E]

Ron wrote:
"However, it would make a lot of sense that they [i.e., the Sorbs] retained 
the language, given that their ancestors' emigration was primarily prompted 
by suppression of their language on the part of the Prussian government."

Welsh speakers migrated to the Chubut Valley in Patagonia in the 1860s for 
the same reason, but soon became bilingual in Castillian with the 
consequence that whilst Welsh is still used in the area, its domains are 
limited and its maintenance is vestigial rather than popular.

Go raibh maith agat

Críostóir.

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From: Karl Schulte <kschulte01 at alamosapcs.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.12 (04) [E]

Dear Reinhard et al,
My father's community did preserve "German" which was really a mix of
Fries and Hochdeutsch at home/school/church. My father's generation
seldom used English, and it was his 4th LL after Fries, High German ,
Spanish - most of the workers "hands" were of Mexican background. Church
was all in German (Lutheran), catechism as well, and a different version
at home (which he later realized was a mix of Saxon and Fries - his
mother was a Lindeborg from S/H) and was bilingual in Danish and
Saxon/Fries(?). Only because the Texas State school system realized what
was going on when he was about 10, was instruction in school changed to
English (which had been taught a sa foreign language.  There are still
stories about hiding young men/older teens from Army recruiters as it
was at first thought it was the Kaiser's army for which the recruiting
was being done! Sadly, I only knew a little German (he is about 4 feet
high....sorry about that, it just came out) and less Norsk (used to keep
secrets from my little ears).  As mentioned there are still pockets in
Texas, almost all my age (61) or more, but they are passing away fast.

Best,

Karl Schulte

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

Hi, everyone!

> Welsh speakers migrated to the Chubut Valley in Patagonia in the
> Welsh 1860s for the same reason, but soon became bilingual in
> Welsh Castillian with the consequence that whilst Welsh is still
> Welsh used in the area, its domains are limited and its maintenance
> Welsh is vestigial rather than popular.

This is what I heard, too, and it's what I had expected in the Sorbian 
communities of Texas and Australia.  I have to add, though, that it was not 
the Prussian government that started to oppress the Sorbian language.  It 
did so in what is *now* Lusatia, just a tiny fraction of the former one. 
There are early reports (17th & 18th century), for instance, about the 
Lutheran congregation of Zhorjelc (at one point the Lusatian capital, now 
German-speaking Görlitz on the left side of the Neiße/Nysa and 
Polish-speaking Zgorzelec on the right side of the river), deciding that 
Sorbian was unsuitable and offensive as a language of worship, that 
therefore German be used henceforth.  Apparently, this was the _modus 
operandi_: church powers "persuading" the Sorbs to stop that "Wendish" stuff 
and making it sound as though it was the speakers' own decision.  Given that 
people's lives revolved around the church then, this hastened the demise of 
the language in general.  Apparently that's what went on pretty much 
everywhere in the region.  The only reason Sorbian survived in today's 
Lusatia is that the area has poor soil and was thus not attractive to ethnic 
German settlers before the discovery of great coal deposites, and in some 
communities the ethnic Germans were poor and in the minority, so that many 
of them knew Sorbian as a second language as late as in the early 20th 
century.  Sorbian language and culture is better preserved in Roman Catholic 
communities, probably because there are few of them, and they may have been 
conservative as a matter of tradition and defiance.  However, what I heard 
about the (mostly Lutheran) emigrants was that they hung out with German 
Lutherans once the strangeness of the new land hit them, and that this 
hastened the dwindling of their language in Texas and Australia.

I understand that Low Saxon communities in the US Midwest tended to be 
transplants from specific villages (not towns or cities) in Northern Germany 
and thus had stronger linguistic bases to start with, with less German 
encroachment.  The advantage here was communal rural-to-rural migration. 
Once in America, schooling was in English.  As a result, many people are 
bilingual in Low Saxon and English, with little, if any, German proficiency.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron 

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