LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.08.08 (02) [E]

Wed Aug 8 14:49:14 UTC 2007

=======================================================================

 L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226

 http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.php

 Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org - lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net

 Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html

 Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html

 Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]

 Administration: lowlands.list at gmail.com or sassisch at yahoo.com

 You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
 To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
 sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

 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 (Zeeuws)

=======================================================================

L O W L A N D S - L  -  08 August 2007 - Volume 02

 ========================================================================

From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.08.06 (03) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com <mailto:sassisch at yahoo.com>>
> Subject: Language maintenance
>
> Dear Lowlanders,
>
> This morning I had a chance encounter and conversation with a visitor
> from a Blackfoot reservation in Montana, and inevitably we brushed on
> the subject of language.
>
> I have traveled through Blackfoot country both on the US side
> (Montana) and on the Canadian side (Alberta).  It struck me how spread
> out the population is and how remote some of their locations area, and
> I imagined that this would be difficult with regard to communication
> but also possibly favorable with regard to language and culture
> preservation.
>
> The lady I spoke with made it clear that her people are used to wide
> open country and long-distance traveling, and for many of them the
> international border is merely a technicality.  This means that there
> is a fair bit of ethnic cohesion and communication despite the
> physical and political conditions. Furthermore, there has been a
> softening of earlier tribal divisions within this Blackfoot (
> Nitsitapii) confederacy: North Peigan (Aapatohsipiikanii), South
> Peigan (Aamsskaapipiikanii), Kainai ( Kainaiwa, "Blood") and Siksika
> (Siksikawa, Blackfoot proper), the South Peigan living in Montana, all
> others in Alberta.
>
> She told me that she does not speak her ancestral language and is a
> monolingual English speaker, which is typical. She described the
> typical story of linguistic neglect, discouragement and prohibition,
> including punishment for using the language in school. This is not
> unheard of in our Lowlands language area either, as most of you know.
> Therefore, most speakers are old and even ancient.
>
> She further told me that there is now a movement striving to bring
> back the language, mostly through courses, though it is not clear if
> it has been introduced as a part of ordinary school curricula. (There
> are indications that this is the case on the Canadian side, e.g.,
> tinyurl.com/28emny <http://tinyurl.com/28emny> , and a private school
> in Great Falls, Montana, tinyurl.com/ys9lsf <http://tinyurl.com/ys9lsf>.)
>
> One of her uncles happens to teach the language in Great Falls.
> Apparently the experience has been that most or sometimes even all of
> his students are "white." She smiled, grinned perhaps.  I asked her
> how she herself felt about that.  She had to think for a little while.
> I suspect she wanted to find something socially acceptable to say.
> Then she said something to the effect that she guessed her uncle had a
> point when he said, "Just as long as someone's learning it ..."
>
> I think this is not irrelevant to issues related to Lowlands minority
> languages, their maintenance and activism. The "racial" issue isn't
> really important. We might boil it down to saying that there is often
> more interest among people whose ancestral languages they are not.
> Reactions to this among people whose ancestral languages they are tend
> to be mixed, and sometimes the enthusiasm on the part of these
> "outsiders" is dampened by attitudes among the actual heirs, including
> heirs that choose not to know or use the languages.
>
> What are your thoughts about this?
>
> Regards,
> Reinhard/Ron
>
My theory about it is that: There are two types of people. Ideologists
and pragmatists. Ideologists want to form the world after their own
point of view and agenda, while pragmatists accomodate to the changes in
the world. Rural people tend to be pragmatists and try to live in line
with their environment. "Einklang mit der eigenen Umwelt". If the world
changes and their mother-language dies, cause it is not useful enough
anymore, pragmatists are sad about the change, but they accept the
change. You can't stop the change anyway, so don't waste your resources.
Ideologists think in another way. They think in terms like "rights" and
"freedom". I have the right to speak my language and speaking my
language is part of my personal freedom. Language decline constricts
this rights. And rights have to be defended. Cause they get lost, if you
don't defend them. This is reason enough to fight for the language.
Ideologists are very opinionated, having opinions to every topic, when
pragmatists only have opinions about topics important to them. This is
visible in Wikipedia too. Wikipedia is a place mostly of ideologists. In
Wikipedia a discussion about a nothingness can degrade to a long
rhetoric battle, cause both sides cannot accept foul compromises (that
means anything other than their own position). A pragmatist would say
"Mook man" and accept a proceeding other than his own position.

This "more interest among people whose ancestral languages they are not"
comes therefrom. The language heirs are mostly pragmatists. In earlier
times keeping the old language was pragmatic, cause no other language
was needed for daily life. Now this has changed and the pragmatic choice
is to select a standard language, cause it is hard to stand in a
globalized world speaking only a non-standard language. And bilinguality
is waste of ressources if you need to know the standard language anyway.
Pragmatists don't lay too much worth into abstract values. I guess all
people on this list would agree, that language diversity is a positive
thing. Like biodiversity. But: Is it really? If a language dies or a
species gets extinct, well why do you care? what's the problem when the
panda bear disappears? No problem at all, we don't need panda bears for
nothing! Whether diversity is a value on its own is a point of view. At
least you can have different opinions on how much effort appropiate to
keep diversity. Pragmatists won't employ much effort on a diversity
hindering their life. But for (language) ideologists language diversity
is a significant value. Cause traditional communities speaking
non-standard languages are a bad *breeding ground for ideologists,
ideologists mostly come from the ideologized outside.*

The way to rescue a language from disappearing therefore is to take care
that speaking the language will be a pragmatic choice again. The second
way to rescue a language is to convert all pragmatists to ideologists.
The former means establishing the language in all domains of public life
(like Mike Wintzer said too). The second means building a nationalist
movement or at least an strong own national consciousness (which likely
will result in establishing the language in all domains of public life
in the end).

Marcus Buck

----------

From: Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz>
Subject: LL-L "Language maintenance" 2007.08.06 (03) [E]

On Tuesday 07 August 2007 07:46, Lowlands-L List wrote:
<snip>
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
>  Subject: Language maintenance
>
> Dear Lowlanders,
<snip>
>
> She told me that she does not speak her ancestral language and is a
> monolingual English speaker, which is typical. She described the typical
> story of linguistic neglect, discouragement and prohibition, including
> punishment for using the language in school. This is not unheard of in our
> Lowlands language area either, as most of you know. Therefore, most
> speakers are old and even ancient.

This is not dissimilar to the situation of Te Reo Maori in New Zealand.  The
one thing that has enabled Maori to retain a lease on life is the marae, the
former village square of the Maori village and now the courtyard of the Pa,
the former village defense wall and meeting house.
>
> She further told me that there is now a movement striving to bring back
the
> language, mostly through courses, though it is not clear if it has been
> introduced as a part of ordinary school curricula. (There are indications
> that this is the case on the Canadian side, e.g.,
> <
http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/aborigin/blackfoo
>t.asp> tinyurl.com/28emny, and a private school in Great Falls, Montana,
> tinyurl.com/ys9lsf.)

I was actually on a Hetiwhikete Maori course run by Waikato University in
1989; there were a few Pakeha such as me, and a lot of Maori.
>
> One of her uncles happens to teach the language in Great Falls. Apparently
> the experience has been that most or sometimes even all of his students
are
> "white." She smiled, grinned perhaps.  I asked her how she herself felt
> about that.  She had to think for a little while. I suspect she wanted to
> find something socially acceptable to say.  Then she said something to the
> effect that she guessed her uncle had a point when he said, "Just as long
> as someone's learning it ..."

That was the general feeling on the Hetiwhikete Maori course.
>
> I think this is not irrelevant to issues related to Lowlands minority
> languages, their maintenance and activism. The "racial" issue isn't really
> important. We might boil it down to saying that there is often more
> interest among people whose ancestral languages they are not.  Reactions
to
> this among people whose ancestral languages they are tend to be mixed, and
> sometimes the enthusiasm on the part of these "outsiders" is dampened by
> attitudes among the actual heirs, including heirs that choose not to know
> or use the languages.

Once I got over my foot-in-mouth, I was treated as just one of the group.
 It
helped that I was also writing critical letters to the editor (BOP Times) on
some of the more offensively anti-Maori letters that were also being
published - my justification for this was my PNG birth made me a sort of
Pacific Islander, and Maori were the Pacific Islanders native to New
Zealand,
and we Pacific Islanders should stick together.

Being some sort of "activist" ready and willing to question accepted wisdom
on
their behalf made some of them quite supportive of me.
>
> What are your thoughts about this?

I think the negativity often found might have some basis in what a Sephardic
friend wrote once in an article on "conversion for the sake of marriage" -
to
a certain degree, you are taking on the membership of the group, and the
group has to decide if you're going to be a genuine member, or toxic.  Or
even if you are going to spend any length of time being a member in the
first
place - or having got what you wanted, you're going to waste their
investment
of time and effort and shove off into the wild blue yonder.

And when the group is tightly-knit, it's even more of a question.

That's just my 0.02c - thankfully not USD! ;)

Wesley Parish

--
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
Gaul is quartered into three halves.  Things which are
impossible are equal to each other.  Guerrilla
warfare means up to their monkey tricks.
Extracts from "Schoolboy Howlers" - the collective wisdom
of the foolish.
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070808/8f6cd9ee/attachment.htm>