LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.14 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  13 October 2007 - Volume 04
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.12 (05) [E]

> From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language politics"
>
> Lol. Reminds me of one of my dad's uncles, who was a missionary in
> Congo. When I was 10 or so, he once visited our house, and was eager
> to
> test my language skills. First said he believed that the number of
> languages man is able to speak, equals the number of men he's worth.
> Then he taught me how to count till 5 in Swahili (told me that some
> tribes didn't have words for numbers higher than five!)...and finally
> stated (sic): "Die Deutsche Sprache ist eine Pferdesprache". Up till
> this day I wonder where he got that from as it sounded like a quote,
> but
> he didn't explain. Guess he was referring to German aspiration, being

I remember a quote:

"I speak French to men, Italian to women, German to horses, and English
to the birds."

Apparently English has more tonality than the other languages, and so
has a sing-song sound to speakers of the other languages.

I don't remember who said it, but I'm sure it's probably on the Web,
like everything else  :)

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.13 (02) [E]

> From: "heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk" <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.12 (03) [E]
>
> Ron wrote:
>
> Regarding French, I think you support my argument; despite being one
> of the "worst" European languages for matching sounds with spelling,
> it has a wide currency - because France was powerful.
>
> Wasn't it more that French was used as the language of diplomacy
> because it is the language least likely to produce ambiguities? I had
> understood that English produced too many or needed copious
> circumlocutions to avoid them but French has a precision not least
> because of its lack of synonyms - something one could NOT say about
> English.
> And didn't it adopt the role from Latin once that lost out as a lingua
> franca?
> Heather [Randall]

It's easy to think of theories like that after the fact, but I don't
think anyone in a position to influence language choice has ever said,
"Let's compare the features of a number of languages and choose the one
linguistically best-suited to our purposes."

Rather, in the European courtly traditions (or fads) of the 17th/18th
centuries the watchword was, "Don't speak vulgar, speak Versailles," or
as we say in Scots, "There's nae fowk like Falkland fowk."  :)

Then with French having become fashionable in high-up places all over
Europe, it made sense that diplomats learn and use it.

French being a smaller language than English supposedly makes it easier
to write, but I think this idea has come from the famous dictum, "What
is not clear is not French." I don't think the conclusion that French is
an inherently clear language follows from this. You could just as easily
say that "What is not clear is not English" (or any language).

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.13 (02) [E]

From: "M.-L. Lessing" <marless at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics"

 Hello,

as to the success of English and French in spite of their weird spelling: I
found this recently:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,510913,00.html
 (German)

In short it says that words survive the better the more they are used. They
"prove" is with irregular verbs. Can the same be valid for queer spelling?
The more it is used, the more natural it may seem. Humans seem to see widely
used words as given wholes and do not question their spelling. The power of
habit :-)

Hartlich Gröten!

Marlou

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From: "heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk" < heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.12 (03) [E]

Ron wrote:
Regarding French, I think you support my argument; despite being one of the
"worst" European languages for matching sounds with spelling, it has a wide
currency - because France was powerful.
Wasn't it more that French was used as the language of diplomacy because it
is the language least likely to produce ambiguities? I had understood that
English produced too many or needed copious circumlocutions to avoid them
but French has a precision not least because of its lack of synonyms -
something one could NOT say about English.
And didn't it adopt the role from Latin once that lost out as a lingua
franca?
Heather [Randall]

From Marlou:
 "The more (odd spelling) is used, the more natural it may seem. Humans seem
to see widely used words as given wholes and do not question their spelling.
"
I agree.  After all, although Chinese characters or Egyptian heiroglyphs
have a phonetic element, they are basically read as words.  And "words" have
been around for tens of thousands of years, alphabetic spelling for just few
thousand.

Heather wrote:

"Wasn't it more that French was used as the language of diplomacy because it
is the language least likely to produce ambiguities? I had understood that
English produced too many or needed copious circumlocutions to avoid them
but French has a precision not least because of its lack of synonyms -
something one could NOT say about English. And didn't it adopt the role from
Latin once that lost out as a lingua franca?"

If that were the case, it would still be used internationally. Try saying "A
cette heure" (at this time) and "A sept heures" (at seven o'clock).

There is no evidence that English causes any more ambiguity than anything
else.

I still maintain that language influence follows political or social
influence.  France was the most populous, powerful country in Western
Europe; if Germany had unified politically at an earlier time, I believe a
very different picture would have emerged.  Arabic is spoken across a vast
area because of Islamic expansion, not because it has any special merits as
a communication medium.  Any "dialect" or language in the Chinese group is
presumably as good as any other, but Putonghua (Mandarin) has the political
and historical muscle.

Paul Finlow-Bates

----------

From: "Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc." <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.10.13 (07) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language politics
....
> You commented:
> The language censi allowed only choices between Dutch, French and German.
The linguisically Limburgish speaking Sippenaeken became suddenly French as
result of the 1930 census since Limburgish speakers were divided between
Dutch an German, allowing French to win)
Which leaves out Walloon (and I mean real Walloon, not Belgian French).
Sure, most Walloons use French in writing all or most of the time.
> From where I stand, Walloon looks like a separate langue d'oïl language
that has poor or little mutual intelligibility with French, except that all
Walloons know French as well and thus think the two are more closely related
than they are from the point of view of a French speaker with no prior
Walloon exposure.
>(Most Walloon speakers live in Southern Belgium, a minority in adjacent
parts of France ( botte de Givet in the Northern Ardennes) and also in two
communities ( Doncols and Sonlez) in Luxemburg and in Door County,
Wisconsin, USA.)
>So how does Walloon fit in here?

1. *Decennial language censi* started in the 19th century. Their
results started being used for fixing the administrative language of
municipalities in the beginning of the 20th centuty. Rapidly the censi
turned into *referenda about the choice of the municipal administrative
language*, strongly influenced by upper-class people *(In our Western
concept of democracy, "funding" power is an important factor).*
Because of WWII the 1940 census was delayed till 1947. Publication of the
1947 results was delayed for several years. Post-war anti-Germanic feelings
had made quite some municipalities along the language border and around
Brussels flipping to French.

2. The position of* French.*

a - In the 18th century French got a dominant cultural position (cf. "Sans
Souci" in Germany etc.). Even the Austrian administration of the Southern
Netherlands in Brussels preferred to use French. Before the Burgondian
rulers were French-speaking by themselves, and I guess French was more
accessible for the Spanish rulers.
This explains the presence of a French upper-class in Brussels, with
influence towards lower classes. Verlooy wrote an "alarming" little book
about the situation of language recession at the end of the Austrian period.

b - Belgium was integrated into France from 1795 till 1814.
Although publications in Dutch were allowed (even including a "Flemish"
bilingual version of the law gazetteer, cf
http://home.scarlet.be/~tpm09245/dutch/bullois/bullois.htm<http://home.scarlet.be/%7Etpm09245/dutch/bullois/bullois.htm>),
the Jacobinan view was that the universal knowledge and use of French
guaranteed the equality of all citizen.

c - Belgium was part of the Netherlands from 1815 till 1830 (Limburg being
only divided in 1839). Anti-Hollandic feelings were present all over the
South. This gave French an opportunity for becoming one of the
"fetish-standards" for underlining the difference with the Northern
Netherlands.

d - After 1830 there was resistance against Hollandic Dutch. The Dutch
Siegenbeek spelling was replaced with the old Des Roches spelling for
Southern Dutch. After the emotions cooled down, a step towards the Northern
Dutch spelling was done in 1844 with the Commission spelling. In 1865 the
spelling was unified again (De Vries spelling)

e - Different views on local languages in Belgium (simplifying):

e1: French as *national umbrella language* for all (19th century).
Some *downwards sympathy* for the variety of dialects (whether Germanic or
Romance).
At the end of the 19th century: increased literature in both Walloon and
Southern Dutch.
For Southern Dutch *not* everybody wanted to standardize with *Hollandic
Dutch* (cf. Gezelle, Streuvels writing in a strongly *West-Flemish Dutch*)

e2: The "Flemish movement" fighting for getting "Dutch" recognized in
education, administration, law etc.
- It got a very strong push among youngsters in the *"romantic"* period at
the end of the 19th century, especially in middle schools and universities.
Quite some events from medieval times were turned into fetish-symbols for
coloring the movement.
These young fellows got influential positions in the beginning of the 20th
century. They did not loose all the ideals of their youth and used their
influence to push for change.
- In the mean time the voting system was changed (from voting rights based
on taxed income to *universal voting rights*) which gave a strong presence
of lower class representatives in parliament. Many of them were leftists
(socialists, communists), detested nationalistic feelings, but supported the
position of the "*language of the people*".

e3: The perception of Walloon supporters v/ Flemish supporters:

Walloon view (19-mid 20th century):
- *French* as *national umbrella language*
- Reinforced *local support* for *regional & municipal* languages, basically
focussed on "Walloon" and "Flemish" (with confusion between Dutch, Flemish
and Northern Germanic dialects)
- In the Walloon area a reflex *against *Dutch as "*national"* umbrella
language raised during the Hollandic ruling (1815-1830) and never
disappeared.

Flemish view (19th - beginning of the 20th century):
- *Dutch AND French* as *national *umbrella languages (later: both *at least
in the North,* and not just French alone)
For this an internal issue had to be solved: *standardizing Dutch* for
making it possible not-Dutch speakers could learn it. This created a strong
support for ABN (Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands) at the expense of the
position of the dialects. Belgian Dutch authors wanted to get also read in
the Netherlands, which was only possible with strong language cleaning by
the publishers.

Flemish view (since mid of the 20th century):
- Dutch as *sole* administrative language in the *North*
- Dutch and French as administrative languages in Brussels

e4: Actual tensions in Belgium.

*Political:*
When fixing the language border in 1962-1963, minority protection was
guaranteed in some municipalities at the border and around Brussels.
The Flemish accepted this for a transition period, allowing integration.
The French speakers (Walloons + Brussels) considered it froozen in concrete.
The Flemish momentarily want a transborder election circuit
(Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde) brooken up along the borders of the Brussels
region, since the actual situation easies extension of French cultural
domination around Brussels.
These battles easily become fetish battles with fights for symbols.
*Sociological differences:*
Dutch speakers in Walloon municipalities with facilities for minorities
along the language border integrate rapidly and do not insist on getting
services in Dutch.
French speakers in Flemish municipalities with facilities for minorities
along the language border do not integrate and insist on being served in
French (though there is a slow evolution towards bilinguism).
The resulting political issue: should one accept the "sociolinguistical
reality (of French expansion)" or defend by law the "(Flemish) cultural
territory"

3 - The regional languages.

- As to what I collected, Walloon publications became very present on the
market in the Liège area at the end of the 19th century (which positioned
the Feller Liège orthography as some kind of standard). I see fiction books
in other areas in the first half of the 20th century, and a strongly
increased variety of magazines in various versions of walloon in the 2d half
of the 20th century. Some of these are stapled photocopies of typewritten
pages, so I thing the audience may be small. Quite some CDs are available
with songs in Walloon.
- Publications in Northern regional language versions (after Gezelle,
Streuvels) had to give place to publications in ABN Dutch till the eightees.
In the last 3 decades quite some publications emerged in municipal dialects
(as well as local dictionaries, CDs with songs and conferences etc.)

Regional languages have been approached and classified by linguists in the
20th century. Scientific language areas may be felt by some as artificial
(based often on a single isogloss) and are not always felt as a borderline
for a linguistical identity.

When I was a kid one made distinction between:
- "Op de Letter" or "Gowd Vlams" ("as one writes" and "correct Flemish")
and
- "platt" ("dialect").
Nowadays scientists would call
the first: "(Belgian) Dutch
the second: the Lonerland West-Limburgish of Vliermaal.(recently it was even
reclassified as Mid-Limburgish because of the Panninger isogloss).

So actually, they classify as:

Germanic
- West Flemish (with subdivisions)
- a transition area between West-Flemish and Brabantish (East-Flanders)
- Brabantish (with subdivisions)
- Limburgish (with subdivisions)
- Ripuarish (North East of Eupen)
- Moselle-Franconish (St. Vith)
- Moselle-Franconish-Letzebuergish (Arel)

Romance:
- Picard (West of Hainaut)
- Walloon (with 3 major subdivisions)
- Gaumais (Lorrain, in the South of Belgian Luxemburg)
- Champenois (Ardennais in the Sugny area, South East of the province of
Namur)

If one would include this in a *census* one should *learn people to classify
their dialect*, otherwise there may be confusion, as e.g. "Flemish" may also
mean just "dialect" and the same eventually holds for "Walloon".

4 - The *censi* only asked for *Dutch, French and German* (as well as for
bilinguism and tri-linguism).
Quite some linguists (especially Walloon linguists) regret there were no
questions for other (regional or not) languages.

I guess there may eventually have been *resistance *from the Northern side
since it may have turned a municipality with:
 30% French
 70% Dutch
into
 30% French
 25% Dutch
 20% Brabantish
 25% Limburgish
with as a result a *switch from a Dutch to a French administration*, because
of that majority.

After all, Dutch was a written language, not a spoken language for many in
the North before 1940. So when it would have been separated from
the Germanic dialects,  it may have ended quite poorly in the censi, all
over the country.

But considerations about the minds of the administration when drafting the
forms for the censi are speculation. Let's leave it to historians to
investigate.

Regards,
Roger
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