LL-L "Language education" 2008.01.11 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  11 January 2008 - Volume 06
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From: Bryan E. Schulz <bryans at glregister.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language education" 2008.01.11 (03) [E]

Elsie wrote " I watched a supposedly educational programme on TV with my
grandson the other day and was very confused.

Different animal characters -complete with costumes of a dog or a piggy-
presented their individual lines in Sotho, English, Tswana, and even a word
or two in Afrikaans! In other words, there is no coherence and no complete
informational package is presented in any language group. "

That is my point!  These programs intentionally mish-mash several languages
together to make it difficult to understand and then say "If we ALL spoke
one language, i.e. English( wink, wink) , everyone would be soooooo much
better off".  Needless to say, most children at the early ages are confused
and learn very early that other languages are stupid, difficult and not
necessary.  It becomes offensive to me when the producers of the programs
start mocking someone else's language as if the are handicapped speakers.

As for the lack of Afrikaans in the courts sytem, the saying "Justice
delayed is justice denied." is appropriate and even though the ruling class
may think itself quite clever at this point, this is a seed for intense
dislike from those who are denied their place in society.  The end result of
their arrogance is not pretty.

Foriegn Aid=Taxing the poor people of the rich countries to give money to
the rich people of the poor countries.  This also applies to grants etc..
for academic scholars and such.

Bryan E. Schulz
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language education

Hello, Bryan!

The Kahuna happened to follow this thread and spontaneously added you to the
Honors List (http://lowlands-l.net/treasures/kahuna.htm).

Have a good weekend!
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Marcel Bas <roepstem at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language education" 2008.01.11 (01) [E]

Hi everyone,

Elsie, you wrote:

    >Hi all,

    >Marcel, as I do not have a television set, I have no ideawhether Kids
Newsroom was >ever broadcasted in Afrikaans.

Goor for you. I had a year without television, too. I recall it as a time in
which I wrote prolifically, and in which I studied a lot. The only thing
was, that I didn't keep up with the news enough. Many things happened
without me knowing thet they happened. For some reason, news programmes,
debating programmes and documentaries on television are more interesting and
more topical than those aired on the radio. Which does not suggest that I
don't listen to the radio anymore. I think that I spend five hours of really
listening to radio stations, and two hours watching television. With live
streaming on the internet, the radio-element is even The only time when I
really dislike television is when I'm... in South Africa. I can't stand the
propaganda, the patronising tone, the 'educative' soapies and the hidden
messages in every show. It may sound silly, but I'm actually happy that good
old newsreader Riaan Cruywagen won his case against the SAUK - I mean SABC -
that tried to oust him.

    >Judging from the total lack of complete Afrikaans children programmes,I
suspect not.

Are you serious? Is there no more complete Afrikaans children's programmes
on the public channels? That is so wrong. It demonstrates the policy of
forced integration that the State is trying to impose on your people. It's
worrying. The State just does not seem to be prepared to provide special
public places, programmes and institutions for minorities. If there are
minorities, they should be represented in the media and in public life as a
couleur locale among other cultures, while ENglish is the dominant language.
No special rights or cultural territories.

What do you think of KykNet? For the people on the list who don't know what
KykNet is - it is an all-Afrikaans satellite channel for DSTV-subcribers
only.

    >The excuse by your ambassador of adequate social networks forcoloured
and white >kids is a false assumption. The following article indicates
thatAfrikaans-speaking >coloured kids in the rural Western Cape are in dire
need foreducational programmes in >Afrikaans.

It was quite interesting: it was all very friendly and amical, and I told
the embassador that the show should be aired in Afrikaans as well, since the
Rainbow Nation implies pluriformity. She seemed rather irritated and then
she gave me a lecture on why both Afrikaans and Zulu people are dangerous
(interestingly, she is a Zulu herself). She said that Afrikaners and Zulu
are both proud nations who could jeopardise the country's stability with
their strong sense of ethnic identity. Then she explained the dire
socio-economic situation that African children are in. They desparately need
information in their own language. Of course, but it was clear that we came
from two different worlds: she wanted to stress the socio-economic aspects
of the question, whereas I, being a Dutchman, stressed the Afrikaans
cultural aspects. Your pdf-file, Elsie, now demonstrates that Afrikaans
empowerment could also have socio-economic sides. Anyway, when she explained
all this, she said that kids without intact social networks (whose parents
have died of AIDS) need to be addressed in their native language. So I
reminded her of the fact that Kid's Newsroom has a show in Zulu, a show in
Xhosa, a show in Tswana, a show in Pedi and in English. I asked why English
is included, whereas it is not a native African language to the kids that
belong to the target group. I think she expected this, because she
immediately agreed on that point, and quickly suggested that the English
show could be turned into show in both Afrikaans and English: 50-50. She
would suggest this to SABC-managers who were coming to Holland soon, and the
thing might just work, according to her. This sounded very reasonable to all
of us in the room. In July I read in the Beeld newspaper that the show will
be aired in Afrikaans as well, starting September! So you can imagine how
curious I am. Maybe Mark knows. Anyone? ;-)

Best regards,

Marcel.

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From: foga0301 at stcloudstate.edu
Subject: LL-L "Language education"

*Heather wrote*

I witnessed a Welsh speaking friend up sticks and move to Liverpool ( i.e.
out of Wales) rather than tolerate ever again having her children coming
home from school and saying " Teacher says you mustn't say it like that /
use that word. Correct Welsh is .....". She was a native born speaker, Welsh
was her main language and she was made to feel illiterate/ ill taught/ badly
spoken  by those very people who were trying to encourage Welsh.



*It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it!* [nice words!]

*Jonny wrote*

No- for my opinion it is another striking proof for (all these criminal ;-))
non-native officials ruling our Low Saxon language (in this special case it
must have happened approximately during the 70ies of the 20th c.).

So you might understand better all my objections against Low Saxon location
names 're-invented' and 'new-prescribed' in our times by definitely
non-native, self-proclaimed experts...

Hi all,

    Thanks for pointing these difficulties out.  Similar problems exists in
[north] India within the movement to reinsert/renovate Hindi as an *lingua
franca* alternative to English. I also saw some new linguistic research
focused on education in Somalia by a leading Somali-national expert offering
detailed directions for how to Somalyize foreign words [rather than merely
codeswitch between the two]. The aim in both cases was to deliberately make
the language *more modern* so that it could convey more precise academic
thoughts.  The very real issues here is the ability of these languages to
sustain academic conversations in the school system which are currently
given over to English.  In the case of standardizing Hindi (a process which
is well underway), the strategy was to use ancient Sanskrit words in order
to combat the slide into Hinglish. However, the result of this new policy on
the ground (where real teachers exist) was to alienate these native speakers
from the very textbooks that were supposed to empower them.  The two forms
of Hindi clashed in the classroom due to the many and varied dialects of
healthy local Hindi embedded there.

  I recently met a young Indian student here in Minnesota who said that
Hindi was his *second* language even though he also seemed to imply that he
spoke a local version of it too.  In this same conversation, he for sure
wasn't going to say that Urdu and Hindi were the same language. I grew up
with Urdu mixed with lots-n-lots of 'local' Punjabi. So I guess I'm also
locally situated. When I hear people from South Asia speaking, I'm aware
that some accents are "clearer" to me than others—meaning I can pick out
more words and sometimes understand minor aspects related to what they're
saying.  But when written, much of these differences get leveled—and the
basics emerge as "similar enough" to be functionally shared. In an American
setting even Pakistanis and Indians freely converse over the top of these
finer differences.

   I think language boundary judgments very according to the use that a text
or utterance is put to.  Context is everything, and local contexts need to
be respected linguistically, otherwise the precision of the larger whole
will swamp out local traditions [where people really live].  What good then
is such precision if it says nothing (good) about the particular resources
of the people who speak it?  English is also split between local (slang)
needs and overarching (scientific) needs, but I'm guessing that it is a
newly emerging issue in a lot of other languages. I lean towards proactively
defending the local, however it certainly isn't an EITHER/OR choice.  We
need to struggle with these things in every case and at every level.

   On the topic of English as an International Language, Alastair Pennycook
has written some bold words recently:

The Myth of English as an International
Language<http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=K2jTpJBQm0gC&oi=fnd&pg=PT106&dq=+%22The+myth+of+English+as+an+International+Language%22&ots=PhgSTYmODv&sig=0jzLPLYYYuMT5Yjxz2TdBArKkAA>
- *Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages*, 2006 - books.google.com

[the whole essay is visible here, no pages missing]. This is part of a huge
argument in 21st century Applied Linguistics on who owns English…and where
one should even begin to approach vital questions like comprehensibility.
Here, as well as with other languages, the point is that standardization *
wounds* the living language that it is designed to nurture. The basic
underlying question is then: What is language to start with?

Luego,

Gael
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