LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.01.15 (03) [E]
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Tue Jan 15 18:31:54 UTC 2008
L O W L A N D S - L - 14 January 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.01.14 (02) [A]
Beste Marcel:
Subject: L-Lowlands "Language Education"
Wat van Suid-Afrikaanse Engels? Ek is besig om my meestersgraad op
Suid-Afrikaanse Engelse fonologie te voltooi. Kif, I says.
Ja, you only picked a larnie subject to swot, ek sê!
I somehow doubt I have *any* contribution to make. My last contact with the
subject was a cute book on Sao Theffrrican Inglish called 'Ah beeg Yors?'.
Something more scholarly comes from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, but
anything I read is probably quite out of date by now, they're a pretty
scholarly lot there.
Gooi them with a yoffie dissertation anyhow!
Yors,
Mark
----------
From: foga0301 at stcloudstate.edu
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties"
Dear Listers,
Ron wrote
...Is it *really* necessary to label whole languages by geographical
considerations in this day and age? Yes, there is definite merit to
classifying dialects of a language geographically, even if populations have
shifted around. The alternative would be ... what? Given dialects arbitrary
names? Well, that's possible, such as using older ethnic names.
Language names are rarely geographical by origin. They tend to be ethnically
based…
…As far as I am concerned, geography may play an historical role, and that
can be pretty interesting. But I feel that there are other levels,
dimensions or contexts where geography isn't really important.
As someone new to LL-L, I'm trying to apply this post-geographic way of
thinking to the piece(s) of Low Saxon that emerge(s) from Germany territory
and still seem(s) tied to it. It's not easy to explain all this politics to
my American-based family who remain unalterably German in their thinking
even though we all identify as having pure Platt-speaking ancestors. I'd
like to help them understand the changes in the official status of our Low
Saxon mother tongue that have led to gatherings like LL-L.
But the Wikipedia account of all this seems a bit muddled to me… Perhaps it
is still thinking in tight geographic/nationalist terms, then somehow adding
on more realistic [transnational] descriptions of Low Saxon from the bottom
up? There is a bias to the site that keeps it locked within a German
national space, and in one place it admits that its "neutrality is in
dispute"—the section marked "Status with respect to German and Dutch" which
is midway down on the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German#Varieties_of_Low_German. But it
seems to me that the whole site is organized around a disputed binary
division between high and low GERMAN.
It is interesting to discover the places in this structure where the shift
actually occurs to speaking of Low Saxon instead. When I think of this as a
structural gap it becomes an example of a "*disjunction*"—which is a term
that Appandurai uses to describe globalization in relation to all that it
has swallowed up. If the reader of this site starts at the lowest
subdivisions on the West side, Low Saxon is the topic. But it's not clear
how this topic relates to the higher divisions in the site [high vs. low
German]. My family continues to read this site from the top down—and to
identify "Low" with German.
If you look more closely at the gap between top and bottom, though, you will
find several places where Wiki editors have identified empty "stubs" for
people still need to fill in the supposed details that go with that
category. The main one I'm thinking of is at the head of subcategory of West
Low German <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Low_German> which
matches the East
Low German <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Low_German> that is filled in.
I see that the lowest rungs of the West Low German category are happily
speaking of Low Saxon, but it is this higher category itself that remains
unclaimed by either the main organizers of the site or those who have
inserted the Low Saxon information from the bottom up. * *
Are the fuzzy inner boundaries of this site an example of what you're
speaking of Ron? Does it make sense to read this gap in the topical
organization as a disjunction dividing old *nationalist-geographic
thinking*from newer
*linguistically-grounded* *post-national* terms? If so (or if not), what
would you add to this Wikipedia site to help it
"*expand<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?stub&title=West_Low_German&action=edit>
*Jump to: navigation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Low_German#column-one>,
search <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Low_German#searchInput>
" the subheading of "West Low German"? Or do they need to first restructure
the whole of the site to more fairly address matters that are "in dispute"
there?
Gael
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties
Gael,
No one ought to blame you for being confused by the relevant information you
find in the Wikipedia. I dare say what's been happening there is a case of
too many cooks in the kitchen.
"Low Saxon" ought to be interchangeable with what most still call "Low
German" with reference to Saxon-derived varieties. In other words, "Low
Saxon" denotes of the Saxon-derived varieties.
Many people in Germany want to separate the varieties used in Germany from
those used in the Netherlands, calling the former "Low German" and the
latter "Low Saxon."
In the beginning, this was pretty clear in the Wikipedia. But then a cook
came along and mixed it up, referring to some dialects used in Germany (and
the Netherlands) as "Low German" and others used in Germany as "Low German."
In other words, he or she took one of the dialect groups (Northern (Low)
Saxon) and called it "Low Saxon," but used "Low German" with reference to
all other dialects groups used in Germany and formerly German-rules areas. I
am not sure what the reason and reasoning behind this are supposed to be. I
tried to discuss it but gave up because I seemed to hit a wall erected as a
knee-jerk reaction to my challenge. It may well be that the confusion
initially arose from an error in Ethnologue, and error in the processing of
information I gave them, and error they promised to correct but so far have
not.
Simply (?) put, in an ideal world:
- *Low German*:
- *Frankish (Franconian): Low Franconian*
- Dutch:
- Standard Dutch [NL] [B]
- Hollandish dialects [NL]
- Brabantish dialects [NL] [B]
- Flemish-Zeelandic dialects [NL] [B]
- Cleves Low Franconian dialects [NL]
- Low Bergisch dialects [D]
- Lower Rhenish [D]
- Limburgish dialects [NL] [B]
- Afrikaans
- *Saxon: Low Saxon* (my divisions):
- Northwestern dialects:
- Northern Saxon dialects [D]
- Schleswig dialects
- Holstein dialects:
- Dithmarschen dialects
- Lower Elbe dialects
- Bremen-Oldenburg dialects
- Heath dialects
- Eastern Friesland dialects [D]
- Dialects of Groningen, Fryslân and Northern
Drenthe [NL] [D]
- Southwestern dialects:
- Westphalian dialects:
- Münsterland dialects [D]
- Twente, Veluwe and Southern Drenthe dialects[NL]
- Eastphalian dialects [D]
- Northeastern dialects:
- Mecklenburg dialects [D]
- Pomeranian dialects
- Western Pomeranian dialects [D]
- Eastern Pomeranian dialects
- Mennonite (Plautdietsch) dialects
- East Prussian dialects
- Southeastern dialects:
- North Mercian dialects [D]
- South Mercian (Brandenburgish) dialects [D]
The following map may be useful: http://tinyurl.com/d9w8o
Yes, Low Saxon (in Germany "Low German") has been officially recognized as a
regional language in the Netherlands' eastern provinces and in eight
northern states of Germany, within the framework of the European Languages
Charter. I assume that in Germany this includes the small group of Low
Franconian dialects that are being lumped together with Germany's Low Saxon
dialects.
The state of Saxony and its German dialects have nothing to do with all
this. The name "Saxony" was "stolen" by them, and it took the real Saxons a
couple of centuries to get over it (and some obviously still haven't ... ;-)
). This name usurpation in conjunction with poor education has led to much
confusion in Germany and stands in the way of ordinary people adopting
"Saxon" with regard to the true Saxon-derived language. Most North Germans
are unaware that the ancestor of the original language of the land is Old
Saxon, and they tend to be incredulous when you tell them. You see, the
smoke-and-mirror routine has been perfected in Germany by renaming "Old
Saxon" to "Old Low German." Furthermore, the Alemanocentric crowd keeps
hanging on to their "German" labels and many members seem to look at
official language recognition with scorn. Similarly, in the Netherlands
there's a revisionist Dutch-centered faction that feels alarmed by the
shrinking size of "Dutch" and regrets having granted separate language
status Low Saxon and Limburgish (and I wouldn't be surprised if some
included Frisian in this). In other words, diversity is still a hard thing
for people to wrap their heads around, and they keep thinking in national
terms despite national boundaries losing significance by the day.
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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