LL-L "Language use" 2008.01.22 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  22 January 2008 - Volume 05
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From: Ronald Veenker <veenker at atmc.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2008.01.20 (07) [E]

Ron,

You mention Iowa below.  I'll offer some anecdotal and nostalgic
memories of NW Iowa in the 1960s, Lyon County, the small community of
George, Iowa.  There may be more Veenkers in the phone book there than
anywhere else in the world.  I even married into a low Saxon speaking
family already connected to my family by marriage.  My wife's uncles
owned a DX petroleum station on the corner where the men gathered daily
(sitting on an old church pew) to speak what some of us called Ost
Friis.  The uncles made a visit to the "old country" somewhere around
Leer, I believe and they claimed they could still speak the old
language they preserved in Iowa and still be well understood by their
families in Germany.  I would imagine low Saxon dialects are constantly
subject to change in Germany while the Iowans in the US sort of "froze"
their version in a 19th century form.

Ron Veenker
Holden Beach, North Carolina

On Sunday, January 20, 2008, at 11:38  PM, Lowlands-L List wrote:

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Folks,
>
> One of my questions has been answered: Low Saxon is still spoken in
> Southern Africa, namely in Namibia and in some South African
> communities, definitely in New Hanover and in the Drakensberge.
>
> North German Radio TV has a series of reports about "Platt"
> communities around the world. South Africa and Namibia have been
> reported from, as have been the USA (New York City, Iowa, Kansas,
> Nebraska), the Russian Federation (Grishkova, Siberia), Australia
> (Sydney), Brazil (Pomerode) and Paraguay.
>
> More information (in German):
> http://www3.ndr.de/ndrtv_pages_std/0,3147,SPM12912,00.html
>
> Regards,
> Reinhard/Ron

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

Thanks for sharing that, Ron.

I suppose you're talking about Eastern Friesland Low Saxon, one of the
groups with Frisian substrata due to the Saxon language having taken over
the region.* The East Frisian language was able to save itself by emigrating
south to Saterland with a group of staunch Roman Catholics that would have
nothing to do with them "heretics."

*Other such regions are Emsland, part of the Oldenburg region, Groningen,
Fryslân, the larger part of western Schleswig-Holstein and its islands
(though there are still areas in which people can speak North Frisian as
well, also German, and some also Danish and Jutish ...). So the medieval
Saxon language gobbled up large tracts of Frisian land before eventually
being gobbled up by German. However, many people in those parts ought to
still be considered ethnically Frisian in that they continue Frisian
tradition and don't consider themselves inextricably connected with other
Low Saxon speakers.

I hope at least some people in Iowa are trying to keep the language alive.

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron
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