LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.08.20 (06) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 August 2009 - Volume 06
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From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
Subject: LL-L "Entertainers" 2009.08.120 (02) [DE-EN

There was a programme about the entertainer Eberhard Cohrs on the German MDR
TV station yesterday. I had never heard of him before and found his routines
difficult to understand. Apparently he was a big star in the GDR, where he
always had audiences in stitches, but he disappeared after he emigrated to
the West in the 1970s, because none of the Wessis could get his humour or
understand his thick Saxon accent. Apparently he said that his big mistake
was to stage his western debut in Bremen, because "they dont understand
Saxon there". This surprised me - they have certainly traditionally spoken
platt in Bremen and there used to be a regular column in the Weser Kurier
written in Low German, which is presumably similar to Saxon. Apparently his
career picked up again when he returned to Dresden after the Wende and he
died in the late nineties.
David Clarke

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From: R. F. Hahn
<sassisch at yahoo.com<http://uk.mc264.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sassisch@yahoo.com>
>
Subject: Language varieties

Hi, David!

Not that anyone can blame you, but you are confusing "fake Saxons" with
"real Saxons".

Today's Free State of Saxony (Freistaat Sachsen, in what used to be Eastern
Germany) got its name by way of complex political and genealogical
maneuvering a few centuries ago. Its inhabitants speak Eastern Central
Frankish and Thuringian German dialects, neither kind having descended from
Old Saxon. What average people in Germany call "Saxon" are Eastern
Thuringian varieties. (They are unique in that they are the only German
dialects with centralized vowels.) It is from this region that the so-called
"Saxons" migrated to Romania.

The "real Saxon" varieties descended from Old Saxon, a language separate
from Old German. Its earliest know region is that of the Elbe Estuary, which
is from where Saxons migrated to Britain, to the coasts of Belgium and
Northern France and all over what are now Northern Germany and the eastern
provinces of the Netherlands. The descendant language varieties are commonly
called "Low German" in Germany. These are now officially recognized as a
regional language in Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands, which the
varieties of the Free State of Saxony are German dialects.

I suggest you read my introductions:

Language: http://lowlands-l.net/grammar-new/language.php
People: http://lowlands-l.net/grammar-new/saxons.php

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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