LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.06.15 (08) [DE-EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 15 June 2009 - Volume 08
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From: Kreimer-de Fries Joachim <soz-red at jpberlin.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language construction" 2009.06.15 (07) [DE-EN]

Salve, Lowlanders,

in addition to Marlou's thoughts on the modernization of Low Saxon under
"LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.06.14 (03) [DE-NDS]" and my consenting reaction("LL-L
"Lexicon" 2009.06.15 (06) [DE-NDS]" I'm going to tell you, that also my
Westphalian friend Olaf Bordasch has posted remarkable thoughts on that
matter on his website. He comes also to the result (that he tould me already
some time ago), that, for the survival of Low Saxon, we need a kind of
written (high) language, a

»written Saxon language«, tying up to the written Low German language of the
16th and 17th century. "It should not be written phonetically but cover up
and tide over the dialectical differences, instead of underlining them."

At the end of his webpage http://www.plattdeutsch-niederdeutsch.net/
sprachgeschi chte.htm
- under the heading "Die Zukunft des Niederdeutschen" he writes inter alia:

"Die gute Nachricht ist, dass der Anteil derer, die in Umfragen mäßige
aktive Kenntnisse des Niederdeutschen angeben, viel langsamer sinkt. Im
Allgemeinen wird es sich dabei um Leute handeln, die das Niederdeutsche erst
später gelernt haben. Die Verbreitung von Wörterbüchern, Grammatiken,
niederdeutscher Literatur u.s.w. ist offensichtlich nicht ohne Wirkung
geblieben. Ãœbrigens lehrt das Beispiel Irlands auch, dass es durchaus
möglich ist ein gesellschaftliches Klima herbeizuführen, in der die Menschen
sich wieder der Minderheitensprache zuwenden und diese auch aktiv
gebrauchen. (In Irland sind dies etwa 15% der Bevölkerung.)
Dazu bedarf es allerdings einer geschriebenen Hochsprache, in der sich z.B.
auch wissenschaftliche Literatur verfassen lässt. Nun gibt es in
Norddeutschland tatsächlich Ansätze, einige der bestehenden Kulturdialekte
zu Hochsprachen auszubauen. Das wird aber nicht funktionieren, denn Sprecher
aus anderen Regionen werden niemals eine fremde Mundart akzeptieren. Ein
Dialekt bleibt ein Dialekt. Die regelmäßig zu beobachtenden
Meinungsverschiedenheiten zwischen Sprechern aus verschiedenen Regionen
hinsichtlich der anzuwendenden Schreibweise sind letztlich Folge der
inadäquaten am Hochdeutschen orientierten Schreibung.

Eine Erfolg versprechende Möglichkeit könnte die Entwicklung einer
Schreibsprache Sassisch nach dem Vorbild der frühneuniederdeutschen
Schriftsprache des 16. und 17. Jhs. sein. Solch eine Schriftsprache dürfte
nicht phonetisch geschrieben werden, sie müsste die Dialektunterschiede
zudecken und überbrücken, anstelle sie zu betonen."

Goutgaun!

joachim
--
Kreimer-de Fries
Osnabrüg => Berlin-Pankow

----------

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

Thanks for sharing your interesting thoughts and findings, Joachim.

Fundamental to this issue, I think, are the attitudes people have to Low
Saxon. Let me try a basic classification pertaining to the situation in
Northern Germany:

   - Those that despite regional language status see Low Saxon as a dialect
   group (*Mundartgruppe*) of German, thus as subordinate to German:
   "Dialects are essentially irrelevant. Let people talk properly (in
   Standard German) if they want to be able to talk about anything needed
   nowadays!"
   (Klaus Groth summarizing this attitude: "De Kinner lehrt al in de Schol:
   | Dat weer so grof, so rog, | Paß höchstens in’e Kæk bi’n Kohl | Un achter
   Putt un Plog.")

   - Those that may recognize Low Saxon as a language in its own right but
   one which is on its way out, should be left alone to die or maybe mummified
   and displayed in a museum:
   "You simply can not talk about just anything in this language. Enjoy it
   with its limitations while it's still hear. Don't try to make it what it is
   not!"

   - Those that believe that Low Saxon might survive as a jumple of dialects
   only, promoted by local organizations that do or do not collabirate, without
   any sort or standardization being promoted or attempted:
   "No language engineering and planning please! We like the diversity and
   fragmentation in which local kahunas have their say. We want promoters of
   unification excluded, because we don't trust them, believe they want to do
   away with dialect diversity and instead create a single standard variety.
   *Our* dialect is so special, so different, so illusive that no one can
   really understand it, let alone make any sort of standard writing system
   apply to it."

   - Those that want the language to survive and believe this can only be
   accomplished by unification and standardization:
   "Centuries of exclusion and neglect have been confining the language to
   limited contexts. It needs to catch up to remain viable, although the means
   of doing so are still being debated. Dialect diversity needs not suffer
   because of creating a unified, cross-dialect writing system, even though
   opponents claim it will kill diversity. Most speakers can understand one
   another across dialect boundaries when they speak. Diverse "phonetic"
   spelling emphasizes the boundaries."

Incentives to update the lexicon thus depend on one's basic attitude. Some
believe it should not be done at all, and ways and means are still debatable
among those that do approve of it. There is no need to discuss tthe ways and
means with folks that are opposed to it to begin with.

Lexical development takes numerous forms, and it tends to occur naturally if
allowed to occur.

Neologisms (new words and expressions) fall into two categories:

   1. loanwords
      1. phonologically adapted importations
      2. calques (i.e. translated loanwords)
      2. language-internal creations

Most languages have a mixture of all these. Most of them enter the language
gradually. Once they are considered established and generally accepted they
become official. That's when they are included in dictionaries, for
instance, also when they are used in official education if the language is
used in that capacity.
New words and expressions tend to stand a chance of making it by way of
usage within large communities. Very often this happens through literature.
Go back to older literature in most languages and you'll find implicitly
proposed neologisms that never made to to the stage of general acceptance.
Some of them did make it.

Again, please look at the case of Neo-Norwegian (*nynorsk*). There is only a
loose standard that is being constantly fed by relevant dialects and is also
not immune to influences of the majority Dano-Norwegian (*bokmål*) language.
The dialect provenance of spoken and written Neo-Norwegian is in most cases
obvious to listeners and speakers. But this is only possible because there
is a single writing system that accommodates all relevant dialects. In this
interdialectal communication, words and expressions may be borrowed across
dialect boundaries and may attain some sort of inter-dialectical status.

As for Low Saxon neologisms such as *Huulbessen* ("howl broom" = 'vacuum
cleaner'), *Puuschenkino* ("slipper cinema" = 'television') and
*Klœnkassen*("chat box" = 'telephone'), they seem to have started as
what you might want
to call "nicknames" (much like "boob tube" for "television" in English). Low
Saxon speakers love this sort of thing. Personally I am not opposed to such
words becoming "official". I find it no less acceptable than the possible
German calque **Stuuvsuger* (< *Staubsauger* "dust sucker") 'vacuum
cleaner'.

That's my 1.34 Euro's worth.

Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

P.S.: The web servers are on which all LL-L pages are crashed due to a power
outage and have been down for hours now. Grrrrrr ...

•

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