LL-L "Language politics" 2009.05.13 (03) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 13 May 2009 - Volume 03
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics"

It's my opinion, that a language can only flourish if it has a public of its
own. A language or culture cannot exist as an appendix of another language
and/or culture, there must be a room for internal exchange.

To put it in a harsh phrase: A room for mental incest. That's not
necessarily a bad thing. Every community and every identity is based on the
internal exchange and accumulation of opinions, attitudes and mentalities. A
Berber is a Berber cause he lives in the Berber society and exchanges
opinions and mindsets with other Berbers. An Estonian is Estonian cause he
mainly draws his attitudes from the pool of Estonian attitudes shared with
fellow Estonians. If all your attitudes are drawn from a foreign source you
will be finally assimilated to the source.

This assimilation can only be prevented if your main focus is on peers of
your own group. That's the way how for example the Jews managed to keep up
their distinct culture although they always were a minority among foreigners
since antique times. In their synagogues or in their shtetls they maintained
a counter-public that made sure that the main source of attitudes was always
the Jewish culture. This counter-public made the diaspora last and not get
assimilated.

Regular meet-ups of like-minded persons are important. Therefore
institutions like the Breton Diwan schools are very important, even if the
absolute number of pupils isn't very high. 2000 Breton-eager pupils
scattered over all of Britanny will mean that every single of them will
independantly surrender to the overwhelming French majority. But 2000
Breton-eager pupils concentrated in a dozen places will easily be able to
develop their Breton identity.

Another very important thing in our modern age of media is TV. Although many
people already announce the end of the TV era and a new era of personalized
content, TV still is (and will stay for a long time) the most important
channel. Recently we had the news about Susan Boyle on the list. People love
stories like that. But only TV can produce such stories. If she had posted a
video on YouTube instead, she most likely would have gathered a fan-base
too. But she would never have gained world-wide popularity. Only the
additional dramatization of the TV could make that happen.
And TV is too the perfect vector to induce new language-consciousness into
people.

I try to illustrate it on Low Saxon, although it's basically valid for all
smaller languages.
There is a considerable market for Low Saxon books, but it is still a very
niche market. Many people who speak Low Saxon don't read Low Saxon books.
The reason is not any bias against Low Saxon, but the main problem is: they
don't know any books. The books are all niche and if you don't look for them
you won't come in contact with any of them. If Low Saxon had a TV station, a
literary critic magazine could open a forum to make books known to the Low
Saxon public. Reports in local magazines or even advertising specifically
aimed at speakers of Low Saxon would certainly immensely vitalize the Low
Saxon book market. Of course not only the book market. All products of Low
Saxon cultural life. Low Saxon would have its own forum and its own public.

The public broadcasting in Germany has a budget of 8,4 billion Euro. Public
broadcasting of the Netherlands has a budget of 1,2 billion Euro. That's 9,6
billion for 99 million people. That's 97 Euro per capita. So public
broadcasting is "worth" 97 Euro in Middle Europe. Assuming a "fair value"
that every language is worth the same, that would mean, based on 4,5 million
speakers of Low Saxon, that Germany and the Netherlands should spend 437,25
million Euro for Low Saxon broadcasting every year.  That's a very
considerable sum... Even assuming that German and Dutch are worth more than
Low Saxon by a factor 10 would still mean a big sum of 43,7 million that
should be enough to maintain a full time TV channel. (But I guess that few
people will be able to wrap their minds around the fair value argument.
Considering how much money is actually spent by existing TV stations on Low
Saxon programming, I guess the real market value of Low Saxon is "1000 times
worth less than German or Dutch per capita"...)

(Sorry for the very longish post that does not even have a neat final
conclusion. This were just some thoughts I had to share with somebody. And
you are my "caring for languages" public, even if it's a small public ;-) )

Marcus Buck

•

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