LL-L "Language politics" 2010.08.05 (04) [AF-EN]

Thu Aug 5 23:56:27 UTC 2010

=====================================================
*L O W L A N D S - L - 05 August 2010 - Volume 05*

lowlands.list at gmail.com - http://lowlands-l.net/
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
Archive: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)
Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
=====================================================

From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.08.03 (02) [AF-EN]

Beste At:

Onderwerp: LL-L

Ek wil nie hê dat u u inset oor die moontlikhede van Laag Saksies (liggende
Die Taal se ervaring) enigsins geringskat nie.

Ons siening loop heelwat saam in die verband, en as ek die kultuurskat nie
voorgedruk het nie, glo net die Platssnakkers in volkseie verband kom
blykbaar nie enigsens kort nie (Hannelore o.a.)

Groete,

Mark

----------

From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.08.05 (03) [EN]

From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.08.04 (02) [EN]

What Marcus wrote (3.8.) is cuttingly true, what Mark Dreyer wrote (also
3.8.) comforts me a little more, because a lot of it has been achieved
already, such as compiling grammars and, in parts, dictionaries; and more of
what he writes can be achieved *without government support or government
money*. If we hope to bring Low Saxon on at all I fear we must put up with
having no official money or support. Now what exactly can be done with
private initiative only, and how effective can it be? If much of that may
have been said in former discussions, don't hesitate to repeat it. I may
have missed or forgotten. And we may distill it again and again on the fire
of Marcus' skepticism and Mark's and my enthusiasm... See what we get.

I'm sure you did not mean it like that but I still want to point it out: I
am not skeptical against private initiative or anything. I'm just skeptical
that it is enough without also using other means. Please, nobody stop
personal engagement! Arts, literature, reader and discussion circles,
Heimatliteratur, Döntjes and Vertellers, folk singers and
singer-songwriters, this is all important. We should also aim at
diversification, but that doesn't mean we should cut back any of the
existing things. But the most important part is that we become political. We
need something like the Occitan Anaram Au Patac (well, an left-right-neutral
movement would be even better to be mainstream-compatible than a socialist
movement like Anaram Au Patac, but the idea behind Anaram Au Patac is
right), we need something like the Catalan movement. We need shouting
people, we need people who get angry, we need people who go to jail, we need
people like Èric Bertran.

Few politicians are so ethical that they do things cause doing it is
'right'. They only do things under public pressure. No country ever granted
a minority independance or autonomy because it is the ethical right thing to
allow them to decide for themselves. They always had to fight.

I do not strive for the independance of the Low Saxon regions, that would be
far, far, far, far off anything realistic. But judging from history
independance is the single most important thing at all. I do not approve of
violence, war or physical fight, but independance is so integral to the
welfare of a culture that I have a hard time to condemn anybody who resorts
to violence in the quest for independance. One example that illustrates the
difference that independance can make is the German/Swiss border region. On
both sides of the border the same Alemannic dialects are spoken. But on the
German side of the border the dialects are slowly replaced by Standard
German as anywhere in Germany, while in Switzerland the dialects are fully
vital and everybody speaks it. The difference is really crass. Neighboring
villages divided by the border even when they are in steady contact day by
day handle dialect completely different. The only difference is that the
Swiss have made the dialect part of their national identity while the
Germans have not.

Another example is Luxembourg which has made its Franconian dialect its
national dialect. The dialects spoken along the border in Germany are
exactly the same but they are dieing.

Everybody knows Estonian, but who knows Mari, or Chuvash, or Adyghe, or
Kabardian? They are comparable in speaker numbers, but Estonia is a country
while the other languages are spoken in Russia. If Estonia had become an
integral part of Russia instead of being an independant Soviet Republic
Estonian sure wouldn't have the same status today.

Independance for Low Saxon is far off, but we can strive for
institutionalization. Having institutions is a big step.

We need something big hovering over the Low Saxon regions. An institution or
a cluster of institutions that can act as a nucleus for a big Low Saxon
network. At the moment we are scattered. There's no coordination. The Low
Saxon people do not speak with one tongue. There's a Heimatbund here and a
Bundesrat there and perhaps a Landschaft and an Institut, some mailing list
and some hobbyists but there's no flow of information among them. Much
entropy, few organization.

Please excuse if this post is a bit unassorted.

Marcus Buck

----------

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

Subject: Language politics

Marcus,

What you wrote makes a lot of sense to me.

Let me just throw this question out to you and others for consideration ...

Should there ever be a more coordinated political wing of the Low Saxon
language (re)assertion movement, do you think that playing the blame game
with the federal and state governments (the “You owe us” approach) would be
worth looking into?

Growing up as part of the postwar generation in Hamburg I saw signs of
conscious, concerted efforts to discourage the use and learning of Low
Saxon. We would read a few Low Saxon ditties as part of *Heimatkunde* in
school and that was about it. And that got cut out at the first sign of
budget problems. The attitude at that time was that learning the language
was a waste of time and was detrimental to youngsters’ education and career,
also that refugee immigrants should not be burdened with this for them
strange language. Furthermore, there was a conscious effort to present the
language as a “dialect,” although early proponents like Klaus Groth had
referred to it as a language.

So what I am saying is that there was a conscious effort to remove Low Saxon
from the scene. We had a school principal (Hermann Kesenberg) in our area
who was a proponent of Low Saxon, and he did in fact criticize the
government for their attitude, which of course fell on deaf ears.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

=========================================================
Send posting submissions to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
Send commands (including "signoff lowlands-l") to
listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands.list at gmail.com
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=118916521473498<http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#%21/group.php?gid=118916521473498>
=========================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20100805/f0f5f87a/attachment.htm>