LL-L "Language politics" 2010.12.01 (04) [AF-EN]

Thu Dec 2 03:58:22 UTC 2010

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L O W L A N D S - L - 01 December 2010 - Volume 04
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.12.01 (02) [AF-EN]

From: dealangeam <atdelange at iburst.co.za>

Al die geld in die wêreld gaan nie Laag-Saksies regruk nie. Dit is die mense
wat dit praat wat dit sal regkry. Hulle moet daarna streef om die taal
sorgsaam te gebruik in plaas van om geld na te jaag soos die geval was
gedurende die Hansa tydperk.

A person who is hungry will sell his mothertongue for a bread.

For somebody who feels that he - in the context of his own society - is a
relative "loser" the number 1 priority is becoming a non-loser. Only after
the person has become a non-loser the person considers to engage in causes
that are not directed at personal improvement.

I know many native speakers of Low Saxon who feel very sad about the decline
of their mothertongue. It's not that they hate their language and give it up
for that reason. They actually love their language! But if you ask them why
they didn't do anything about the decline, they'll answer: "Oh, we had debts
and we had a farm to run. We had other things to worry about. What impact
would the voice of a peasant have anyway?" But if you put money in the
language, people can personally improve, become non-losers, and help their
beloved mothertongue at the same time. That's the reason why money helps
languages.

Ek wonder hoeveel laaglanders is bewus daarvan dat Afrikaanse (let wel, nie
Engelse) plekname geteiken word om swart name te kry. Daar word verskeie
redes aangevoer, onder andere regstelling van Apartheid se gevolge. Dit kos
biljoene Rand om dit te doen, geld wat veel beter bestee kon word.

I do not approve of renaming places like that. If a language community
doesn't want to use imposed or colonial names they should be free to use
names based in their own local tradition, but they shouldn't force other
language communities and the world to adopt these names.

But I don't buy your number. Billions of Rand? Some placename signs and some
changed letterheads. Doesn't cost much. I think there are good reasons
against the renaming of places but money is none of them.

From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>

You suggest money be taken from black parents to subsidise schools they do
not want. Now, it's their money; they earned it, & what right have you to
take it away for sometthing you want but not them?

They want it. They just cannot afford the investments necessary to achieve
their wish.

Are you familiar with the concept of metastability:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability>?
It means a system that is in a stable condition. No matter in what direction
you alter the system it will always cost energy. However if you invest
enough energy you can overcome an existing barrier and the system will
change into a much more stable state. (Look at the graphic in the Wikipedia
article.)

The situation of the Black language communities is metastable. Look again at
the Wikipedia graphic. The current situation is state 1. It's a stable
state. The parents feel okay with their situation, because every change to
their state would mean that the ball had to move upwards (in our system that
means money is spent for things that have no immediate benefit resulting in
parental discontent). If we move the ball and do not continuously push it,
it will roll back in its old position. However, if we spent enough money
(causing parental discontent for a limited amount of time) to reach state 2,
the ball will fall into state 3 all by itself (state 3 is a Black language
education system with the same quality as the Afrikaans or English education
systems). And if that happens parental contentment will rise to much higher
rates than ever before.

To give a more wordly and less theoretical example of metastability: imagine
a bunch of castaways on a lonesome island. They have fresh water and just
enough coconuts to eat to survive. The island is state 1. State 2 is the
ocean. You have to do a long journey to cross it and it will be harsh. Food
and water will be rationed and you will experience hunger. But if you have
crossed the ocean you will reach civilization (state 3) and everything will
be better than on the island.

It's obvious that people who do not know concepts like "metastability" will
not like the time when the ball rolls upwards. But the time of rolling
upwards is limited. The time of enjoying the stable state 3 will be
non-limited.

 I know what we did & I am proud of what we did.

If this statement includes the Apartheid time it doesn't astonish me but
disgusts me. I guess most Afrikaners even during Apartheid times were sweet
people and I have no reason to believe that you personally did anything bad.
And of course not everything was bad in Apartheid times. It sure had _some_
positive aspects. But Blacks were second class citizens, actually not even
real citizens, because they were re-declared as being citizens of some
pseudo-independent Bantustans, segregated and often forcefully relocated. At
the same time South Africa build nuclear bombs.

Marcus Buck

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From: "Elsie Zinsser" <ezinsser at mweb.co.za>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.11.27 (01) [AF-EN]

Thanks, Roger.

I am surprised that it is believed that Afrikaans-medium schools have more
capacity. My grandson is in Grade 4 and there are 42 pupils in his class,
which seems to be the norm in the school.

His school has reached agreements with various pre-schools in the feeding
area to send their Grade 1’s there and thus ensuring full capacity each
year. It is a multi-racial Afrikaans-medium school.

There is an annual demand to the government to get organized and to start
building schools and distribute learning materials to schools *before* the
school year starts, not only after May, or later, as happens each year,
according to media reports. [uhum...that is the same media that is now being
threatened by a media tribunal and a clamp-down on reporting on government’s
failures; corruption, incompetence, cronyism and nepotism.]

The truth behind the lack of capacity in government schools is the
government’s failure to plan ahead and to invest tax monies into development
rather than into ideological principles. Then they ‘solve’ their failure by
forcing the schools that do plan ahead to change from single language into
dual language medium.

The SA regime also has a somewhat laissez-faire attitude on border control,
which resulted in millions of non-South Africans flooding SA and
overextending its already limited resources. (Besides education being in a
crisis, health services have practically imploded and the 300 informal
housing settlements that existed in 1994 have mushroomed into 3000, from
lack of a structured and honest approach).

The income-tax base of 5 million people provides welfare grants to some
13-million poorest of the poor while government officials drive the latest
German autos and produce litters of 20 children at the tax payers’ account.

Heck, they need English to make the masses understand ideology. It has
happened before and it is happening again.

Regards,

Elsie Zinsser

>>From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>

Subject: LL-L Language Politics

In SA there is apparently an increasing demand for education in English,
putting pressure on Afrikaans schools for opening their infrastructure for
solving the demand for English programs.

----------

From: "Elsie Zinsser" <ezinsser at mweb.co.za>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.11.28 (01) [AF-EN]

Hi All,

Marcus, I found the following reference to Gauteng schools
http://www.education.gpg.gov.za and used a search focus on Soweto (suburb)
schools but be warned; unless you know Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Venda, Sotho,
Tsonga or Pedi, you might not know which school uses which language and
indeed, if it is not an English medium school. You will not find Zulu
schools in predominantly Swazi areas or Xhosa schools in predominantly Zulu
areas.

Here is also a link to top performing schools and they list all, even though
some have a 0% pass rate:
http://www.education.gpg.gov.za/Documents/top_performing_schools-2007_thru_2009.xls

Incidentally, the man doing my garden service sent his two primary school
daughters back to KwaZulu Natal in January because he was frustrated that
his kids were forced (and threatened) to use Xhosa in a Zulu medium school
in Tembisa, a township north-east of Johannesburg.

Upliftment? Prior to Apartheid being scrapped (1993) there were more black
school kids entering Grade 1 than the overall total of all white pupils from
Grade 1 to Grade 12.  Indeed a vast number of people to uplift at a single
person’s very average salary from which the government already takes 28%
income tax and in turn provides no health benefits and no safety benefits.

Marcus, I think you are being indoctrinated into believing that ‘white race’
equals ‘wealthy person’. Is that not racist?

Elsie Zinsser

----------

From: "Elsie Zinsser" <ezinsser at mweb.co.za>

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2010.11.30 (07) [EN]

Hi all!

Mike, I am happy that you enjoyed the sign language inserts and programmes
on SABC TV.

I like to sit and watch to improve my limited knowledge (had a few youth
friends who signed) and often wonder about how similar (or not) SA sign
language was compared to, say, Indian or US sign language?

Thanks for thinking about it.

Regards,

Elsie Zinsser

>>As a SIgn Language linguist (who also still "does" other languages),
although I was delighted to see the various spoken language newses, I was
THRILLED to see so much South African Sign Language. I think I calculated
that one could watch 2.25 HOURS of signed language news every day Monday
through Friday: one hour each on the public channels (with HALF the screen
devoted to the sign language interpreter rather than a tiny bubble in the
bottom corner as you see in most countries), and then 15 minutes on eTV
(which I think is a private network). Now, this was all HEARING interpreters
interpretting what the regular isiZulu or siSwati or Sepedi or
English-speaking newscaster was saying, so not exactly Deaf signing, but
still...

Also, there was a half hour Deaf produced sign language variety/newsmagazine
programme called DTV on Saturdays (?), produced every two weeks and then
rebroadcast on the off week. THIS was REAL SASL ... and had a 8-10 minute or
so comedy serial which takes place in a Deaf bar that was HILARIOUS!

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