LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.07 (04) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 07 January 2010 - Volume 04
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From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.03 (02) [EN]

Hello Ron,

your detailed and interesting explanation still has a mark in my email
inbox, but I didn't have the time to answer appropriately. It is very
plausible that the uncompromising Welsh spirit results from their having
been a country and people in their own right, even somewhat isolated. As to
northern Germany, you are right that today people put more stress on
"Germany" than on "northern". Even I don't feel like a separatist or
anything like it. Separatism in Germany, if at all, is mostly attributed to
Bavarians :-) But I don't feel being ethnically different from them or, say,
the people on the upper Rhine. In former times there were all these tribes,
but where would we come...?

Moreover, today nobody is so very much isolated. Life mixes people up much
more, forcing them to follow work and move, resulting in intermarriage and
all sorts of fraternisation, even with Bavarians. Any ethnic difference
_inside_ Germany has long faded into local colour. It would be hopeless to
base a cultural issue -- such as the preservation of a language -- on this
ground. In fact, reading your post I found myself musing over the "feeling
of ethnical difference" and whether I ever felt it. I have travelled very
little, but the world mixes in our cities. Knowing so many people so
different and at the same time so much alike and so much like me and
watching our cultures mix makes me lose the sense of difference. Maybe I see
it all too much on a personal level, and maybe I am confusing nation,
culture and ethnicity. But I feel the overlap of cultures is growing, which
for the cultures may be not so good, while on a personal level it is just
fine.

Now, how can we preserve a language and culture under such circumstances?
Neither going separatist nor melting up in globalized indifference? It must
be a narrow path, and time is working against us. It cannot be on an
ethnical basis, everybody must be free to join or adopt a culture -- or
parts of it. Something new will necessarily result. And a culture must be
attractive to survive. Welsh seems to be attractive. What can Low German do?
I would love to know.

Hartlich

Marlou

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

Hi, Marlou!

You wrote:

The Welsh seem to take themselves and their language seriously, while many
of the Plattdüütschen still think theirs is just the buffo version of a
language, or something extra, not necessary, and therefore they should not
be a nuisance... If we knew how this could be changed...

I have a type of hypothesis about this. It doesn't really take a genius to
figure it out if one is willing and able to consider history and in the
process deal with the odd, usually unnamed sacred cow.

As you probably know, the Saxon ancestors were extremely independent and
were good at defending their independence, even keeping out the Romans which
was no mean feat. They absolutely abhorred the idea of a monarchy and even
more that of an empire, and for decades they fought tooth and nail against
the introduction of Christianity. It is clear that even after the Franks
under Charlemagne finally baptized them by means of the sword (beginning
with a mass beheading) and incorporated Saxony into the Holy Roman Empire
the Saxons remained unwilling Christians and grudging imperial subjects, as
did the westernmost Slavs that suffered a similar fate.

I believe that this reluctance and this resentment against the empire and
the all powerful Roman Catholic church that represented it have been fading
away only very slowly. The Saxons acquired a measure of quasi-independence
by creating and running their medieval commercial empire, the Hanseatic
League, and thereby amassing independent and hitherto unequaled wealth as
well as trade colonies and thus power abroad. They missed that opportunity
by not separating themselves as an independent country. When the Low
Frankish people later surpassed the Saxons in overseas trade they did take
advantage of this opportunity by becoming the Netherlands, the area of
today's Netherlands, Belgium and French Flanders. Had they not done so they
might today be a part of Germany.

I go as far as hypothesizing that the success of the Christian Reformation
in what used to be (the real) Saxony - thus in Northern Germany and the
Eastern Netherlands - is at least in part due to remaining feelings of
ethnic and subliminally national independence as well as remaining
resentment regarding the Roman Catholic church in whose name the Saxons had
been beaten down not too long before that. However, following the eventual
collapse of the Hanseatic League and thus of the North's economic clout,
German education, institutions, power and language encroached in the North,
as did the Dutch equivalents in Saxon-speaking parts of the Netherlands. The
descendant of the Saxon language came to be pushed aside and led a
precarious existence mostly in rural and low-class communities, and the
equivalent names of "Low Saxon" shifted more and more to the equivalent
names of "Low German" on the German side of the border. Another blow to the
language was when, beginning in earnest in the 18th century, use of the
language came to be prohibited in certain contexts, especially in schools.

Northern resistance and independence had been sufficiently worn down by
1871, when Germany as we now know it came into existence as a nation state.
However, as most of us know that grew up in Germany, there remains a sense
of "Northern pride," an often romanticized feeling of being different from
the rest of Germany. For many, the Low Saxon ("Platt") language is the
ultimate, albeit fading, expression and symbol of this. But the descendants
of Saxons in Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands have been made
into German and Netherlandic nationals, and a sense of their own, separate
ethnicity has all but faded away. Add to this the emotional repercussions of
required loyalty to the emperor in WW I and to the Nazi government in WW II
on the German side, and any talk of separate ethnicity now has a
distinctively unpatriotic, disloyal and even rebellious, secessionist ring
to most. (This is where one of the main sacred cows lies and chews her
dinner over and over.) I believe that this is where this type of ambivalence
comes from, the supposedly "lame" responses to organizing anything that
seems to go too radically in the direction of "independence" (such as
"independent language" and "independent TV station"), even talk about the
Old Saxons.

Wales, on the other hand, has always remained a country in its own right,
not a vaguely defined region like that of the Low-Saxon-speaking area. I
don't think anyone in their right mind has ever doubted that Welsh is the
unique language of Wales and the Welsh. Even English-speaking Welsh people
embrace that and many of them learn Welsh as a second language. So what you
have here is a strong sense of distinct ethnicity, culture, language and
nationhood. When London was not supportive of Welsh language needs, it was a
matter of ethnic and national rights, not a matter of regional and minority
rights. It is much easier to stand up under such circumstances.

In my opinion, the case of Low Saxon is more akin to that of Scots in
Scotland and Northumbrian in Northern England. Both Scots and Northumbrian
are descendants of Old Northumbrian. Scots has been traditionally considered
the poor, uneducated relative of Scottish English. Northumbrian happens to
be spoken in England and there has been traditionally considered a dialect
group of English, even though linguistically it is arguably connected with
Scots on the other side of the border. I am told that even many Northumbrian
speakers are not fond of making this connection, in part because they have
to be conditioned to be loyal to England.

Anyway, some of the above may be worth considering when you wonder what you
are up against and why you are up against it.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

----------

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

Thanks for your response, Marlou.

In the meantime you may have read my addendum.

The "complaint" I had heard from you and Marcus had been that North Germans
tend to be on the "lame" side when it comes to getting things done in the
regional language area. So what I have been trying to accomplish is to
illustrate with the help of examples the spectrum of "separateness" and
"group consciousness" in relation to degrees of "language loyalty" and
"language activism."

I don't mean to pass judgment or to advocate some sort of secessionist
action. I am simply trying to explain what I see as deciding, correlative
factors. Things are as they are for whatever reasons. The questions as I see
them are as follows:

   1. Under the given circumstances, can the language be saved from
   extinction?
      1. Can the language be saved within its indigenous region?
      2. Can the language be saved outside its indigenous region elsewhere
      in Germany and the Netherlands?
      3. Can the language be saved overseas (e.g. in the US Midwest where
      regional dialects have been developed)?
      2. If the language can indeed be saved from extinction, does the
   majority of speakers endorse such action?
   3. If the majority of speakers does endorse such action, which of the
   necessary, available and feasible methods or combination of methods would
   seem most comfortable and attractive to the speakers?

For one thing, it seems to me that the gulf between traditionalists and
innovators needs to be bridged, where there is room for both camps. This
would indeed require some sort of medium that caters to both camps and to
shades in between.

Most importantly and basically, unification is needed in which dialect
diversity is valued while bringing together speakers of different dialects.
You can simply have no cultural and linguistic survival without some sense
of community and "otherness."

This is where the hairy problem of orthography comes in. The majority of
speakers wouldn't be able to tell a phoneme and a grapheme from their own
backsides. They try to write "as it sounds," i.e. "phonetically," and
thereby exacerbating problems of mutual comprehensibilty or creating such
problems in writing where there are none or just minor ones in speech
comprehension. People would have to be convinced that "a unified writing *
system*" is not the same as a written standard dialect, that everyone can
write their dialect but use the same orthographic conventions to do so. This
would go a long way in leveling the field in literary areas. In conjunction
with this, more exposure to spoken dialects would help people to become
acquainted with dialectical features. All this would go a long way in
creating a type of "languagehood," a sense of family, or common ownership of
the language as a whole, not just of a dialect or dialect group as it is
common at the moment.

I believe that a Catalan speaker living in Madrid, Bilbao or Málaga, i.e. in
a non-Catalan-speaking part of Spain, is more likely to maintain their
Catalan (such as when speaking with other Catalans, telephoning family,
etc.) than is a Low Saxon speaker that lives in Frankfurt, Munich or Erfurt,
for example. Why do I think so? Part of it is based on my own observations,
and I am aware that the average Catalan is quite fond and proud of their
heritage and "otherness," does not perceive its use as something outdated,
embarrassing or disloyal.

Just more to ponder.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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