LL-L "History" 2010.07.08 (03) [EN]

Fri Jul 9 03:17:07 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 08 July 2010 - Volume 03*
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>

Subject: LL-L "History" 2010.07.08 (02) [DE-EN]

From: Jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>

Subject: LL-L "History" 2010.07.07 (06) [EN]

Beste Marcus,

answering to my previous posting

>> ...still living at "Bederkesa", which in Low Saxon has become damaged to
"Beers".

you wrote:

> I'd prefer the wording "has evolved into" instead of "has become damaged
to". Being able to transport the same amount

> of  information in one syllable instead of four syllables seems to be a
sign of superior language efficiency to me.

("Fabelhafter Kerl!", sagte einst der österreichische Kaiser Franz-Joseph
über einen besonders schneidigen preußischen General. "Fa-bel-haft, der
Mann! Kann *'Euer kaiserliche Majestät'* in einer Silbe aussprechen!")

Same amount of information? I'm sorry, I'm completely unable to pick out *
any* sense from this deformed word *'Beers'*(spoken similar to ['black] *
bears*'). The true origin probably is *"Bederiks-a",* which, translated,
means *'(Knight) Bederiks water'* (Schiller-Lübben, first page, "a").

Even a very capable etymologist, using all his knowledge and phantasy,
would hardly find out this connection. It's a kind of dialectical
encryption, a slang word in its purest sense, which doesn't become
automatically better just because it is used by some poorly educated Low
Saxon 'Nuschel-Brüdern' ('mumble-brothers').

And if you just mean the exclusive information *'a location, near
Bremerhaven'* - who on earth is able to find out this when he is living, let
me say, more than 50 kilometres away from that village? Not very useful,
don't you think?

Yes, I mean the bare 'a location, near Bremerhaven'. That's what both Low
Saxon 'Beers' and German 'Bederkesa' mean. You are right, that the German
word (which is just the former Low Saxon word conserved in an earlier state)
is closer to the etymological origin. But to a person with no knowledge
about the science of "etymology" (that's about 99% of the population) both
forms are completely incomprehensible. So no information value in that. A
different example where your argument would be correct is 'Holschen' and
'Hanschen' vs. 'Holzschuh' and 'Handschuh' ('clog' and 'glove' in English).
'The Low Saxon words (the contraction of former 'Holtschoh' and 'Handschoh'
into 'Holschen' and 'Hanschen' is a unique feature of Low Saxon that is
present in all Low Saxon dialects [according to my records from at least
Groningen til the Vistula and from Waldeck til Schleswig]) have to be
learned as separate words, while the German words are transparent
compositions of known words.

You are right, that nobody 50 km away knows the word. But that's not the
fault of the word 'Beers'. It's the fault of the fact that 'Beers' is Low
Saxon. If Klaus Groth and his 19th century friends had formed a movement to
make Low Saxon a full literary language and had won enough motion to make
Low Saxon the sole and official language of Northern Germany, then nobody
(except some historians who study the 16th to 19th century phase where it
was fancy in Low Saxon lands to write German) would know the word
'Bederkesa' and everybody would use 'Beers'.

Let me give another example why "worn" forms like "Beers" are just normal
words. It's just normal language development. You may know another language,
that has heavily worn forms. How do you pronounce "London"? Do you speak two
"o"s? Or is it rather "Landen" (I use German-based spelling)? How do you
pronounce "situation"? It's "sittjuäyschen". "Language" is pronounced
"längwidsch"! "Worcestershire" is "Wustersche"! "Plymouth" is "Plimmes"! And
again German is a role model in pronunciation! Germans speak "London" with
two "o"s! So, Jonny, would your critique also apply to English? Or French? "
Bordeaux" is pronounced "Boordo", "eau" is just "o". In both English and
French the written form represents the pronuciation of the words from a time
past. Are these damaged and deformed languages?

 Who allows people to abuse Low Saxon so heftyly? Aren't there anylonger
any rules at all? Is it fancy, trendy? What are we doing here? Are we trying
to save any local family-slang or a great language, with all its norms and
principles that make up a 'universal' language?

Why do you speak about abuse? It's just the normal development of the word.
The 'd' lacks cause 'd' between vowels was lost. Your dialect of Low Saxon
has "Lü" instead of "Lüde" too, hasn't it? The 'a' lacks cause unstressed
vowels in the last syllable were reduced to schwa and then subject to
apocope (just as - again - 'Lü' vs. 'Lüde'). That would lead to 'Beerks'. I
don't know about the 'k', but there'll be some reason too.

I really have to say that you irritate me with your positions about Low
Saxon language use. I am unable to understand your position. In your Low
Saxon posts you put much emphasis on writing it exactly like it is
pronounced in your own dialect and in the past you have criticized the
compromise Sass Platt (which I write most of the time). That's a position I
don't share, but it's a valid position. But every now and then you seem to
take a totally different position and tell us that the "worn" pronunciation
of the dialects is like totally bad and you rant about "poorly educated
mumble-brothers". That seems contradictory to me. Perhaps you can shed some
lights on the to me invisible bridge between these two positions?

Marcus Buck

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