LL-L "Language activism" 2010.07.09 (03) [EN]

Fri Jul 9 17:41:50 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 09 July 2010 - Volume 03*
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>

Subject: LL-L "History" 2010.07.09 (01) [EN]

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

First of all: did you miss the little joke at the beginning of my posting
and the smiley at the end, right after my name? So this could have shown you
that I'm acting more as an imp than as an *annoying devil(s)* ;-) advocate.
I'm trying to give the whole matter an easy touch with a hard core, and so I
shall continue.

I did miss it ;-) Nothing against impyness in general, but I have a hard
time when "fact talk" and "funny talk" is combined, especially when
discussing in a foreign language and in a written medium where you have no
context of mimic or gestural expression ;-) (and even more so if I have an
emotional bond to one of the positions in the argument)

Second of all: let me tell you that one of my most important dialogue
partner of Low Saxon, my dear and very next neighbour Amandus Ahlf (you
might google for him, Marcus!) claims to avoid the use of Low Saxon names
for locations which are situated outside of an undestinated home district,
even in a pure Low Saxon talk. It's just good to cause confusion amongst the
speakers.

>From a pragmatical point of view that makes sense. But from a pragmatical
point of view Low Saxon should die. From a pragmatical point of view we all
should only speak Esperanto (or one of the other constructed languages that
go even further in purifying the logicalness of the language). From media
exposure most people know the German names but don't know the Low Saxon ones
(cause of the lack of Low Saxon media and the poor distribution of the few
existing Low Saxon media). But that's the direct road to language
abolishment.

One of the projects I'm working on is collecting all the Low Saxon place
names (Wikipedia:Wikiprojekt
Öörd<http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiprojekt_%C3%96%C3%B6rd>).
So far we've collected several thousand place names which is the most
extensive corpus of Low Saxon place names ever compiled. The next step I'm
planning is integrating this data into
OpenStreetMap<http://www.openstreetmap.org/>(what Wikipedia is for
encyclopedia is OpenStreetMap for maps) thus creating
the first ever extensive map with Low Saxon place names. My vision is that
hopefully one day this map (and other's of its kind that will spring off)
help to make Low Saxon place names known among Low Saxon speakers in the
same way German names are known now. The thing I'm stuck with at the moment
is the right spelling of the place names. Should I keep the original
spelling of the sources (which is totally non-uniform), should I unify the
spelling of the names and to what degree? Rather tricky question and
whatever I do will evoke opponents.

 > It's the fault of the fact that 'Beers' is Low Saxon.

Are you sure that it really *is* Low Saxon? Where is the proof?

The proof is that it's used in Low Saxon speech!? Or is this question just
impyness? In my previous mail I explained the sound shifts that led to the
word. It's obviously the direct successor of the old "*Bederiks-a".

 So I repeat: what about my guess that "Beers" is just a result of local
dialect, perhaps closer to Standard German than to LS?! I don't mind if it
is just 50 or even 100, 200 or 300 years old! I'm pretty sure that a lot of
'Beersters' (to make things even weirder: suddenly appears a "t"!) use it
this way though they are completely unable to speak Platt.

I don't understand that argument. The local dialect is Low Saxon, so what's
the difference? Why and in what way should it be influenced by standard
German? Standard German is "Bederkesa"!?

 > 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"!...

> So, Jonny, would your critique also apply to English? Or French?

Asking me this way I would answer: yes! And I feel myself being in good
companionship with a lot of native speakers of the mentioned languages ;-).
*Man - ick gloyv ne' recht, watt ick daor watt an maoken kunn'. Dey hoyrt
mii jao ne' tou ;-)!* (I don't think that I would be able do change anything
there. *pun:* They don't listen to me / they don't belong to me.)

Well, at least you are consequent in your arguments ;-)

 > 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.

A kind of vowel shifting XXL?

I would prefer to write *Lüüd* or perhaps *Lüü'*, but generally I don't like
it very much to write 'opp Platt' - as easy and comfortable as it is to
speak for me, as hard it is to pen.

It was hard for me too when I started writing it five years ago. I hadn't
learned it in school or anywhere else and my writing was mediocre to put it
mildly. But I learned it by doing and I think my writing is quite decent now
and I know to write Low Saxon off pat just as I know to write German. If you
want to change the status quo you just have to move forward without sticking
to your status quo habits.

Marcus Buck

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