LL-L 'Language maintenance' 2010.12.14 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 14 December 2011 - Volume 02
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From: David Pinto <david_e_pinto at yahoo.ca>;
 Subject: LL-L 'Language maintenance' 2007.01.11 (03) [E/LS]

Ron,

You could have mentioned, but did not, Yiddish

 David

--- Received: Thursday, January 11, 2007, 4:38 PM

  L O W L A N D S - L - 11 January 2007 - Volume 04

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

Thanks, Arend and Jonny.

Folks, what these two have been discussing is basically the ambivalence
between wanting minority languages (in this case Low Saxon) to survive and
on the other hand feeling uncomfortable with the creation of neologisms
that are necessary if these languages be used in all spheres of life.  The
argument, especially Jonny's, is that Low Saxon simply isn't used in
certain spheres of life, that when you talk about science and technology,
for instance, you use German or Dutch, depending on on which side of the
border you happen to be living.

While I certainly appreciate the ambivalence and emotional resistance, I
would at least like to try to play the devil's advocate, a role that comes
easily especially in this case.

The facts are:

   - For a language to have long-term survival chances it must be
   self-contained, independent and "complete" (which is not the same as
   "isolated" and "pure").
      - A language that is limited to certain spheres is likely to
      disappear sooner or later. It will be wiped out by the power language(s),
      if it doesn't wither on the vine all by itself due to self-imposed
      isolation and stunting.
      - A language that is used only among older people within limited
      contexts has the least survival chances.
      - A language whose speakers are emotionally committed to its survival
      will overcome such ambivalence.

Let's look at a few cases.

Roger recently visited the Faeroe Islands and mentioned that it was close
to a miracle that Faeroese survived after centuries of Danish rule. We
might as well extend this to Iceland and Greenland. Faeroese, Icelandic and
Greenlandic can be used in all spheres of life, even though at least higher
education used to be almost exclusively in Danish. This survival by way of
adaptation is obviously due to the speakers wanting them to be comparable
to Danish and as lasting and powerful as Danish. While there may be
discussions and even quarrels about the methodology and the finer points of
terminology creation and stylistic developments, the general consensus has
been that such expansion was necessary.

Welsh began to seriously reassert itself in the latter part of the 20th
century.  It too had to play quite a bit of catch-up.  While many people
spoke the language fluently they had difficulties discussing certain
topics, namely those they were used to discuss in English.  The Welsh
media, bolstered by public demand, expanded the range of programming
topics, including technical contents, and as a result younger people's
terminological inventories expanded and then affected those of older
speakers.

When Norman power had declined in Britain, everyone who wanted to be
someone had adopted Norman French, either completely or reserved for for
certain subject areas, namely those specialized areas that had been
developed and taught in French under Norman rule. It was only the
"uneducated" masses, especially rural communities, that had continued use
of English; they had little or no French and lacked the book learning to
discuss certain subjects. English was a threatened language in its home
country then. It was mostly thanks to activists and other committed people
(interestingly lead by many Cornishmen) that English reemerged as a
national language.  Yes, it had taken on glaring French traits, but the
thing is that it survived after a long period of dormancy in the shadow of
French.

A major vehicle of the foundation of Modern Israel was the revival of
Hebrew as a religiously rooted lingua franca, thus as an ethno-spiritual
symbol of the aliyah, the much awaited and heralded return gathering from
the galuth, the diaspora. Before that it hadn't been an everyday spoken
language for at least two millenia. The revival required major lexical
expansion (among many other things), and in the wake of European-dominated
adaptation its phonology underwent extreme changes, developed into a far
cry from Semitic phonology.  However, the endeavor was a success.  Why?
Because people wanted it to be a success.  This is being emulated in the
Cornish language movement, and time will tell if this, too, will be a
success.

Things are as simple as this:


   - There are two things to choose from:
      1. to resist adaptation and expansion
      2. to embrace or at least accept adaptation and expansion
   - These choices require acceptance of the consequenses:
      1. language death
      2. a chance of language language survival

Having your cake and eat it too is simply not a choice.  In other words, if
you moan and groan about people's adaptation and expansion attempts you
shouldn't say that you want the language to survive.

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron

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