LL-L "Language politics" 2011.06.02 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 02 June 2011 - Volume 01
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From: Mike Wintzer k9mw at yahoo.com

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2011.06.01 (08) [EN]


Paul wrote:
« I fancy Danish for the role.  That, or Frisian »
[for the rôle of a European lingua franca].
What about Chemehuevi? Or Njerep?
I am serious. It doesn't really matter
which one. For expediency only it should
be English or Basic English.
Mike Wintzer

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2011.06.01 (10) [EN]


While I totally disagree with banning of Platt or any language, surely any
citizen of Germany needs to speak German? Even if you don't actually want to
be a citizen of Germany you presumably need to know what your government and
other agencies are actually doing?  Many Welsh people don't want to be
citizens of the United Kingdom (and many English too, including me); many
want to speak Welsh if they don't already, but few would argue against
learning English.

A lot depends on the nature and purpose of the ban; when I worked in Algeria
we had two young people who were keen on improving their English, so they
introduced their own rule to only speak English, even with each other. They
obviously weren't anti-Arabic, it was just a method of immersion.  And it
worked; the improvement in 6 months was spectacular.

The error, made in Wales, Brittany, and apparently Germany, is to assume
that the local language should be actually suppressed or eliminated.

Paul
Derby
England

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From: M.-L. Lessing marless at gmx.de

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2011.06.01 (10) [EN]


 Hello Mike,

would not the teacher in your example now tell the children to speak only
lingua franca, because the better they could converse when traveling or
working abroad, while at home it would be just the same...? So it seems to
me that this would not lift up the smaller languages, but drop the "national
languages" of today into the same pit they dropped the minority languages
into. Guess what this would to to them. The only winner would be the lingua
franca.

Maybe you remember Günther Oettinger saying in 2006 that English would soon
become the "Amts- und Arbeitssprache" in Germany and German be the language
for leisure time and private matters only. The statement then caused him
some trouble. (Now Non-Germans, if you google "oettinger english" and find
some videos, prepare for a good laugh! And YES, it is the same man!!!) Is
this not exactly what you propose? And what has happened to Platt since some
centuries ago? Desirable...?

Sorry if I do not remember the discussion we had time ago. I am getting old,
I fear -- turned 47 this year :-)

Hartlich

Marlou

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From: Hellinckx Luc luc.hellinckx at gmail.com

Subject: LL-L "Language politics"


 Beste Mike,

You wrote:

hello Lowlanders, hello Marlou,
When I entered school at age of five,
the first thing our teacher did was to
forbid the use of Plat (LS). One day
one of our older classmates (I attended
a rural, one-room school) asked the
teacher WHY we couldn't speak Plat.
Her very serious answer was: «You see,
one day you might want to visit Frankfurt
or work in München, and you would be
like a foreigner only speaking Plat.»
A few years later, I made a bike trip
only 100 km from my home town and
the Deutsch forced down my throat
didn't do me any good, because I
didn't know any Danish.......
With a common lingua franca our
teacher's argument would *collapse*,
no need to deprive us of our mother
tongue for the sake of conversing
with people in Frankfurt or München,
or in Sønderborg for that matter.
Do you understand now, why I feel
that a lingua franca would relieve
the pressure on regional languages?


Whether you'll be speaking Platt, Lingua Fränkisch, Englisc, Latin, Spanish
or Chinese, it'll be of little or no use at all if you're heading for
Belarus. Yes, that's further than 100 km from your home town, but these
days, people are more mobile than ever, so it's a valid comparison I think.

As the scale on which events take place increases, old struggles between
neighboring languages, or between a dialect and a Dachsprache will easily be
replaced by tension between newer and bigger blocks of languages. The
language, associated with the most succesfull economy usually wins in the
end I think.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium

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 From: Mike Morgan mwmbombay at gmail.com

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2011.06.01 (07) [EN]


Okay, I am not a voting member of the EU (or any OTHER geo-political
entity at last attempt), but I think we in India have shown that
Democracy doesn't work for any important decisions, so maybe geography
should decide.

With the expanding eastern border of the EU, my guestimate is that
Upper Sorbian (hornjosrebšćina) may be at the (geographical) "heart"
of he EU.
      http://serbscina.w.interia.pl/iso/eindex.htm

mwm || U C > || mike || мика  || माईक || マイク || மாய்க் (aka Dr Michael W
Morgan)

Senior Consultant
BA in Applied Sign Language Studies (BAASLS)
*इन्दिरा* गांधी राष्ट्रीय मुक्त विश्वविद्यालय | Indira Gandhi National Open
University, New Delhi, India

"Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we
excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered
dreams of others. ... [T]here is another kind of violence, slower but just
as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the
violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay." (Bobby
Kennedy, 5 April 1968)


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From: Hellinckx Luc luc.hellinckx at gmail.com

Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2011.06.01 (07) [EN]


 Beste Leeglanders,

Fight Alzheimer: Become bilingual!

The Bilingual Advantage -
NYTimes.com<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB>

I wonder what other diseases can be kept at bay, if you're multilingual ;=)

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium


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