As it so
happens, it appears Heiko sends all communication in
Hochdeutsch, occasionally proceeded by "moin moin" to make it sound
more Platt-ish. Slomox, the other most active current admin, is also
not a native speaker of Low Saxon (but rather Hochdeutsch),
With these people running this nokieksel op
't patentplatt, it's no
wonder it's... in patentplatt.
It really looks like the Low Saxon edition of Wikipedia has not yet achieved the level of
language quality it should have. On the other hand many of the deficits are due to the
fact that the Platt spoken nowadays in most areas is highly influenced by High German.
This is certainly true. Yet, I was surprised at the resentment from
Slomox and Heiko over the accusations. They both insist that it isn't
in Patentplatt. Yet, they are not native speakers (they both admit
this), while Ron Hahn and Jonny Meinbohm (the ones making the
accusation originally) actually are native speakers.
If instead they had admitted "You are right that most of nds.wiki is
in Patentplatt. We are working on fixing it." or "You are right that
most of nds.wiki is in Patentplatt. We wish we could change it, but
are not native speakers and so need help to fix it."
Also, the
nds.wiki mainpage says it's in Plattdüütsch (ie, flat
german)... and in parenthesis after it says "Plattdüütsch", it says
"neddersassisch un oostnedderdüütsch" (Low Saxon and East Low German).
Hmm... according to the ISO, "nds" does not include East Low German.
Only Low Saxon. Seems this Wikipedia is not in accordance...
I noticed quite a while ago that this could cause a lot of confusion, especially among
people from abroad. Generally, people in Northern Germany uniformly refer to their
multiple regional or local dialects as "Platt" or "Plattdüütsch", in
High German we say "Plattdeutsch" or "Platt" and sometimes in more
formal, written High German the term "Niederdeutsch" is used (to avoid the
somewhat negative connotation of "flat"). This refers, as far as I know, to all
dialects from the Dutch border to the Polish border (except the Frisian ones, of course).
While people are well aware of the existance of many different dialects a distinction
between Low Saxon and East Low German dialects is not made among the "general
public". Everything is perceived as "Platt(deutsch)".
This is true. But I think the main issue here is not orthography, or
"Dutch Low Saxon" and "German Low Saxon" varieties, but rather shades
of mutual intelligibility. We would do well to have separate
Wikipedias for different dialects or dialect-groups.
The question is, how far do we divide?
There are a few options:
Western (Ostfriesland, Oldenburg, Emsland, all Netherlands varieties,
Westphalia, Eastphalia), Eastern (Mecklenburg, West Pomerania, Mercia,
Brandenburg), and Plautdietsch (the Mennonite varieties which today
are spoken mostly in the Americas), would be the least number of
divisions.
If that isn't enough divisions, it can be split to Northwestern LS
(Ostfriesland, Oldenburg, Emsland, Groningen, Drenthe, W. Overijssel,
Stellingwerven), Westphalian (Westphalia, Twente, Salland,
Gelderland), Eastphalian (Eastphalia), Northeastern LS (Mecklenburg,
West Pomerania), Southeastern LS (Mercia, Brandenburg), and
Plautdietsch...
And then, the most divisions would be Ostfreesk, Oldenburgisch,
Emslandisch, Grunnegers, Dreents, Overyssels, Stellingwarfs,
Westfaelsch, Tweants, Sallands, Gelderlands (Veluws + Achterhooks),
Eastphalian, Mecklenburgish, West Pomeranian, Mercian, Brandenburgish,
and Plautdietsch.
Of course, you could introduce even more divisions than *that*, but
that would be bordering on mentally insane: a separate Wikipedia for
Hoogeveen Drèents and Zuidwolde Drèents, for example... given, there
_are_ differences, eg "h" in Zuidwolde Drèents is usually silent in
Hoogeveen Drèents, Zuidwolde "zi'j" vs. Hoogeveen "ze", Zuidwolde
"pruugels" vs. Hoogeveen "jonchies" (children), but within a
paragraph
there are not very many differences, and most of them are regular
sound-changes that make it easier (a Hoogeveen-Drèents speaker can
read Zuidwolde Drèents words such as "heur", "hummelties",
"huus",
"hier", and the like, keeping in mind that the "h" of Zuidwolde is
silent in Hoogeveen).
Interestingly, the term "Low Saxon" which we
use so frequently here (because that`s the term used in English and apparently in Dutch,
too) is _never_ used in Germany, only in scientific contexts. It seems like the somewhat
clumsy headline on the nds homepage was chosen in order to include users from the
Netherlands (who would be excluded by solely using the term plattdüütsch because the
"German" part would alienate them).
True... but it's rather pointless that they made that effort to not
alienate people from the Netherlands, since they have already
alienated them quite a bit by using Sass spelling with no special
provisions.
Mark