>From Rohn.
And he *is* a native speaker.
Mark
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch(a)yahoo.com>
Date: 25-Jun-2005 21:41
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)
To: Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
--- Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> (forwarded to Reinhart (Ron) Hahn to get his opinion)
>
> [Some basic background on the issue for Ron: As you know there is
> already a Low Saxon Wikipedia. Somebody just requested a "Dutch Low
> Saxon" Wikipedia, complaining that nds.wiki is in "German Low Saxon".
> I expressed a few concerns, not least among them that in a case of a
> dialect continuum, it will be difficult for us to decide where to draw
> lines between varieties, and which varieties should get their own
> Wikipedias.]
>
> Concerns that nobody has responded to yet:
>
> * As I noted before, it is a dialect continuum. Stellingwarfs and
> Middel-pommersch are surely not easily mutually intelligible, but
> Grunnegers and Oostfreesk very well should be.
>
> * Dividing Platt along national boundaries is illogical. If we had an
> Oostfreesk Wikipedia, Grunnegers-speakers would surely understand it
> and vice-versa, even though Grunnegers is in the Netherlands and
> Oostfreesk is mostly in Germany. There are no definite borders between
> one and the next, and the national border is just as arbitrary as any.
>
> This would also mean that a man from the tiny village of Laar (in
> Germany) would use a different Wikipedia than a man from the tiny
> village of Gramsbergen (in the Netherlands), even though they're about
> 4km (~2.5mi) apart and their speech is identical. Does this make much
> sense?
>
> * A case of a dialect continuum is a very new thing for us. We have no
> experience with it so far, or we have crammed them all into a single
> Wikipedia.
>
> Mark
Hi, Mark!
Thanks for forwarding this. It all makes a lot of sense to me.
I would find it very regrettable if the language were separated along the
political border, though I know quite a few people that would welcome it.
In the case of Low Saxon, what is at the root of the problem is
orthography. In Germany it is based on German principles, in the
Netherlands on Dutch principles. While most people in the Netherlands
have some German, the Dutch-based system is quite incomprehensible to the
majority of people in Germany. However, this is not to say that the
German-based system ought to be used. I personally hate it for several
reasons, and I am not alone. It is not emotional but because the system
is very poorly suited, does not make many necessary phonemic distinctions
and thus teaches learners faulty pronunciation, which it has done already.
However, this is a very contentious issue, because the vast majority of
Low Saxon speakers are older, conservative and narrow-minded, plus
uneducated in anything linguistic, hanging on to myths and false
assumption, such as orthographic standardization being designed to
artificially created a single standard language, when orthographic
standardization has nothing to do with language standardization, only with
facilitating mutual reading comprehension. So we are up against a monster
here.
It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
WikiPlatt team. Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that. But they
don't know the language well enough. Much or most of it is "Patentplatt"
(based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of German. I am not at
all opposed to introducing technical neologisms, but there needs to be
first of all a firm grasp of the basic language, the grammar and the
authentic idiom.
It would be best -- if doable -- to have an international team work on
this and use a type of compromise orthography that is easily accessible to
all.
Thanks for your engagement in all of this.
Regards,
Ron
Reinhard "Ron" F. Hahn
Seattle, USA
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