Hi Boris,
In fact, he does claim Low Saxon as his native language, please see: http://www.sassisch.net/rhahn/pers-engl.html
It says: "Native languages: * German ("High German") * Low Saxon ("Low German") "
in contrast to his non-native languages, which he lists as English, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Modern Uyghur, Uzbek, Kazakh, and "reading proficiency in all Germanic and most Romance languages, and Mongolian".
And I'm pretty sure it's Jonny Meinbohm's native language: the way he writes is basically the exact opposite of Patentplatt, he uses a lot more expressions and grammar that would not work in German, than even Ron does. However, there is the possibility that it is not Jonny's native language.
Also, I'm not exactly sure, but I think Ron has only lived in the US for 10 or 15 years (he was born in Hamburg). Certainly, he has kept abreast of what changes may have occurred in Low Saxon while he was gone by his huge involvement in Low Saxon studies on the Internet -- he reads hundreds of e-mails in and about Low Saxon to the list each week, he has written websites in Low Saxon, and it is my guess that he also reads many websites, and probably also magazines and newsletters, in Low Saxon.
Cheers Mark
On 15/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger BorisLohnzweiger@web.de wrote:
Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com, wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org schrieb am 11.07.05 02:37:59:
Although Ron isn't subscribed to this list, so far as far as I can tell he's the only native speaker who has even contributed to this discussion.
Mark,
since you quote Ron so frequently I checked out his user page at "Lowlands-L" a while ago to get a vague idea who he is. His academic accomplishments are obvious. But interestingly however, he doesn't claim being a native speaker of Low Saxon himself ! Instead, he writes "my native German". Furthermore, from what can be read there he seems to have emigrated overseas decades ago, so his idea of Platt might be slightly outdated because the Platt used today is surely different from to one used a generation ago.
Boris
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