Hi Mark,
It is not a "linguistic constructed world" as you call it because I don't plan on constructing a common language to be used on nds-nl. Everyone will be free to use his or her own dialect.
You're correct by saying Dutch-Low Saxon speakers can mostly understand each other, because Dutch-Low Saxon tends more towards Dutch and German-Low Saxon tends way more towards German (as suggested in the name) in fact the Low Saxon used isn't even Low Saxon, it's Missingsch.
It is not preposterous to split up the Low Saxon by border, if people in the Netherlands understand the German-Low Saxon better they're welcome to go there, but I dought that they in fact will understand the German-Low Saxon version, since ALL Dutch-Low Saxon dialect use an orthography based on Dutch and mostly use words from Dutch. Of course you can't always understand one another like some Twents words won't be used in Stellingwarfs etc. but this problem is smaller on the Dutch side.
The two languages on either sides of the border have evolved differently as result of Dutch and German influences, the Wikipedia isn't actually in "Low Saxon" it's also called "Plattdeutsch" refering only to the German-Low Saxon dialects, thus not including Dutch, which you can see because they're not mutually understandable even if you change the orthography. That's why I want to create a Dutch-Low Saxon Wikipedia.
There are more dialects in the Netherlands than only Stellingwarfs and Grunnings, like Twents, Sallaands and Veluws etc. the people who live on the Veluwe understand Grunnings Twents and Stellingwarfs mostly and vice versa, this isn't the case with the Low Saxon-German dialects. (With a few exceptions along the borderlines.)
You said: "German and Dutch aren't really mutually comprehensible when spoken, but when written you can get at least the gist of what the other person is saying."
You're half right, if German and Dutch LS-dialects are writting down they still wouldn't be able to understand each other even if they had a common orthography because on the other side of the border they use a lot of German words, if you read on the website, there is even a category saying if they don't know the LS word they should use German, and this happens a lot, and makes it incomprehensible for Dutch-LS speakers if don't didn't study German! (As result most Dutch-LS users use the Dutch version.
Servien Ilaino
2005/7/3, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Hi Servien,
There is a major fallacy in your argument.
That is that you are saying "...is even different in Dutch-Low Saxon..."
But there is no absolute division of dialects.
In your artificial linguistic constructed world you'd like everybody to believe in, all Dutch speakers of Low Saxon can understand one another and speak identically, and all German Low Saxon speakers can understand one another and speak identically, yet German Low Saxon speakers and Dutch Low Saxon speakers can't understand one another.
But this is not the case. The fact of the matter is, Low Saxon itself is a dialect continuum. A man from one side of the Dutch-German border can perfectly understand the Nedersaksisch of a man from the other. Yet you would split them into "Dutch Low Saxon" and "German Low Saxon" categories. This is preposterous.
Another huge problem with the current Low Saxon Wikipedia is that it seems it's written in Missingsch rather than "real" Low Saxon. I would like to find out more about this particular issue, though.
Wouter has said before that people on opposite sides of the border can understand each other well enough, but that a Pommersch speaker can't understand a speaker of t Grunnings, and for this reason Germany and the Netherlands need different Wikipedias based on nation for Platt, rather than on actual solid linguistic distinctions.
Obviously, a speaker of Pommersch can't understand a speaker of Grunnings, but a speaker of Oostfreesk and Stellingwarfs should be able to have a conversation with few difficulties.
Also, it is a common linguistic principle that intelligibility is greatly increased in the written word. I could not, for my life, understand Derek Ross if he told me about Scotland in Scots, yet if he wrote it down I would be able to understand it at a good level. A speaker of Navajo and a speaker of Western Apache can only understand each other a little bit, but the written word is almost completely mutually comprehensible. German and Dutch aren't really mutually comprehensible when spoken, but when written you can get at least the gist of what the other person is saying.
Recently, somebody filed a request on the requests for new languages page for a Triestin Wikipedia. Almost the whole world considers Triestin to be a dialect of Venet, yet this person and his supporters consider it to be a different language.
So I asked for a sample from two independent sources. The samples were nearly identical. I posted them, and he said "Well, I would translate it this way" even though both of my translations were provided by native speakers. His "alternative" translation was still nearly identical, and those differences that WERE added could be explained as purposeful linguistic manipulations to make it more different from Venet. (Similarly, Bokmål and Nynorsk have various acceptable variant forms. In many cases, there are forms in Bokmål which are identical to forms in Nynorsk. Often, people [especially Nynorsk-users] purposefully avoid forms similar to Bokmål to make their writing more distinctly Nynorsk)
The main problem is how to solve a dialect continuum. Creating separate Wikipedias based on national borders is just ignoring the problem. Oostfreesk speakers and Pommersch speakers will still not be able to understand each other. Oostfreesk and Stellingwarfs speakers will still be able to understand each other. Teh world will keep on turning. And we will have side-stepped the problem rather than attempting to look for a workable solution.
Mark
On 03/07/05, Servien Ilaino nl2b@europe.com wrote:
Hi Mark,
It's quite ununderstandable, it's not just the orthography, but in Germany they use different words so you have to know that dialect to understand it. I can understand the first sentence, but the second sentence is very hard to understand, the first part of this sentence is understandable as well, at "veet nu Bescheed" it's completely ununderstandable for any Low Saxon speaker in the Netherlands: "Man de Bezeukers vun de Lezung miet Hartmut Cyriacks un Peter Niszen veet nu Bescheed euver den plattduutschen Harry Potter. De Kulturvereen "PEP" un de Stadtbeukerie Kelinghuzen harrn de baaiden Plattmakers inlaodt, un dat veer en heel gode Idee..."
The first sentence of that text is even different in Dutch-Low Saxon: "Wie weet nog wat en teuvernaor is? Dat et Platduutse woord deurveur "Sauwberer" is, bin de meeste minsen waorschynlik al vergeten. (Plattdeutsch: "Wokeen veet noch, vat en Teuverer is? Dut ole plattduutsche Wort veur "Zaauberer" hebbt de mehrsten Luud maaist vergeten.")
Hope you get my point now...
Servien Ilaino ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Williamson" To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 17:00:59 -0700
Hi Servien,
Please check out
http://s87257573.onlinehome.us/ks/index.php?title=HP_op_Platt&variant=ks...
and tell me what you think of the conversion.
It's obviously not perfect but I'm still working on it.
Any tips for improvements (ie, specific spelling errors) are welcome.
Mark
On 02/07/05, Servien Ilaino wrote:
Sorry it's suppose to be
http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Servien/Heufdbladsyde
----- Original Message ----- From: "Servien Ilaino" To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 10:11:47 -0500
Hi,
I requested Dutch-Low Saxon a few weeks ago and I kind of made my
own
mainpage for Wikipedia (if it ever gets created that is...) but
anyway...
for people who like to check it out here is the link: http://nds.wikipedia.org/Bruker:Servien/Heufdbladsyde
Please post any suggestions and stuff, like to read some comments.
Question: On Wikipedia-L posts are mostly grouped together, but how
do
you do that? (messages below each other like on wikipedia ": and ::
and
:::" to show those are the replies. I hope you kind of understand
it
because I don't really know how to explain it myself haha.)
Servien Ilaino!
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