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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...

...

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...

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Also, Missingsch is _not_ considered to be a dialect of Low Saxon. Rather, it is a dialect of German with some Low Saxon traits. Please see Ron's earlier message, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missingsch

Mark

On 03/07/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

Servien, at this point you have gone beyond even a distortion of reality to pure fantasy. Speech varieties cannot develop separately if they're spoken 4km apart from one another (an example I gave earlier in the thread), unless there's a huge geographical barrier between them.

Low Saxon is a dialect continuum. This means that things change gradually. There is no "oops, suddenly I crossed the national border, now I can't understand what people say!"

It's more like "hmm, I can't understand the people in this town as well as the last, but almost as much..." and a little bit less and less until eventually "I don't understand the people in this town at all", but certainly there is no division along national borders like you're trying to say.

Mark

On 03/07/05, Servien Ilaino servien@gmail.com wrote:

...

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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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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Mark Williamson wrote:

Servien, at this point you have gone beyond even a distortion of reality to pure fantasy.

Node a couple of native speakers are telling you constantly you are wrong. And you who had never heard of the dialects before this discussion is all of a sudden accusing native speakers of fantasizing???????? You are going way to far. First me, than Wouter and now Servien are telling you you are wrong. Why can't you just accept the fact that you are wrong and that one person cannot know about every language in the world. There is a reason people specialize you know.

<skipped rest of nonsense>

Walter/Waerth

You're actually very wrong in saying that I had never heard of these dialects before this discussion.

That's where you're wrong in your beliefs about me. You assume in your whole ideas about my involvement in languages on Wikipedia that I don't, or can't, know anything about the majority of the languages. But nearly all of the languages I've been involved in are ones I've heard of before, and quite often I've read a lot about them.

I've been subscribed to lowlands-l for months now, well before this discussion started, and I've seen a lot of back-and-forth discussion about Low Saxon from people in Germany and the Netherlands.

Certainly, being a native speaker does not mean you know _about_ your language. A rural farmworker in Montana will not know how many people speak English worldwide, and he probably wouldn't know that English is a SVO language. He probably also wouldn't know about Scots, a language closely related to English, or about English pidgins and creoles spoken in Africa, the Carribean, and beyond.

Mark

On 03/07/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

Servien, at this point you have gone beyond even a distortion of reality to pure fantasy.

Node a couple of native speakers are telling you constantly you are wrong. And you who had never heard of the dialects before this discussion is all of a sudden accusing native speakers of fantasizing???????? You are going way to far. First me, than Wouter and now Servien are telling you you are wrong. Why can't you just accept the fact that you are wrong and that one person cannot know about every language in the world. There is a reason people specialize you know.

<skipped rest of nonsense>

Walter/Waerth

guaka@no-log.org wrote:

...

Servien, at this point you have gone beyond even a distortion of reality to pure fantasy. Speech varieties cannot develop separately if they're spoken 4km apart from one another (an example I gave earlier in the thread), unless there's a huge geographical barrier between them.

Mark, het wordt nu wel erg irritant en ik denk dat je het toch aan mensen over moet laten die wel weten waar ze het over hebben.

Misschien dat deze discussie gewoon in het Nederlands en nds (en een klein beetje Duits) moet worden gevoerd.

Ja Guaka die Node EU zegt alle talen te spreken dus dan begrijpt ie dit ook wel. Anyway kan je het NDS-NL ook steunen met je stem?

Bedankt Walter/Waerth

ps sorry to all other wikipedians but we are testing really speaks all these languages he claims he knows something about.

But I get the idea that you're saying that you think that this discussion should be in Dutch and Low Saxon, at least in the second sentence.

I honestly have to disagree with this. It should either be in any language, as policy says, or in Low Saxon exclusively. There's no reason why it should be in Dutch *and* Low Saxon.

---

Obviously, Walter's message was not directed at me, but I can understand it better than Kasper's.

You really really really really do not get it do you??????? No one has argued for your POV. You are the only one arguing it! We have had a couple of native speakers argue against you. A couples of others have argued against you and you still go on. Please read what everybody has said. Forgot what stupid braindead me said. Look at the arguments of others.

Walter/Waerth

Also, it seems to me that Walter, Wouter, and Servien are intent on ignoring the issue of nds.wiki being in Missingsch rather than real nds. But this is a real issue, and we need to deal with it. I have personally received complaints from members of lowlands-l about nds.wiki being in Missingsch, which is not actually Low Saxon but rather a "contact variety".

Surely, mutual intelligiblity would be increased very much if this huge problem were solved. I'm sure one of the main problems is the fact that it's written in Missingsch.

Perhaps before starting nds-nl.wiki, somebody should start real-nds.wiki, and after that we can see if things are any better.

Mark

On 03/07/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

And of course, since people disagree with me, I should change my opinion? Isn't that what a difference of opinion is? Disagreement?

Until somebody convinces me of what they're trying to say, I will not change my opinion.

Boris came very close to convincing me. He made a real, logical argument, responding individually to each of my points, which you, Wouter, and Servien have yet to do.

Surely, as native speakers, since you know so much more about your language than do Boris and I, you should really be very well equipped to do as Boris did, and since you are obviously not stupid, those two factors should combine to make your argument very convincing.

Yet, until now, most of this has been you telling me why my opinion should be less valued, and Wouter repeating over and over the initial reasons given for a separate nds-nl wiki, without giving full responses and rebuttals to the points I made.

Obviously, neither you nor anybody else is obliged to respond in such a manner, but it certainly goes towards reaching an agreement much more than what you have done so far.

Mark

On 03/07/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:

...

...

But I get the idea that you're saying that you think that this discussion should be in Dutch and Low Saxon, at least in the second sentence.

I honestly have to disagree with this. It should either be in any language, as policy says, or in Low Saxon exclusively. There's no reason why it should be in Dutch *and* Low Saxon.

---

Obviously, Walter's message was not directed at me, but I can understand it better than Kasper's.

You really really really really do not get it do you??????? No one has argued for your POV. You are the only one arguing it! We have had a couple of native speakers argue against you. A couples of others have argued against you and you still go on. Please read what everybody has said. Forgot what stupid braindead me said. Look at the arguments of others.

Walter/Waerth

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Servien, at this point you have gone beyond even a distortion of reality to pure fantasy. Speech varieties cannot develop separately if they're spoken 4km apart from one another (an example I gave earlier in the thread), unless there's a huge geographical barrier between them.

Mark, do you know what you are doing? Do you know the Dutch expressions "hoog van de toren blazen" and "een grote bek opzetten"? You can freely translate them into "rydelling". That is what you do. You contribute a lot of useful, constructive things, but yet you make yourself fall in disgrace with mingling in anything, persisting in your own position and addressing people hostilly. And the difference with Rydel is that he only does so in things concerning Belarus and Belarusian (or however you want to spell it), and you do so in all topics concerning languages. I must admit, however, that as far as I know you never scolded people for nazi or stalinist.

Wouter

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