The Spelling of Low German & Plautdietsch: Towards an Official Plautdietsch Orthography
1999; Volume: 73; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0025-9373
Autores Tópico(s)Lexicography and Language Studies
ResumoThe Spelling of & Plautdietsch: Towards Official Orthography. By Reuben Epp. Hillsboro, KS: The Reader's Press. 1996. Pp. 167. $12.95. This well-written book is not the first attempt at an Before World War I in South Russia Jacob H. Janzen (1878-1950) was one of the first among Russian Mennonites to write playlets. Pieces such as De Bildung, Daut Schultebott, and De Enbildung were performed in Mennonite village schools with considerable success. Arnold Dyck (1889-1970), writing his Koop enn Bua and other stories before World War Il in Canada, modified Janzen's orthography by introducing speech patters based not on the Chortitza usage, but rather on that of the Molotschna. Dyck believed that the latter usage was more widespread and that it gained greater ascendancy among (Plautdietsch) speakers and writers. (In this review is used to indicate the Mennonite dialect whereas Low German refers to the language group native to the northern coastal areas of Germany and the Netherlands). In response to increased interest in Plautdietsch, several publications have appeared in the last forty-five years, among them the following: Jacob Warkentin Goerzen, in Canada. A Study of Plautditsch as Spoken by Mennonite Immigrants From Russia (PhD, University of Toronto, 1952); Reuben Epp, Plautdietsche Schreftsteckja (Steinbach: Derksen Printers, 1972); Jack Thiessen, Mennonite Dictionary (Marburg: Elwert Verlag, 1977); Herman Rempel, Kjenn Jie noch Plautdietsch? (Winnipeg: Mennonite Literary Society, 1984); Victor Peters and Jack Thiessen, Plautdietsche Jeschichten (Marburg: Elwert Verlag, 1990); Harry Loewen and AI Reimer, Origins and Literary Development of Canadian-Mennonite German, MQR 59 (July 1985); Collected Works of Arnold Dyck, ed. Al Reimer, vols. 2 and 3 (Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 1986, 1988); and Reuben Epp, The Story of & (Hillsboro, KS: The Reader's Press, 1993). In 1982 fifteen Mennonite linguistic scholars, writers, and interested observers gathered under the joint auspices of the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, the Chair in Mennonite Studies and the Mennonite Literary Society at the University of Winnipeg in attempt to devise a standardized orthography. The group agreed to generally follow the orthography used by Arnold Dyck (although Dyck was not consistent in his spelling), but to make it as phonetic as possible while keeping it flexible enough to accommodate regional speech variations and differences in pronunciation. Writers for the Mennonite Mirror, a Manitoba Mennonite monthly magazine at the time, were encouraged to use the new spelling. The two volumes in Arnold Dyck's Collected Works used the new orthography as well. (For a report on the Winnipeg working seminar, see AI Reimer, There's Now 'Official' Way to Write German, Mennonite Mirror, June 1982). The Winnipeg group hoped that a booklet explaining the new would be published so as to give writers and readers of assistance with this dialect. For some reason such a book was never published. Thus Epp's new book is the first and only publication to date that aims at official orthography. According to Epp, there are writers and speakers who consider a language, not a dialect. As a result, Epp writes, proponents of the separate-language concept 'invent' their own spellings for Plautdietsch, luxuriating in freedom from any attachment to or any need to refer to established practices in its spelling system (4). Epp quotes a number of scholars in support of his position, stating, Plautdietsch is one dialect of Nether Saxon among numerous others (6). …
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