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> Makes sense that these small Alpine valley cultures want to speak the language their ancestors have evolved over the millennia, not some newfangled mashup. T
by jnbiche 8y ago
> Makes sense that these small Alpine valley cultures want to speak the language their ancestors have evolved over the millennia, not some newfangled mashup.
That sounds reasonable, except for the fact that many, if not most, of the modern European national languages are in fact, newfangled mashups. National language standards are by and large the invention of the past few hundred years, where they either took a single regional language and called it the language language (such as French) or they kind of "mashed up", artificial standard (such as German). And yet somehow, these languages eventually took hold.
If Romansch doesn't die out in the next century, it's highly likely that a single standard will emerge.
- canjobear 8y agoThey took hold because of education standardization and active governmental campaigns to suppress variant dialects.
- pjmlp 8y agoPortugal did exactly the contrary. We have put activities in place to try to save Mirandese. In Spain likewise, after the civil war, regions got active to ensure their local languages strive alongside Spanish. In Germany some states have the option of children having after school activities in the regional dialects.
- m90 8y agoWhich German state does offer "regional dialect" school activities? Is this something that is done by public bodies?
- pjmlp 8y agoSome info about learning Cologne dialect. https://www.sk-kultur.de/inhalte/themen/akademie-foer-uns-koelsche-sproch/die-angebote-der-akademie-foer-uns-koelsche-sproch/ https://www.sk-kultur.de/inhalte/themen/akademie-foer-uns-ko... An initiative to teach Bavarian in the schools http://m.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/bayerisch-lehrer-in-bayern-fordern-dialekt-in-der-schule-a-1001374.html http://m.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/bayerisch-lehrer-i... There are similar initiatives for other dialects. Sorry they are in German, just wanted to provide direct links, instead of Google translate.