Plautdietsch friends
| Plautdietsch Friends e. V. | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Non-profit organization |
| founding | November 14, 1999 |
| Seat | Oerlinghausen ( Germany ) |
| main emphasis | Documentation, maintenance and promotion of the Plautdietschen language |
| Action space | worldwide |
| Chair | Heinrich Siemens (President) |
| Website | www.plautdietsch-freunde.de |
The Plautdietsch Friends are a non-profit, registered association for the maintenance, documentation and promotion of the Plautdietsch language, literature and culture. The politically and religiously independent organization is based in Oerlinghausen . The Plautdietsch language is a West Prussian variety of Low German and is spoken by around half a million people worldwide (see Russian mennonites ). The national and international association Plautdietsch-Freunde e. V. is the central association of this minority language . The chairman of the association is Heinrich Siemens (Bonn).
Foundation and goals
The association was founded in 1999 on the initiative of Peter Wiens in Oerlinghausen . Until 2007, Wiens was chairman of the association and also editor-in-chief of the magazine Plautdietsch FRIND . The statutory objectives and areas of responsibility include:
- Collecting and presenting Plautdietschen materials (especially on the Internet)
- Implementation of public events in / about Plautdietsch (readings, film evenings, concerts, study trips, VHS courses, etc.)
- Issue of an association publication
- Stimulation and promotion of literary productions, translations and socio-cultural and linguistic research
- Contribution to the development of a grammar and a lexicon for the Plautdietsche
- Contribution to the development and distribution of dictionaries and reading books for the Plautdietsche
- Information and advice on all questions relating to Plautdiet language and culture maintenance
- Establishing and maintaining relevant networks and cooperations
Projects and work areas
One of the first projects was the establishment of regular specialist conferences, study trips and publications: a Plautdietsch conference has been held annually since 2000 , which forms a forum for both linguistic and general cultural interests of the speaker group. In 2001 the association began with annual Plautdietsch study trips to places scattered around the world where the Russian mennonites lived or live - with the aim of building a network of Russian mennonites for the purpose of cultivating their own language. Also in 2001 the association founded the journal Plautdietsch FRIND - the first and only periodical in the Plautdietsch language for the purpose of preserving and documenting the language.
In the meantime, several book and CD projects have been carried out and more and more events are taking place in cooperation with various network partners. The annual events include the Anna German Festival in cooperation with Tatjana Klassner and Plautdietscha Nomeddach in cooperation with Katharina Wedel.
Networks and Cooperations
The Plautdietschen speaker group, which is scattered around the world, is made up of different (interest) groups, resulting in corresponding cooperations:
- Low German : Since Plautdietsch is a variety of Low German, the Plautdietsch friends also seek contact with the Low German speakers in northern Germany. Some cooperation partners are therefore:
- Mennonites : Since the Russian mennonites as a speaker group are always seen as part of the worldwide Mennonite group, cooperation with the following institutions is sought and maintained:
- Expatriates / Russia German : The Plautdietsch spokesman in Germany account for about 10 percent of all Russian-German repatriates and are therefore among the immigrants in the Federal Republic of Germany. The following contacts and cooperations are maintained in this context:
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Minority languages : While Plautdietsch is to be assigned to Low German from a linguistic point of view, from a linguistic point of view there is the problem that Plautdietsch is not an autochthonous regional language , but actually rather a minority language. For this reason, contacts and collaborations are also sought and maintained with the following organizations:
- European Bureau for Language Minorities (EBLUL), Society for Endangered Languages (GBS), ...
literature
- Peter Wiens: Plautdietsch - as it is. in: annual edition. Klaus Groth Society. Heide in Holstein 46.2004, pp. 137–151. ISSN 0453-9842
- Peter Wiens: Plautdietsch, Russian German Mennonites Around the World Join Efforts in the Web to Save their Mother Tongue. (PDF; 86 kB) in: GAIA Internet publication. Multimedia and Minority languages International Congress, Donostia / San Sebastian 2000.
- Peter Wiens: Dialect and intercultural communication. The Low German variant "Plautdietsch" as a strong bridge in the integration of emigrants in Germany. in: Developmental Ethnology. Journal of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Entwicklungsethnologie eV Trier 2002, no. 2, pp. 131-137. ISSN 0942-4466
- Peter Wiens: The “Plautdietsch Friends” association. A Mennonite dialect builds bridges. in: Mennonite Yearbook . Working group of Mennonite communities in Germany. Lahr 104.2004, pp. 126–128.