2006 ARCHIVE
December 11, 2006
(In regard to the December 5, 2006 comment from Fred below)
For Fred and others seeking help with the pronunciation of Plautdietsch:
there used to be available a set of audio tapes with the spoken words
from Herman Rempel's dictionary; see http://www.mennolink.org/doc/lg/ordering.html
Unfortunately, the author announced in 2005-January that he was no
longer producing those tapes (see http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0501d&L=lowlands-l&D=1&P=841),
so obtaining them may be difficult. Given that Mr Rempel has made the
text of his dictionary freely available on the internet, perhaps he
would permit these audio recordings to be made available in like manner?
Eugene Reimer
December 11, 2006
Hello Jim,
I've just been perusing your wonderful website. I applaud your fine
work! And I offer a few minor corrections, etc:
On the page http://www.plautdietsch.ca/Res4-2.htm the phrase "by
Klohsis Teeoh (G.A. Peters) and Peetasch Jiehit (T.G. Klassen)"
would read better were the two English parenthesized names interchanged.
Ditto on the http://www.plautdietsch.ca/What's%20New.html page.
The page http://www.plautdietsch.ca/pod.html has a broken link "See
also Other Audio Resources" -- it is to http://www.plautdietsch.ca/othaudio.html
which gets "page not found"; probably ought be to http://www.plautdietsch.ca/Other%20Audio.html
Your version of "Schockel, Schockle scheia", as Armin Wiebe's,
contains the line "Pinjste, ät wie wittet Broot" -- whereas
I learnt it with that line as "Pinjste, ät wie Roggebroot";
Jack Thiessen's version has further variations from the way I learnt
it, but also involves white bread, so we in Blumenhof (Bloomenhoff)
Manitoba appear to be in a minority, with our fondness for rye-bread.
I also thought the word was either Pinkstre or Pinjstre (but with an
"r") and yet everyone else seemingly says it as Pinjste -
so what do I know. Plautdietsch is my mother-tongue, and yet having
spent almost my entire life in an English-speaking environment... One
correction: I believe the 2nd word ought to be Schockel, just like the
first?
I applaud your efforts in putting up http://www.plautdietsch.ca/images/expoh%20scan.pdf
and almost hesitate to mention that such things become much more useful
if converted to text (rather than being pictures). I recently mentioned
to you (and the other Plautdietsch-L-Lesa) my experiments with the best
free OCR-program I've been able to find, namely tesseract. The results
were promising, but some correcting was still needed. Its main weaknesses
are things that wouldn't even be all that much work to fix: it is only
designed to handle English, so it hasn't the recognition features for
umlauts; also for this project it would be extremely useful for it to
have access to a Plautdietsch dictionary (using dictionary the way spell-checking
programs do, for something that's really just a list of words). That
gets us into rather a can of worms, there being roughly as many spelling
systems as there are plautdietsch writers; however Herman Rempel's seems
the clear winner, simply because it is freely available in machine-readable
form, and as far as I know the only one that is. One of these days I
intend to take a stab at converting Rempel's dictionary into a form
that can be used in spell-checkers, OCR-programs, etc.
Eugene Reimer
I appreciate very much this proof-checking, and hope I have been
able to make the necessary corrections!
December 5, 2006
Dear Jim,
Thanks for your reply. I received 4 books a week ago that will help
me get back on the road to learning Plautdietsch:
Plautdietsch Grammar by Eldo Neufeld
The Spelling of Low German and Plautdietsch by Reuben Epp
Kjenn Jie Noch Plautdietsch by Herman Rempel
Wie raden en lasen Plautdietsch by Peter Fast
The only thing I'm missing is pronunciation. The books are helpful with
providing english words that have similar sounds but I know that these
are approximations to the sounds in Plautdietsch.
It would be nice to have a basic audio program to help with this.
Thanks again,
Regards,
Fred.
(If anyone knows of such a resource, let me know and I will forward
the information to Fred. Jim
Derksen )
December 4, 2006
I am born in the Netherlands 1928, more then forty years in Penna.
I speak fluently "Holland Dutch", and German as a foreign
language. I would enjoy using these skills.
I find with some difficulty I can communicate with the Amish living
in this area.
Do you have any Sinterklaas songs in Plautdietsch?
Colina Seeley
Bellefonte Pa (Close to Penn State University.)
(If anyone knows of any Sinterklaas songs in Plautdietsch, let me know
and I will forward the information to Colina. Jim
Derksen )
November 28, 2006
Hey there,
I was wondering if you know of any guides to learning plautdietsch in
existence or in development? I'm trying to learn the language but am
having trouble getting started.
cheers
tim
(If anyone knows of such a resource, let me know and I will forward
the information to Tim. Jim
Derksen )
November 26, 2006
Hello Mr. Derksen,
My name is Carola Moran, i am 24, peruvian, south america.
Yesterday i watched on National Geographic a documentary about the mennonites
in Mexico and some in Bolivia. I have to be honest, eventhough i like
to read and learn from other places and cultures, i never heard of the
mennonites before yesterday. i found very interesting the culture, the
way of living and specially the language. i must admit that at first
i was little confused because i didnt watched the docummentary from
the very first part, i didnt understand what they were speaking, then
i found out it was plautdietsch, its very interesting they way these
people i saw were trying to keep their culture so live eventhough they
were in other place, where there was other culture, language, etc etc.
Anyway, today i was searching on the web and i found your website, which
help me to understand the origin and history of mennonites.
I just wanted to say thanks to let people know a little of your culture.
October 24, 2006
Dear Jim,
I am interested in finding out if anyone has created a self study program
on learning the Low German language.
I am in the same boat as many of my contemporaries that heard Low German
as youngsters but never learned to speak.
Regards,
Fred Fast
Cambridge Bay, Nunavut
(If anyone knows of such a resource, let me know and I will forward
the information to Fred. Jim
Derksen )
March 4, 2006
Great website. Wilmer Penner
February 19, 2006
Leewa Jim (Yash) en aundre,
dit es eene GOODE Norecht, Dankscheen! Afens tjitjd
etj mie dee Sied em WWW aun -- schen, daut et nu uck
wada eene plautdietsche Website jefft, woone en Kanada
jemoakt woat en aules soo meea opp Enjlisch ertjleat.
Etj woa een Link no www.plautdietsch.ca opp dee Siede
vonne Plautdietsch-Frind en Dietschlaunt moake.
Aulet Baste
Peeta Wiens
www.plautdietsch-freunde.de
Jim
Derksen