Plautdietsch-Freunde

Heinrich Siemens (President)

The Plautdietsch friends are a non-profit and registered charity for the care, documentation and promotion of Plautdietsch language, literature and culture. Seat of the politically and religiously independent organization Detmold. The Plautdietsch language is a West Prussian variety of Low German and is now the world of about half a million people (see Russia Mennonites ) speaking. The nationally and internationally acting club Plautdietsch Friends eV is the central association of minority language. Chairman of the association is Heinrich Siemens (Bonn).

Founding and goals

The club was founded in 1999 on the initiative of Peter Wiens in Oerlinghausen. Vienna until 2007 was chairman of the club, while also managing editor of the journal Plautdietsch FRIND. One of the statutory objectives and areas of activity include:

  • Collection and presentation of Plautdietsch materials (especially the Internet)
  • Implementation of public events in / on Plautdietsch (readings, movie nights, concerts, study tours, VHS courses, etc. )
  • Publication of a club publication
  • Encourage and promote literary productions, translations and socio-cultural as well as linguistic research
  • Contributions to the development of a grammar and a lexicon for the Plaut Dietsche
  • Contributions to the development and dissemination of words and reading books for the Plaut Dietsche
  • Information and advice in all matters plaut Dietscher language and cultural maintenance
  • Building and maintaining relevant networks and collaborations

Projects and Workspaces

One of the first projects was the establishment of regular symposia, study tours and publications: Since 2000, takes place annually one Plautdietsch conference, which provides a forum for both linguistic and general cultural interests of the users group. 2001, the association began annual held Plautdietsch study trips to nearby places scattered around the world, where the Russian Mennonites lived or live - with the aim to build a network of Russian Mennonites purpose of cultivating their language. Also in 2001, the association founded the magazine Plautdietsch FRIND - the first and only periodical in plaut Dietscher language for the purpose of preservation and documentation of the language.

Meanwhile, some book and CD projects have been carried out and it is increasingly the events in cooperation with various network partners instead. The annually conducted events include the Anna- German Festival in cooperation with Tatjana Klassner and Plautdietscha Nomeddach in collaboration with Katharina Wedel.

Networks and cooperation

The world's scattered group of speakers of Plautdietsch is composed of different ( interest ) groups, resulting in each respective cooperations:

  • Low German: Since Plautdietsch is a variety of Low German, seek Plautdietsch friends and contacts with the Low German - speakers in northern Germany. Some partners are therefore: Federal Council for Low German, Institute of Low German, Low German association for language research, ...
  • Mennonites: Since the Russian Mennonites are always seen as a group of speakers as part of the worldwide Mennonite group, are sought and maintained collaborations with the following institutions: Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite World Conference, Association of Mennonite communities in Germany, Bund Taufgesinnter communities, ...
  • Ethnic / Russia German: The Plautdietsch speakers in Germany account for about 10 percent of all Russian-German repatriates and are therefore among the immigrants in the Federal Republic of Germany. In this context, the following contacts and cooperation are maintained: Country team of Germans from Russia, Federal Government Commissioner for Matters Related to Repatriates and National Minorities, Regional Office for Repatriation, immigrants and foreign refugees in North Rhine -Westphalia, literary circle of Germans from Russia, Museum of Russian-German cultural history, ...
  • Minority languages: While the Plaut Dietsche from a linguistic point of view is assigned to the Low German, consists of language policy perspective, the problem that Plautdietsch is no autochthonous regional language, but in fact more of a minority language. For this reason, contacts and collaborations are sought or maintained with the following organizations: European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages ​​( EBLUL ), Society for Endangered Languages ​​(GBS ), ...
653052
de