The German Question, Part Sixty-One

"Bismarck" Part Five/F "Bismarck as Chancellor & A Treaty With 'Contentious Relatives' ""Ethnic Minorities in Bismarckian Germany/West

I should have noted in the last installment: Frisians in Bismarck's Germany, while proud of their heritage, would have undoubtedly also seen themselves as "Germans," just as those in the Netherlands would have seen themselves as "Dutch," and those in Denmark would have seen themselves as "Danes." In all three cases there may well have been a few "hold outs," but it was likely much more like what we have had with so many different groups in America; that is, immigrants came to the United States, but their children and later additions saw themselves as "Americans," while some still kept alive the traditions of their ancestors in various ways. Also, in Denmark, there are very few (North) Frisian speakers (and there were not that many even dating back to Bismarck's time onward); so few in fact, that I could not find any recent data on the subject. This is just a guess, but any Frisian speakers still in existence all undoubtedly speak Danish on an every day basis, and there are no Frisian-language newspapers in Denmark. Some sources even noted that Frisian is no longer spoken in Denmark.

In the western areas of Germany, in Alsace-Lorraine, lived more than 211,000 French-speaking inhabitants (according to the 1900 census), which represented 11 1/2% of the population of the province (the other 88 1/2% spoke German). Just an assumption, but I would think nearly all French-speaking inhabitants were Catholic (the "German" population was mixed Protestant and Catholic). Also, in a fairly small area in what is now part of Belgium, in the area usually referred to as "Eupen-Malmedy," there were some 12,000 Walloon and French-speaking residents (about 29% of the region), and it is just as likely that they were all Catholic.* (The "German" population there, about 71%, was undoubtedly Catholic too.) The Catholics in both Alsace-Lorraine and Eupen-Malmedy were subject to all of Bismarck's anti-Catholic policies mentioned previously in this series. Since there was no actual "Poland" (as a nation) at that time, the Polish population in Germany was certainly different from the French-speaking population in Alsace-Lorraine, since France was very much in existence, a major power, and the ties of the French-speaking part of the population to France were strong. The French-speaking residents were always "suspect" (to the Germans), but not even all of the German speaking citizens were always solidly committed to Germany, especially those of the upper classes, where people tended to be fluent in both French and German, but where French was often preferred to German. Interestingly, the German government permitted French to be used in schools in French-speaking areas, but German was used in all governmental affairs (not that this is necessarily unreasonable).*** Perhaps the main difference between the German residents of Alsace-Lorraine and the Germans in the rest of Germany is something that is difficult to gauge, but it had to do with the fact of French rule in the area for a couple of centuries, but most importantly, the French Revolution, and the participation by many people in the area in that revolution. In the German states, their own revolutions had not been successful, and they had lived under autocratic rule, so there was more of a lighter democratic tradition in Alsace-Lorraine. Time gradually favored the German point-of-view, as younger generations did not feel the same connection to the previous French rule.****

Next, "The Jewish Minority in Bismarck's Germany".... (A Word History is below the notes)

* Take your pick, Walloon is either a separate language closely related to French, or a dialect of French, based in part of modern Belgium (the other main linguistic group of Belgium being "Flemish," see note **) Linguists have had disagreements over its official classification. Whatever the case, it is Latin-based, but it has had many influences from the nearby Germanic dialects/languages, specifically Flemish, Dutch, and German (including German dialects in the area, like Luxemburgisch). For decades now, the debate is essentially only of historical importance, as Walloon is almost extinct, with only a handful of people actually being fluent anymore, since in the early part of the 20th Century, "standard" French (I'll use that term) was used in all schools in the Walloon region.

** Belgium is one of those countries where there is more than one language spoken by significant portions of the population. As I have attempted to show in some of these articles on the Germans, until the 1800s, territories were conquered, annexed, sold, or inherited, without regard to the "background," including language, of the local population. "Nationalism" among various "ethnic groups" began to spread, especially during the 1800s, and it became a serious problem for Austria, which possessed a wide variety of non-German populated lands. "Ethnically/linguistically" modern Belgium is about 39% Walloon (French speaking), most living in the "Wallonia" southern part of the country, and about 60% Flemish, most living in the "Flanders" northern part of Belgium. There is a German minority (the area discussed in this article) along the German border, but it numbers just less than 1% of the population, and an even smaller (less than half a percent) "Luxembourgish" population, believe it or not, located on the border with Luxembourg (imagine that). The relationship between the various groups has been contentious at times over the last century or two. Some linguists in just the last decade or so have declared Flemish to be a dialect of Dutch, rather than a separate language in its own right, but not everyone agrees.

*** There were fairly strong elements of the population of Alsace-Lorraine that were very pro-German, and I don't want to lead anyone to believe that this element was not influential.

**** It also should be noted that about 100,000 "pro-France" residents left Alsace-Lorraine for France after the German annexation. As these people were obviously the most "French," that must have lessened pro-French activities in Alsace-Lorraine.

WORD HISTORY:
Lore-This word, perhaps more common in the compound "folklore," simply means "knowledge, accumulated learning." It is closely related to "learn." It goes back to the Indo European root "leis/lais," which had the notion of "to follow a track or path." This then gave Old Germanic "laizo," which was passed on to its offspring, West Germanic, as "laiza,"^ and then also with the advanced meaning of "teach, instruct." (I suppose in the sense, "teach people to follow a path or course.") This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "lar," with a long "a" sound, and meaning "knowledge, things that are taught." The Middle English period gave us the modern spelling. So, "folklore" means "the accumulated knowledge of the people through the course of time." German has "Lehre," Low German has "Lehr," West Frisian "leare," Norwegian and Danish have "lære," Swedish has "lära," Icelandic has "laera," and Dutch has "leren," all with the basic meaning of "teach, instruct (instruction, for nouns)." 

^ These forms with 'z' came to be rendered with 'r' due to rhotacism; that is, a tendency to convert some consonant sounds, usually 'z,' to 'r.' This happened with the Germanic forms "laizo/laiza" that took the course about "teach, instruct," but another branch maintained the "z" sound (altered a bit to the similar 's') and the basic meaning "track, path," which gave German what eventually became modern "Gleis," the rails of a train track. This same Old Germanic form gave English some forms of "last," including the verb meaning "to endure, hold out" (from the notion of "continue on a path").