Little mystery 702 – Meaninglessness

I thought by myself: ‘Maybe it would be good if for once I published an Horst-sweet-Horst-article in English’. In the past I once published an Horst-sweet-Horst-article in the Polish language (click here). And only recently I even published an article in Arabic (click here)! So why not in English? It puts Horst aan de Maas (and Horst-sweet-Horst also of course) in one blow on the map in most parts of the world!

An article in the English language seems all the more relevant because day by day I get the impression that Horst aan de Maas rather sooner than later will be a completely English speaking and especially writing gemeente. I mean: the last few weeks there have been discussions about the disapperaring of the Limburgs dialect, but the real discussion should go about the question if the Dutch language will survive here. The dialect seems to me already a lost cause. That in a few generations nobody living here anymore will know what words like ‘loëzie’, ‘dreksemmer’ or ‘razele’ mean, is in my opinion as clear as a lump. We can mourn about it, but that leads to nothing, we have to see the facts under the eyes. And those facts are, as said, and although you may not have noticed yet, that our dialect is already on the losing side. Take now for example this sign that I discovered near the entrance of my beloved Mooren Building:

Everybody accepts a sign like this, at least I didn’t notice any sounds of anger and also I didn’t hear anybody saying ‘Are they now completeley ticked from little Louis there Beej Mooren?’ People accept it as the most normal thing in the world. But now imagine when the sign would have said: ‘Kóm, loate we en tas koffie of tië drinke en ’s efkes klasjenere ovver bliej dinge’. I’m pretty sure that would have led to great laughter, shame and/or anger.

I do not always want to hang out the pintfucker, but could it be that that sort of texts are done in English to hide their meaninglessness? Could it be that our understanding of the English language at the moment just isn’t good enough to really understand the meaninglessness of that sort of texts? Could it be that in let’s say fifty years the reverse will be the case? I.e. that at that time that sort of texts will be done in the Horster dialect to hide their meaninglessness?