Lowlands-L Anniversary Celebration

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Please click here to leave an anniversary message (in any language you choose). You do not need to be a member of Lowlands-L to do so. In fact, we would be more than thrilled to receive messages from anyone.
Click here to read what others have written so far.

About the story
What’s with this “Wren” thing?
   The oldest extant version of the fable we are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology of Low Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”) collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read more ...

Flag: JapanTomoki Minohara (蓑原智貴)
Location: Nagasaki, Japan



My name is Tomoki Minohara (born in 1982). I was born and live in Nagasaki, a prefecture on the island of Kyushu, in the southwestern part of Japan. The history of Nagasaki aroused my curiosity about foreign languages, in particular of Dutch.

During the isolationist era (1641–1853) Nagasaki was the only city which traded with European countries. My city was the center of “Holland Studies” (Rangaku) and knowledge of Dutch spread in Japan. For this reason, I have a special interest in Dutch.

Orandazaka ("Holland Slope"),
in Nagasaki

I’m also curious about minority languages and dialects. During my language course at the university in France, I stayed at a host family with a student from Flanders. In those days I did not know Dutch but I had some general knowledge about the linguistic situation in Belgium, so he often explained to me the differences between Dutch and Flemish. It was enjoyable for me to listen to his telephone conversations with his family in Flemish (one dialect of his region). It was a wonderful experience and that made me decide to learn Dutch.

I have a strong passion for languages. From 1996 until today I have studied mainly the Romance languages. I speak Italian, French, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese and Catalan. Some years ago, I compiled a list of the English words derived from Latin and Greek (etymology and the comparison between English and the Romance languages). In 2003 I started learning Dutch and Frisian at the same time. I’m also interested in German, Low German (Low Saxon of Germany), Stellingwerf Low Saxon, and Afrikaans. I’m glad to have opportunities to use these languages.

I’m enjoying global communication here!

Tomoki Minohara
2010



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