“Variety” doesn’t imply status as a dialect or as a language; it’s neutral in this regard, that’s why I used it.
I believe and forgive you.
The reason why I bristled is because there’s a political dimension to the classification: The reason we have that generational gap in native proficiency is because the language was actively combatted, sidelined, and bemeaned by academia, “Low Saxon is an obstacle to education”. Parents were made to believe that for their kids to have success, they needed to chide the grandparents for speaking it while the kids were around. In that effort, it was quite popular to class it as a dialect which goes contrary to the experience of speakers, flies in the face of more than a millennium of literary history, status as Lingua Franca, and much more. So for me, being neutral doesn’t cut it: It diminishes the hard-won spark of self-esteem that’s necessary to revitalise the language.
Also it’s important to distinguish proper Low Saxon from Missingsch, the contact variety to Standard German. (Contemporary) Missigsch indeed is a dialect of Standard German, you can go full-tilt on its non-Standard features and Bavarians will still understand you.
I believe and forgive you.
The reason why I bristled is because there’s a political dimension to the classification: The reason we have that generational gap in native proficiency is because the language was actively combatted, sidelined, and bemeaned by academia, “Low Saxon is an obstacle to education”. Parents were made to believe that for their kids to have success, they needed to chide the grandparents for speaking it while the kids were around. In that effort, it was quite popular to class it as a dialect which goes contrary to the experience of speakers, flies in the face of more than a millennium of literary history, status as Lingua Franca, and much more. So for me, being neutral doesn’t cut it: It diminishes the hard-won spark of self-esteem that’s necessary to revitalise the language.
Also it’s important to distinguish proper Low Saxon from Missingsch, the contact variety to Standard German. (Contemporary) Missigsch indeed is a dialect of Standard German, you can go full-tilt on its non-Standard features and Bavarians will still understand you.