Explorations into Language, Literature and Culture

Enthusiastic globetrotter

If there is one thing that can be said definitively about Martin Pütz, and this applies to both his private and professional life, it is that he takes great pleasure in travelling. From the beginning of his career, there was no country that could escape his curiosity – whether Great Britain, France, Jamaica, Russia, Australia, all kinds of countries in Africa (the list would be too long to mention them all here), Hong Kong, Canada or the USA – Martin Pütz has been practically everywhere and immediately checked right on the spot whether there might be possibilities for a connection with a university project. In many cases he was successful, and so in particular the long-standing exchange programme with the University of Botswana and the University of Hong Kong can be traced back to both his love of travel and his enormous and intensive networking with world-famous linguists.

It is especially his interest in Africa that remains in memory. His curiosity in sociolinguistic research began to develop particularly during his time as an assistant at the Mercator University in Duisburg (now the University of Duisburg-Essen) under his doctoral supervisor Prof. René Dirven. Starting with the LiCCA project (Languages in Contact and Conflict), which took him to Lesotho and South Africa from the late 1980s onwards, his insatiable interest in Africa was kindled. And so he took care of all his colleagues from Africa and around the world with all his energy and willingness to help, who from then on attended the LAUD symposia.

The LAUD Symposia, which were still annual events at that time, thus took on a sociolinguistic – and especially African – flavour for a number of years. Linguistic VIPs from all over the world found their way to Duisburg, and Martin Pütz and his team endeavoured to make it as pleasant as possible for the guests. Organisational talent was a basic requirement, and patient understanding for the smaller and larger problems of all participants was a matter of honour for Martin. The financial responsibility for the third-party funds was already with him at that time.

And so it happened that the flight of a world-renowned colleague from Cameroon surprisingly did not depart until one day after the end of the conference, and the hotel booking did not include this. Martin was now given the unpleasant task of informing the guest of this and also that LAUD did not have enough funds to financially cover an extra night at the hotel. So René suggested that Martin put the distinguished guest up in a youth hostel, a place that in the 1990s had by no means any of the commodity of today’s hostels. In his horror, Martin was fully aware that this would not be well received, and the discussion that was now unavoidable did not meet his need for harmony at all. No one in his LAUD team envied him for this task, but it all went smoothly, as Martin found a happy medium by choosing cheaper accommodation. Finding solutions to difficult situations was part of his everyday life in Duisburg. All the staff learned that from René. Creative mediation between extremes became Martin’s constant companion, and he took the experiences from those Duisburg days with him to Landau, and not only those. Some assistants from his old LAUD team remained on duty at the symposia at the beginning of his Landau years to familiarise the new Landau University team with their tasks. And here in Landau, too, linguistic research in African countries became a recurring theme – transmitted with the same enthusiasm as in previous years. So it was hardly surprising that, in addition to the exchange programme with Botswana, an intensive engagement with Cameroon was the result. And that came about in this way:

In the winter semester 2014/15, Martin dared for the first time to offer a Master’s seminar for English and Romance Studies together with me (Sabine), his colleague from Romance Studies, on the topic of “Multilingualism and Language Contact – Focus on Africa”. “Dared” because the languages of instruction were English and French (and rarely German). A multilingual multilingualism seminar in fact, code switching was not only a topic, but practised without restraint in the course itself. Martin topped us all – not only did he produce surprisingly good Russian to illustrate certain phenomena, no, he also shone with excellent French. His constantly repeated statement in the course (in impeccable French) that his French was so bad quickly developed into a running gag. At the end of the seminar, we both agreed that we would offer it again. In addition, the idea came up, which seemed crazy at first, to add an excursion to Africa to the seminar next time. Mad idea? Just right for Martin. He set about fundraising with determination, and in 2016, we went to Cameroon for 12 days together with 8 students and an incredibly rich programme. Cameroon was chosen because its linguistic situation was interesting for both the Romance and English students. Just three anecdotes that will definitely be remembered from this excursion:

First of all, there was Martin’s idea of the best-buddy principle, i.e., two people should always team up to look after each other. That way, no one ever gets lost, one keeps an eye on each other. In Martin’s case, however, the task of his best buddy (Sabine) was to look after his things rather than himself: “Martin, your mobile phone has slipped out of your pocket!”, “Martin, your keys are still on the reception counter!”, “Is that your jacket lying on the seat there, Martin?”. As endearing as his scatterbrainedness was, it was also legendary. In any case, Martin was the most entertaining and best best buddy one can imagine in Cameroon!

Then there was this shoe thing, and the one about not trusting every chair. Both basically also belong in the category of “endearing scatterbrainedness”: some funny photos even bear witness to Martin’s nonchalant handling of fragile objects. Once it was his shoes, the loss of which forced him to walk on socks (much to the amusement of the students at the École Normale Supérieure in Yaoundé: “Look, he’s lost his shoe!”); once in the bar of a game park it was a cracked chair, on which he rocked and swayed like the fidgety Philipp until the inevitable happened.

Last but not least, there was the story We won’t miss our plane after all! On the way home, however, we almost missed our plane. We started a little late, because Martin was absolutely convinced that “we’ll make it”, but the intercity bus from Limbe to Yaoundé was stuck in the traffic chaos of Douala for too long, and about 50 km before we reached our destination, it dawned on us that we would not arrive at the airport in time, a fear that was soberly confirmed by the otherwise taciturn bus driver. Embarrassed silence in the bus. Slow acceptance of the fact that we were in a real predicament. Martin was rarely seen as shocked as he was at that moment. Frantically we began to think about what to do. And then we had the brilliant idea to have taxis pick us up at a certain spot on the country road. We decided to send a group ahead in one taxi without luggage. Maybe we could delay the departure? We sped to the airport at 150 km/h on country roads at night. The taxi driver took the opportunity to extort a horrendous sum for the ride from us, who already felt like wearing a death shroud. Laughing loudly, he declared that otherwise he would stop on the spot. When we arrived at the airport, it turned out that we didn’t need to hurry at all, because the queue in front of the check-in was still far from being cleared … Cameroonian deceleration. Apparently, Martin hadn’t estimated the time so badly after all!

A year later, there was another joint English-French seminar, this time on the topic of Linguistic Landscapes. And two semesters later, an equally legendary excursion to Rwanda.

Helpful, compassionate doer

Africa also had its place in Martin’s private life. The desire to help was and is a character trait that runs through Martin’s entire life. Warm-hearted and understanding, he also devotes himself, for example, to his tasks and projects within the scope of the Rotary Association Bad Bergzabern in Cameroon and Rwanda, but even in the past it was evident that active help was part of Martin’s nature.

An emergency that occurred during the preparation of a conference of the LiCCA project in Kenya, of which Martin was a co-founder, is also remembered. The project leader (Birgit) was supposed to prepare the conference in advance in a hotel south of Mombasa and receive the participants from all over Africa. Everything was prepared, but then two days before the start of the conference, the Kenyan president sent an urgent fax decree to stop the conference, not to let any participants into the country and to arrest the project leader. There was no reason for this. However, some participants had already arrived from Cameroon, South Africa and Malawi. And those who have arrived must also be able to go home safely. Phone calls were expensive, but possible, and so René’s and Martin’s visibly nervous instructions were: “Pack up and get out of there now!” But having witnessed the adventures of these two in Nigeria – then from a safe distance back home – they rather set a good example of the opposite. You do your job and unexpected adversity just requires a clever solution and a certain amount of perseverance. I stayed. The concern about his being of no help on the spot was palpable in Martin even over the phone.

So Martin began to inform all African colleagues with the request not to fly to Kenya, while the project leader, who was wanted by presidential order, under the protection of the hotel management organised the return flight of all colleagues who had already arrived. Intensive telephone and fax exchanges with the more than concerned team in Duisburg, who, in addition to their absolutely reliable and active willingness to help always felt a good portion of fear for their colleague, took care of every little thing that could not be done in Kenya. After two days, there were no more colleagues in the country, and with the last act of my secretly being smuggled out of the hotel, the conference was history. I won’t forget how happy Martin and René were when I was standing in the Duisburg office, exhausted but unharmed!

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Both our dear friend and fatherly mentor Martin has now retired. He has always been there for us in word and deed, a reliable and warm-hearted advisor for all kinds of problems in all kinds of situations. He will stay that way, though we just can’t grab him and talk to him so spontaneously in the Red Barracks now.

Dear Martin, we thank you that we could and can always rely on you. It is a great gift to have you as a friend. We wish you a wonderful “un”-retirement (because retirement obviously does not exist for you) with many beautiful projects, trips to Africa and visits to us in the Red Barracks!