LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 06.DEC.1999 (02) [E]

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From: Henno Brandsma [Henno.Brandsma at phil.uu.nl]
Subject: LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 03.DEC.1999 (02) [E/LS]

> Dear Henno, Lowlanders,
>
> Thanks for the clarification re _ao_ vs _aa_, Henno.  You wrote:
>
> > In this central area, as you call it, most dialects have these as
> > different phonemes. Old long a is then ao [another clue: this is a
> > spelling that is very common in Drenthe and Overijssel, most other
> > dialects use oa instead.], and lenghthened a is aa.
>
> What kind of lengthening would there be in _later_?  I assume you are
> referring to a productive phonological rule.  In the dialects east of the
> border, long /aa/ is pronounced as a somewhat to fully rounded low back vowel,

> while short /a/ lengthened by a directly following liquid or nasal consonant
> is only half or fully lengthened without changing other features (e.g., _al_
> [?a.L], _wardt_ [va:t] -- usually with a considerable degree of nasalization
> before nasals, hence _an_ [?ã.n], _Damp_ [dã.mp]; cf. German _an_ [?an],
> _Dampf_ [dampf]), in most dialects also by a glide (e.g., /ai/ _Ei_ [?a.I],
> _blau_ [bla.U]; cf. German _Ei_ [?aI], _blau_ [blaU]), thus sounding rather
> similar to long /aa/ in Standard Netherlands Dutch.  The difference in
> articulation between underlyingly long /aa/ and lengthened short /a/ is great
> in Low Saxon.

Dear Ron, Lowlanders,

No, I wasn't talking about a phonological rule, but about
historical lengthening in open syllable.
So in a dialect (like Stellingwerfs) that keeps them all
separate there are three "a"'s: 1) an old long one, which was
already long in Old Saxon, and which corresponds to a
German long a:, and Dutch long a: as well. This one is always (AFAIK)
_back_ in such dialects: schoap/schaop [depending on your spelling
conventions], and also joar/jaor (Westerlauwer Frisian has _ie_ here
mostly, English _ee_ or _ea_).

2) One long a: from old short a which was in _open_ syllable at
the beginning of the Middle Low Saxon times. Dutch also lengthened
these (and the result coincides _in the standard dialect_ with
the a: from 1, but not eg in North-Holland rural dialects, and
Sealand dialects, plus some more). German sometimes has a short vowel
still, in a related word (_Wasser_ eg), or no cognate or a non-cognate vowel.
English here has pre-GVS [a:], Frisian often has a short _e_ or a long
[a:], eg _wetter_, _letter_ = Dutch water, later, but Frisian _haatsje_ =
Dutch haten = English to hate = German hassen.
Some (eg Westphalian) Low Saxon dialects still have a more fronted, or
at least not back, [a:] for this, and some even still occasionally have the
short vowel. Eg Stell. _laete_. _waeter_ etc.

3) A newer long a:, in the positions you described above, must still
be quite old. It's also a Frisian (all types) tendency to lenghten
short vowels in some closed syllables , especially a, e and o. Cf
Westerlauwer Frisian a^l, la^n, Saterlandic aal, lound (< lo:nd),
Mooring lo"nj (<lo:nd), Helgolandic _lun_ (< lo:nd).
Cf also Stell. _laand_. This vowel is often the closest one to
a "pure a:" as in standard Dutch, or Latin.

Ron, if I'm not mistaken, North German Low Saxon, as you speak it,
has merged 1 and 2 and kept 3 separate. The dialect at hand, that we're
trying to determine, has all 3 separate, as far as I could see.
It is, however, not totally systematic, but there might be "hidden"
rules there, plus imperfect spelling.

Hope this clarifies my meaning,

Henno

----------

From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language varieties

Henno wrote:

> Ron, if I'm not mistaken, North German Low Saxon, as you speak it,
> has merged 1 and 2 and kept 3 separate. The dialect at hand, that we're
> trying to determine, has all 3 separate, as far as I could see.
> It is, however, not totally systematic, but there might be "hidden"
> rules there, plus imperfect spelling.
>
> Hope this clarifies my meaning,

It sure did.  Thanks a lot.

So, should we ever manage to introduce a language-wide uniform orthographic
system (which is highly doubtful considering prevailing attitudes, especially in
Germany) we would have to come up with a way of representing the difference
between the two kinds of long /a/.  I could see this done by, for example, using
_å_ or _â_ to represent the more or less rounded one and the unrounded one using
_a_.  In that case, in some dialects (A) you would write _laat_, _water_,
_schååp_ and _nåber_ ~ _nåver_, and in others (B) you'd write _lååt_, _wåter_,
_schååp_ and _nåber_ ~ _nåver_.   Of course, in the case of B it would be
redundant to write _å_ because *all* long (not lengthened) /aa/s are more or
less rounded, but it might be necessary for inter-dialectal communication, also
considering that writers in Germany keep clinging to German models and want to
distinguish Low Saxon (Low German) long /aa/ from German long /aa/.  Lengthening
by rule ought not be represented orthographically.  It would be redundant.

Best regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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