LL-L: "Language contacts" LOWLANDS-L, 22.NOV.1999 (02) [E]

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From: Jorge Potter [jorgepot at caribe.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Low Saxon" LOWLANDS-L, 21.NOV.1999 (01) [E/German]

Dear Ron,

 Engaged in writing my memoirs and sorting through my mind all the stuff my
father taught me, a couple of linguistic items came up:

Dad said,

 "Good butter and good cheese
make good English and good Fries."

 Is that true? How close to the same would it be said in Fries?

 Dad was very ecology-minded and showed me in the Adirondack mountains of
New York how old streams meandered, formed oxbows, then lakes that filled
in, then became swamps, that gradually would become solid ground. If
somewhere in this process the beavers dammed the outlet, the trees in the
flooded area would die. You can see these places all over the woods.

 He said the technical word for such a place was the Dutch word "vly,"
pronounced  exactly like the English word "fly." My little Dutch bilingual
dictionary shows "vallei," of course, but no "vly/vlei/vlij" Nor do my
modern English dictionaries have anything on it.

OED has

 "Vlei (vl at i). Also vley, vly, vlie, vlaei [Du. dial. vlei, reduced form of
Du. vallei valley]

 "1. In South Africa: A shallow pool of water; a piece of low-lying ground
covered with water in the rainy season.

 "1849 E. E. NAPIER Excurs. S. Africa II. 179  The Hottentots look anxiously
around for the well known 'vlei'.  1850  R. G. CUMMING Hunter's Life S. Afr.
(Ed. 2) 1. 97,  I came full in view of the vlei or pool of water beside
which I had been directed to encamp.  1863 W. C. BALDWIN Afr. Hunting vi.
226 We found the vley, where we fully expected water, dried up.  1899  RIDER
HAGGARD Swallow viii, A large vlei, or pan, where there were many ducks and
also some antelope."

 "2. Local U.S.  A swamp.

 "1880 Amer. Jrnl. Sci. Ser. III. XIX. 432  To the same settlers [the Dutch]
are due the geographical appellations of kill for stream...and vly or vlaie
for swamp, so frequently met with in the Catskills.  1889 BYNNER Begum's Dau
1, Up over the grassy edge of the basin which formed the fly..the children
came bounding pell-mell.  R. W. CHAMBERS in Harper's Mag. May 933/1 Have you
reason to believe that an attempt has been made to fire the Owl Vlaie?"

 Du. vallei sounds borrowed from French, especially with the accent on the
last syllable. Eng. valley is obviously Fr. vallée, which looks like a past
participle, but Robert traces it to Fr. val and Lat. vallis. Now Lat.
vallo/vallare is to fortify, palisade, entrench and Sp. vallado is a
stockade although Sp. valle is Eng. valley.

It all piques my curiosity that the specialized meaning of vlei as a low,
wet place occurs only in America and South Africa . Any comment?

Jorge Potter

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