LL-L: "Etymology" LOWLANDS-L, 30.NOV.1999 (02) [E]

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From: Lorint Hendschel [LorintHendschel at skynet.be]
Subject:  Re: dies - day - di - dag Tag

>>>>> "Roger" == Roger P G Thijs <roger.thijs at village.uunet.be> writes:

  Roger> Could it be due to (low?) Germanic influence that the "di" in the
  Roger> names of the days in French, lundi, mardi... etc. became a suffix,
  Roger> where the latin "dies" originally preceded the name, as it still does

  Roger> in catalan and in old walloon (up to the end of last century)?  Since

Hmmm... Interesting. However, note that, in Walloon, the forms DAY + GOD
(Walloon "deûlon", catalan "diluns"...) survived longest precisely in those
areas where Walloon is in close contact with German or Germanic languages and
where Walloon is most influenced by this/these language(s), namely the
villages surrounding the Walloon city of Mâmdî (Malmedy).

There are much more cases like that: it has often been noted that Walloon
(together with Picard and Rumantsch) is the Romance language that was most
influenced by Germanic languages. Yet, paradoxically, it has also preserved
much more latinisms than one would expect in such a context (e.g.:
"dispierter", cf. Spanish "despertar"; "dj' êr" > Latin "eram"; our "deûlon",
cf. Catalan, Occitan, etc.).

The traditional explanation is that, under Rome, our region was a border
region (near the Rhine). Hence it was more densely romanized for strategic
reasons.  And it was also germanized earlier (even before the so-called Great
Invasions), deeper, for a longer period (there are signs that the aristocracy
in what was to become Wallonia was bilingual until the 11th century) and more
constantly - as Wallonia has not moved and will remain, whatever happens in
the future, a neighbour of Flanders, Luxembourg and Germany.

So, one hypothesis explaining the persistance of the series "deûlon, deûmar,
etc." and other markedly Romance forms precisely in those areas where they are

least expected is that the eastern dialects of Walloon were the most sheltered

from the French influence (the area belonged to Prussia until after WW1) and
*borrowed* even more than anywhere else in Wallonia to the neighbouring
Germanic languages. I said "borrowed", as a sociolinguistic analysis might
show that there was a pattern in borrowings, that some *new* things (days are
hardly new things) were named, in certain cases, with German words (when the
rest of Wallonia borrowed French words) while the core everyday vocabulary
("deûlon", "dispierter", "dj' êr"...) remained closer to the Romance roots in
these communities geographically and politically isolated from the
frenchifying urban centres.

Now, if this hypothesis is correct, why did they drop their "deûlon" 100 years

ago (?) for a form that is closer to French? Maybe simply because in the end
of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the French influence

was growing (schools, roads...).

I hope this could shed some light...

--
Ki ça vos våye bén,

Lorint HENDSCHEL

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