LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 06.AUG.2000 (06) [E/S]

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From: Colin Wilson [lcwilson at iee.org]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 04.AUG.2000 (01) [E]

At 10:24 04/08/00 -0700, Tom Mc Rae wrate:
>Aye Andy but all the examples you give are from very old material that was

>written before the more formalisation of language structures in the
British
>Isles. We can find similar examples to those you quoted in England but it
>remains totally archaic. You will not find those types of things in latter

>day works such as those of Burns, Hogg, or any other writers I know of
>thereafter.

Weel if the kin o yuisage o Scots that TMcR disna like, is there
in Scots gaun back hunners o years, forby bein in fowks mooths
the day, the simplest explanation is that it's the like o Burns
an Hogg that's (note, NAE "that are") oot o step.

A wadna luik tae Burns tae set a model o richt Scots gremmar.
He wis writin in whit he cawd "the Scottish dialect", an fae
thon we can tak it that he wis like tae be sweyed by English
models o richt an wrang yuisage.

For whit it's wirth, in ma lairners' buik "Stertin Oot in
Scots" A'm tellin lairners that tradeitional Scots gremmar his
"plural" verbs jist efter pronoons, an efter ither plural subjects
the mak o the verb yuised is the same as wi the singular.

Colin Wilson.

*********************************************************************
                               the graip wis tint, the besom wis duin
Colin Wilson                   the barra wadna row its lane
writin fae Aiberdein           an sicna soss it nivver wis seen
                               lik the muckin o Geordie's byre
**********************************************************************

----------

From: John M. Tait [jmtait at altavista.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 03.AUG.2000 (02) [E]

Tom wrote:

>For once I must agree with a Tory. A major problem with Scots is currently

>spoken in the muck ups with singular and plural. e.g. 'They coos IS gawn
>doon the road'. 'Is THEY a buik Ye're readin' ?' 'These men IS sojers'.
Such
>material is not traditional in any way, merely the language of illiterates

>that has crept into common usage. Alas I've even seen examples on this
List.

I'm afraid not, Tom - the use of singular verbs with plural nouns is _very_
traditional Scots grammar, and can be found right from the earliest
recorded Scots poetry - e.g. Barbour - up to present day colloquial Scots.
For example, the Shetland proverb 'Far fled fools _haes_ fair fedders'; the
North East proverb "Them that lives langest _sees_ maist ferlies", etc.
etc. Of the three examples you quote:

'They coos IS gawn doon the road'; my spelling: 'Thae cous is gaun doun the
road' - classic Scots grammar, where a plural noun (but not a plural
pronoun - contrast 'Thay'r gaun...') is followed by a singular verb. 'They'
here is of course not the third person plural pronoun, but  'thae', the
plural demonstrative pronoun, corresponding to 'those' in English.

'Is THEY a buik Ye're readin'. This is a new one on me, I must say - _thae_
is usually the plural demonstrative pronoun, corresponding to 'those' in
English. Is anyone else familiar with this construction?

 'These men IS sojers'. Again, classic Scots grammar, where the plural noun
is followed by a singular verb. ('These', however, would in traditional
broad Scots be 'thir' - corresponding to 'these' in English - or in the NE
(where plural demonstratives do not exist) simply 'this'.)

This characteristic of Scots grammar was recorded by Sir James Murray in
his classic study of border Scots at the turn of the century, and is
followed consistently by him in his translation of Ruth, and by Lorimer in
his translation of the New Testament. For example, 'them at gies me
orders'; 'ye that drees hunger'; 'John's disciples is ey fastin an preyin,
an the Pharisee's disciples dis the same, but your disciples eats an
drinks.' On this, Graham Tulloch (A History of the Scots Bible, AUP, 1989)
comments: 'Lorimer shares with Murray a clear understanding of what he
means by Scots and his complete consistency in following that understanding
through ...he adopts a spelling that does not demean Scots but he adds to
this spelling a consistent and distinctive Scots grammar, the other
ingredient needed to revive Scots as a standard language.'

In other words, many of the differences from English grammar which occur in
Scots are not mistakes (nobody calls the classical Greek use of singular
nouns with neuter plurals illiterate or illogical) but characteristics of
traditional Scots grammar with a long history which still survive today.
The main problem with much modern Scots writing is not that it follows this
traditional and colloquial grammar, but the opposite - that it conforms to
English grammatical paradigms, such as the use of plural verbs with plural
nouns - producing a 'stechie' kind of Scots with Scots words and English
grammar. This is due to a lack of the clear understanding of what
constitutes Scots, which Tulloch speaks of. Because we've only been taught
English grammar, we tend to judge everything by its standards.

There are, of course, some recent colloquialisms which are not traditional
- like the use of 'them' in 'See them hooses', which in traditional Scots
is 'See thae hooses', and many of the convergences of tenses (e.g. 'I'v
took', 'I done') are not traditional in Scots. But Scots has its own
grammatical characteristics which are different from those of English and
thus can't be judged by English rules. Good Scots grammar (e.g. Thaim at
comes unbidden sits unsaired) may be bad English grammar, and good English
grammar (eg: Thay wha come unbidden sit unsaired - Eng. They who come
uninvited sit unserved) may be bad Scots grammar. As Murray says:

"'Scots wha hae' is fancy Scotch - that is, it is merely the English 'Scots
who have' spelt as Scotch. Barbour would have written 'Scottis at hes;'
Dunbar or Douglas 'Scottis quhilkis hes' and even Henry Charteris in the
end of the sixteenth century 'Scottis quha hes''...the vernacular is still
'Scots at haes' which Burns apparently considered ungrammatical, and
therefore shaped the words after an English model. Much of the contemporary
Scotch is of this character: it is Scotch in spelling, English in
everything else."

Before we characterise grammatical features as illiterate, it's important
to remember that literacy in Scotland is confined to English, and therefore
only English norms are perpetuated. Sir James Murray certainly wasn't
illiterate - he was in fact one of the editors of the original Oxford
English Dictionary; nor was Lorimer, who was a professor of Greek at St
Andrew's University. Yet they both considered the use of the singular verb
with plural nouns to be correct Scots grammar, and used it consistently in
their prose.

>Care must also be taken to get rid of obsolete words that have not been
used
>by the community at large for many years. 'Dreich' for example has been
>largely replaced by 'Dry'. I like the former but in my areas at least I
only
>heard it used once by a sheriff in court.
>To develop a language has to evolve, to stick to the old for the sake of
the
>old hampers development.

There's a problem with this, though, in that many words have died out in
certain areas but remained in others. How do you decide which community is
to be the yardstick?

John M. Tait.

----------

From: John M. Tait [jmtait at altavista.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 03.AUG.2000 (02) [E]

Ian wrote:

With Scots, for example, in Co Antrim (N.Ireland) the word
>for 'above' is pronounced as if 'aboon' or 'abyoon' (to rhyme with
>'soon'), but I know up in Aberdeenshire or even in NW Ireland, the
>pronunciation is more like 'abeen' (almost to rhyme with 'seen').
>However, the word for 'palm' (of the hand) is 'loof' to Antrim
>speakers but almost 'leef' to Aberdeenshire speakers - so here we have
>a pattern. This is represented by <ui>, thus 'abuin' and 'luif'. These
>spellings could now be considered more or less "standard", but no
>academic has ever imposed this rule, it has come about through looking
>at what other people write and seeing the pattern.

According to the Linguistic Atlas of Scotland, the UI sound in Ulster Scots
is still different from the OO/OU sound in most circumstances - for
example, Section 30.2 (Ballymoney) shows, before [t],  'about', 'out' with
a central 'oo' sound (IPA Upsilon - SAMPA [U]) and 'boot', 'root' etc. with
a high front [y]. The use of the spellings <oo> or <ou> would therefore be
inappropriate for this sound anyway - <ui> is better, even before you bring
in the Scots of Scotland analogy.

Recently I adopted
>the Scottish spellings 'finnd' and 'binnd' because they don't
>contradict my own system, and so, although the final /d/ is not
>pronounced in Ulster, I saw no reason not to adopt them. Another
>example would be English 'hold'. In most Ulster dialects, the /d/ has
>been lost on this word, and a common dialect spelling is 'houl' or
>'howl'. However, in most Scottish dialects the <l> has been lost, thus
>'haud'. I would suggest, therefore, that the obvious spelling (and the
>one I use) should be 'hauld' - which also has literary use and
>reflects both pronunciations. I think that is now gradually gaining
>ground. Ulster speakers will know to drop the /d/, and Scots will know
>to drop the /l/.

This, of course, depends on Ulster Scots being seen as the same language as
Scottish Scots.

 If you go for 'hauld', you also go for 'cauld', 'auld',
>'fauld' etc.

But in most forms of Scots, these don't rhyme. In the NE, for example,
[had] but [ka:l], [a:l], [fa:l]. The spelling <hauld> would be rather
strange for most Scots speakers - they would tend to pronounce it to rhyme
with 'cauld'.

This is probably owing to separate developments. In Shetlandic there are
the following variant forms (English spellings):

cold [ka:ld], [kould]
old [a:ld], [ould]
bold [ba:ld] (no [ou] form)
hold [had], [hould]

These variants are not regional, but appear to be in free variation - I
would naturally use all of them. It would seem, then, that the word 'hold'
(Eng) is something of an anomaly in having a form without the [l].

John M. Tait.

----------

From: Andy Eagle [Andy.Eagle at t-online.de]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 05.AUG.2000 (02) [E/S]

Thomas wrate
 Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 04.AUG.2000 (02) [E/S]

>Andy Eagle wrote....
> > "Thir wha are left are washin the dishes." isna Scots.
> >
> > Hou wad ye pit ower 'thaim that's' in the plural?
> Weel ah'd say 'the yins thah're left ur washin the dishes.' Bad grammar's

> bad grammar an tryin tae git oot o this bi sayin it's the wey we tok
isnae
> oan. We nivver yaised this IS stuff in Edinburgh, only startit findin it
> when Ye goat aboot five miles oot the toon. Ye havnae tried tae defend
the
> awfie THEY bit eethur. 'Is They a sossidge?' oar when sumbuddy luiks at a

> tree an saiz 'Oh luik at THEY' Awfy stuff!

The quaisten o whit or whit isna ill gremmar is a pernickitie ane.
Wha decides whit's guid or ill?

Aften onie proccess that ettles tae define a 'staundart' brings wi it an
awfu intolerance agin the reenge o chyce that fowk wad hae taen as gien
afore-haund.
For ensaumple, as Ian mentiont short syne, whan Inglis wis bein
'staudartised'. Latin wis taen as a model.
Fae this cam the gyte thocht that preposeetions coudna be pitten at the end

o sentenses, an inflectit 'who' coudna bi pitten oniegates but in the
subject o a sentence, an infinitives canna be splittit. The confuision
aboot
whan tae uise 'I' an 'me' comes fae this an aa.

'Ill gremmar' whiles juist means expressions that dinna gree wi, aft
unrealistic, prescreeptions. Whit is gremmar? Prescreeptive gremmar isna a
seestematic descreeption o a tung but a kynd o 'linguistic ettiquette', tae

the maist pairt an arbitrar set o 'daes' an 'dinnas'. Descreeptive gremmars

dinna set doun whit is richt an wrang but juist descrieves hou langage is
uised. As a rule native speakers disna mak mistaks. Apairt fae solocisms or

wee bairns that's still gittin a grup o the tung.

Maist comments anent ill gremmar juist shaws that 'ill gremmar' is a cuiver

term uised tae descrieve a wheen deeferent expressions. Some o thir
expressions is aften dingit doun bi 'prescreeptionists', siclike's
deeficult
tae uphaud. Some expressions brings covert social nairae-nebbitness wi
thaim
akis thay're thocht on as bein thirlt tae 'laich fowk', some expressions
juist gangs alang wi the kenspeckle, but aye still, rule boond paitrens o
informal speak. Aa o thir is perfitlie gremmatical, an is juist pairt o the

rules o 'mental gremmar' the unconcious ken that fowk haes o thair mither
tung. Forenent that ye hae the prescreeptions that's reccomendit as 'guid
gremmar'. Tae the maist pairt siclike is mairginal an aft juist unrealistic

an treevial. Gin a parteeclar langage community uises a certain gremmatical

constructions - thay canna be wrang.

O course ye can airgie whither or no a bit writin is weel-wrocht an eith
tae
follae. Sic like is mair a quaisten o register or style.
Whan writin Scots we aa hae a problem. Akis, the day, Scots an Inglis is
awfu mixter-maxtert ye hae a nummer o chyces:
Write hou ye wad for ordinar speak. Dependin on the bodie daein it this
coud
reenge fae 'mair like Inglis' tae 'Braid Scots'.
Ettle tae write uisin whit A wad cry 'tradeetional Scots' foondit on a
descreeptive gremmar o siclike.
Tak the rules o 'staundart' Inglis an superimpose Scots wirds on tae it.
Juist sae gyte as taein Latin gremmar as the foonds o Inglis gremmar - the
warst ye can dae.

Andy

----------

From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Standardisation

Henry wrote:
>Yes, but you're forgetting we don't say or write Belgien, but België, or
Belgie<

In what varieties of Nederland/Zuidnederlands is there a distinction in
pronunciation between "Belgien" and "België"? Is dropping the "n"
sufficient
to make the pronunciations the same?

How widespread is the use of "Bels" for "Belgisch"?

Henry also asked about the use of "ii". How about E. "radii"?

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

----------

From: Henry Pijffers [hpijffers at home.nl]
Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 05.AUG.2000 (05) [E]

Ian hef schreven:
>
>This is quite frankly outrageous (not least because they have had
>several Americans informing them otherwise!) The aim of a minority
>language/culture website is to inform, quickly and succinctly. Fancy
>pictures are all very nice, but if they take centuries to download and
>get in the way of the real info, there ain't really much point!
>
>Besides, I wouldn't doubt that most people who visit, say, the
>LOWLANDS-L site, come with the express intention of finding one
>particular piece of information. This means easy navigation is
>everything.
>
That goes for almost any website I believe. Images should be used
only sparingly. And it should be easy to find things, with as few clicks
as possible. But I believe that's not the topic of this list.

Ron hef reageerd op mie:
>> >
>> >Steal away!  In my private spelling I use _uy_ only for the *long* /ü/,

>> >_ue_ for the short one.
>> >
>> I believe in some cases there is a length difference between west and
>> east (or north for that matter), so I tend to not write that difference.
This
>> leaves it open for the reader wether to make it long or not. But I'm
open for
>> other ideas about that.
>
>I'm not talking about dialect-specific vowels lengthening by rule that
some
>people in the Netherlands write double although it is redundant (e.g.,
/al/
>_al_ ~ _aal_ [?a.l] 'already', _land_  ~ _laand_ [la.nt] 'land',
>'country').   I was talking about phonemic length difference that is
pretty
>much the same in all dialects (e.g., _pot_ [pOt] 'pot' vs _poot_ [po:t]
>'paw').
>
I think I misunderstood you there then. If it's about phonemic length
difference,
as in pot/poot, what is then the difference between "ue" and "uy"? To me
they
both sound the same, unless "ue" sounds like the short "u" in Dutch.

>> Maybe "ie" is rather inconsistent and illogical,
>> but it's not the only curiosity that grew in history. Added to that, I'd

>sooner write
>> "y" than "ii".
>
>I'm not married to it, but it does make sense, *and* it was the *original*

>way of spelling the long /i/ in "Low German" (i.e., Dutch and Low Saxon).
>No, just because _ie_ is used in German and Dutch doesn't mean that Low
>Saxon (Low German) can't use it.  It's only that creating new
orthographies
>offers opportunities to remove some dead wood.  In Dutch, "ii" developed
>not only into "ij" (as eventually made standard in Dutch) but in older
>Dutch and still in Afrikaans also into _y_, originally with umlaut dots
>(_y_ < _ij_).  Hence the use of _y_ in medieval and early post-medieval
Low
>Saxon.  (Check the texts I sent.)  Of course, Westerlauwer ("West")
Frisian
>(of the Netherlands, too, uses _y_ for the long /i/.
>
Hmmm, didn't know that, thanks! But one question keeps lingering, when to
use "y" and when to use "i", in other words, is it "Saksysch", or
"Saksisch".
In Westerlauwer Frisian it is "Saksysk".

grooten,
Henry

----------

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

Henry, you asked above:

> what is then the difference between "ue" and "uy"? To me they
> both sound the same, unless "ue" sounds like the short "u" in Dutch.

Henry, please read what I said in response to John Feather's question under
today's issue entitled "Orthography".  Much of it applies here, and I do
not want to bore you and others with repetitions.

I strongly suspect that in your dialect, as in Dutch, there is no
short-long pair /ü/-/üü/.  However, since you are keen on helping to create
a standard orthography for Low Saxon (Low German) *as a whole*, it is
essential that you familiarize yourself with the phonemic inventories of
pretty much all dialects, at least dialect groups and sub-groups.  If you
do not, your graphemic inventory may not suit several dialects.

The short/long pair /ü/-/üü/ occurs in the majority of Low Saxon dialects
in Northern Germany, more in those dialects that tend toward the high range
of short vowels where other dialects have mid-level short vowels; e.g., ...

high-level-type dialects:
Putt -> Pütt, kinnen, vun, up

mid-level-type dialects:
Pott -> Pött, kennen, von, op

(pot -> pots, to know, of, up/on)

However, also the mid-level-type dialects have the /ü/-/üü/ opposition
(though less frequently).  Thus both types of dialects can have for
example:

short: _lütt_ (little), _Tünn_ (_Tunn_ ~ _Tonn_ [barrel])

long: _Lüüd'_~_Lüü_~_Lüe_ (people, folks), _he tüünt_ (he fantasizes/tells
tall stories)

Any good writing system represents length if a language has phonemic length
distinction.  I suggest you must have for Low Saxon (Low German) letters
for these (here *phonemes*, not suggested graphemes):

short:
i      ü           u
e     ö           o
ä*         a

(* only if you want to represent umlauting of /a/, as in _Wand_ > _Wänden_
(~ _Wännen_ ~ _Wannen_) 'wall' -> 'walls' -- otherwise _Wand_ > _Wenden_ (~
_Wennen_ ~ _Wannen_))

long:
ii      üü        uu
ee    öö        oo**
ää*        aa

diphthongs:
ie
ei
ai
ou**
au

(* only if you want to represent umlauting of /a/, as in _Wand_ > _Wänden_
(~ _Wännen_ ~ _Wannen_) 'wall' -> 'walls' -- otherwise _Wand_ > _Wenden_ (~
_Wennen_ ~ _Wannen_))
(** Some dialects do and other dialects do not distinguish /oo/ and /ou/;
e.g., in _so_ /zoo/ 'so' vs _School_ /Soul/ 'school' respectively.)

Not all dialects may have all of the above, but your wrriting system must
be able to represent them if necessary.

Another thing you need to think about is how you want to deal with the
labial consonants.

(1)
Most dialects have medial _-v-_ (e.g., _Heven_ 'sky', _Avend_ 'evening',
_Leven_ 'life') where some others (especially those around the lower
reaches of River Elbe) have medial _-b-_ (e.g., _Heben_ 'sky', _Abend_
'evening', _Leben_ 'life').  Do you want to let everyone write it as it is
in their dialects?  Or do you want to write _v_ and let people pronounce it
either as [v] or as [b], or as voiceless [v] in some dialects of the
Netherlands?  You cannot use _b_ because there are rare instances of medial
/b/ in _-v-_-type dialects.  You cannot write it _w_ because both types of
dialects tend to have words with medial [v], e.g., _ewig_ (not *_ebig_)
'eternal'.  Or you could come up with a whole new symbol to represent both
_-v-_ and _-b-_.  (Old Saxon had a bared "b".)

(2)
How will you represent initial /f/ if you use it consistently?
International usage, also Frisian usage, suggests _f-_; e.g., _fadder_
'father', _fruend_ 'friend', _fun_ ~ _fon_ ~ _fan_ 'of'.  Pre-contemporary
Low Saxon texts, in keeping with Lowlandic tradition, have almost always
_v-_; thus, if you adopted it, you'd write _vadder_ 'father', _vruend_
'friend', _vun_ ~ _von_ ~ _van_ 'of'.   The latter does not clash with
medial _-v-_.  The rule would be "Initial _v_ is pronounced [f] (also
following prefixes like _be-_ and _ge-_); medial _v_ is pronounced [v] (or
[b])."  This is assuming that you want to write it consistently one way or
another, and I suggest you should.  In native or nativized German words you
have both _f_ and _v_ representing [f] in initial position (e.g., _Fohlen_
'foal', _Vogel_ 'bird), _v_ representing [v] only in non-nativized
loanwords (e.g., _Violine_ 'violin').  This inconsistency has been adopted
in Low Saxon (Low German) writing in Germany.  In fact, (surprise,
surprise!) your choice depends on the spelling in German!  Thus _Fahlen_
and _Vagel_ respectively.  In fact, following German spelling, you
distinguish between _för_ 'for' and _vör_ 'before', 'in front of', even
though they are pronounced alike, unlike in German (_für_ and _vor_
respectively).

You see? There are many questions and many choices, and there are more
where these come from.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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