LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 13.AUG.2000 (02) [D/E]

Sun Aug 13 20:01:36 UTC 2000

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From: Roger Thijs [roger.thijs at village.uunet.be]
Subject: LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 12.AUG.2000 (03) [E]

I wrote at the beginning of this thread:
 >>>>> While the romance-diets border is going "horizontally" from West to
East in Belgium, some linguistic phenomena have more North-South isoglosses

and cross the linguistic border.
e.g. some common phonemes between South Limburgish and East-Walloon:
... - vowel + r becomes often i + vowel in Romance as well as in Limburgish

dialects of the area <<<<<

I realize, I have been mixing up and merging 2 phenomena, after reading:
J.G.H. Tans, Isoglossen rond Maastricht in de dialecten van Belgisch en
Nederlandsch Zuid-Limburg, 1938, xix + 246 pp
(I got the book copied from the original at the Brussels "Royal Library
Albert I" (Book ref. TH 593 1938 1)).

1. the i or j.

--- quote (from my copies) p. 29-30:
(analogy with the) Oudslavische wet der silben-harmonie...
... komt het heel vaak voor dat een silbe, die met een weke consonant
begint, op een harde eindigt, en omgekeerd; en in al deze gevallen begint
zich nu de vocaal naar de kleur van de eindconsonnant te richten. De kleur
van de beginconsonant voelt zich hierdoor volstrekt niet verzwakt, maar
door deze contrasterende tegenstelling zelfs scherper gekarakterizeerd. De
gemouilleerde silben hebben hun tijd gehad, en de gemouilleerde consonanten

hebben zich tot zelfstandige phonemen ontwikkeld. En dit is de diepere
reden, waarom er nu een __tweede__ periode volgt, tijdens welke de
volgklinkers door de kleur van de anlautconsonanten niet meer
geassimileerd, maar juist omgekeerd: gedissimileerd worden...
--- end quote

I modify his examples slightly into my own dialect variant:
Vliermaal  Dutch

vjaas   vaars
vjarich   klaar  (related to "vaardig")
howvjaaddich  hoogvaardig
rèèchvjaaddich rechtvaardig
mjaat   maart
hjot   hert
kjoe-es  kers
kjoe-esmis  Kerstmis
vjoe-es  vers
hjoe-ese  hersen
jossleeng  eersteling

2. The dropping of the -r before a final d/t is apparently going parallel
with East-Walloon since it is only occurring in the South

--- quote (p 204):
Vóór dentaal kon de r echter na gerekte vocaal plaatselijk opgaan in de
vocalizering van den klinker en zoodoende verdwijnen... hetgeen ook op
__Romaansch__ taalgebied wederom valt te constateren..., zo ging de r
veloren vóór d of t in een groot Belgisch gebied ten zuiden van Hasselt-
Genk- Zutendaal- Lanaken, alsmede in Gulpen en soms in Reimerstock.
--- endquote

I modify his examples slightly into my own dialect variant:
Vliermaal Dutch

bo-ot  baard
pjaat  paard
vjarich  klaar  (cf. Dutch: vaardig, not meaning the same)
wjaat  waard (adj.)
poe-et  poort
moe-et moord
o-dich  eigenaardig

gjan  gaarne
hoe-en koren
toe-en  toren

kjoe-es kers
vjoe-es vers
koos  korst
doos  dorst
boossel bortsel

----
The whole thread started with reflections about historical explanations for

linguistic phenomena.

I'm puzzled a bit by the linguistic situation of "Zeeuws Vlaanderen". It's
a region just North of the Belgian province of East Flanders, that got
conquered by the Dutch and became formally part of the North in 1648.

The vocabulary is covered by and included in the "Woordenboek de Zeeuwse
dialecten", by Ghijsen, tiende druk, 1959-1965, xv + 1232 pp.

The volumes of the "Woordenboek der Vlaamse Dialecten" only covered
"West-Vlaanderen" and "Oost Vlaanderen" in Belgium and the North of France
till 1987, but since 1988 "Zeeuws Vlaanderen" (Nl) is also included here.

Is it Zeeuws? Is it Flemish? Curious thing is: although it's a small strip
of land, it is dialect wise divided, and has a West significantly different

from the East.

Jan W. de Vries, and others, in "Het verhaal van een taal, Negen eeuwen
Nederlands", 1995, 316 pp include the West with the West-Flemish dialect
area and the East with the East Flemish dialect area.

Just that Zeeuws-Flemish "West" is somehow an appendix of West-Flemish lost

above the "East-Flemish" dialect area:

WWWWWWWW_WWWWEEEEEEEE_
WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

(West-Flemish, from West-Vlaanderen and from France, is to be considered
"real, genuine" Flemish, East Flanders is a Flemish - Brabantish transition

area; on some linguistic maps it's included in Brabantish)

So why is the area _WWWWEEEEEEEE_ not homogeneously East Flemish
__EEEEEEEEEEEEEE__ (or Zeeuws since it belongs to the United Provinces
since the beginning of the 17th century).

The origin of the difference may be due to history from before the 17 th
century.
The whole area belonged to the County of Flanders, but:

- The West belonged to the district "Brugse Vrye", the part, that became
Dutch later,  was called "Het Vrye van Sluys" after the separation
- The East is formed by "De Vier Ambachten" of which two (Hulster Ambacht
and Axeler Ambacht) became Dutch, while for two others (Boekhouter Ambacht
and Asseneder Ambacht) the North became Dutch (and the South is part of
East Flanders)

- The West belonged to the bishopric of Doornik (Tournai) and was part of
the major part of Flanders that remained legally a fief from France till
about 1525
- The East belonged to the bishopric of Utrecht and was (together with the
Aalst area, for other reasons), as "Rijksvlaanderen" part of the German
empire.

At the time of the Verdun treaty, in 843, the Schelde river divided France
from Lotharingia (later part of Germany) up to Antwerp. North of Antwerp,
since the land was not poldered in, and the river was regularely changing
it's bed, as well as due to the presence of Danes, semi-fixed in the area
at the time, the land split-up was kept weekly defined as "along the border

of the bishoprics of Utrecht and Doornik"

What's curious, the East preserved it's identity.
Though the whole of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen is a quite small land area, local
history circles in the East behave as if the West does not exist, some
samples:

- Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Gottschalk, De Vier Ambachten en het Land van
Saaftinge in de Middeleeuwen, Een historisch-geografisch onderzoek
betreffende ___Oost__-Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, 1984, Van Gorcum, Assen, xxiv +
589 pp + 1 map (of the East)

- P. Stockman en P. Everaers, Frontier Steden en Sterckten, Vestingwerken
in Oost-Vlaanderen en __Oost___-Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, 1584-1839, De Maelstede,

Hulst, 1997, 144 pp

and an enormous book: I need to take the heavyweight with 2 hands, size:
350 mm x 250 mm, 60 mm thick, xii + 1070 pp on thick glossy paper, 3
columns per page plus printed comments in the margin, :
"Over den Vier Ambachten", 750 jaar Keure, 500 jaar Graaf Jansdijk, 1993,
Duerinck, Kloosterzande

All this investments just for the Eastern half of this small territory. So
the dialect split up has a parallel with some differences in history and
with some kind of different social identity.

The big size book has also some linguistic contributions:

J. Taeldeman (Professor at Ghent University in Belgium): De dialecten van
de Vier Ambachten, pp 957-966

(On the map: West-Flemish has penetrated a bit further as the "Vrye" into
the "Ambachten")

Hugo Ryckeboer (Ghent University): De Vier Ambachten en omgeving, raakpunt
van lexicale invloedssferen, pp. 967-974

Lic. Nadia Van Den Meersschaut, Dialect en Algemeen Nederlands: strijd of
samenspel in Assenede en Westdorpe, pp. 975-983

C.S. de Groote, Dialect en standaardtaal aan weerszijde van de rijksgrens
Nederland-België, verslag van een onderzoek naar de (standaard)taal van
Axelaren, Hulstenaren, Heikanters en Stekenaren, pp. 985-992

So, can the penetration or preservation of a West Flemish band in
Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, over the North of East Flanders, while the East followed

rather the Brabantization of East Flanders, have to do with historical
developments before the 17th century?

At the East of Brabant the major isoglosses separating Brabantish from
Limburgish at the (small) Gete river, also coincide with the border of the
Duchy of Brabant and the former county of Loon.

Or is this all pure coincidence and speculation.

Regards,

Roger
r.thijs at ieee.org

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