LL-L: "English" LOWLANDS-L, 30.JAN.2000 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L Administrator]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 30.JAN.2000 (06) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
 Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/~sassisch/rhahn//lowlands/>
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: English

Sergey Negovelov wrote:

>For all I know, Newfie English should be rather archaic and different from
any other kind of American and Canadian English.<

I'd be interested to find out. An American friend of mine whose parents came
from the Maritimes told me that they still retained their accents and a
distinctive vocabulary. But the only example she could think of was their
pronunciation of "buoy" as "boo-ee". That, of course, is a very common US
pronunciation - though everyone will probably say they've never heard it
:-). My point is that people are often unaware that things they think of as
"local" are used elsewhere. You'll find the same thing if you look up
www.wordplay.com/tourism/folklore/newfwords.html

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "English"

> From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
> Subject: English
>
> A visitor to our Lowlands-L web site sent the following message
> to me.
>
> Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 19:41:05 +0300
> From: Sergey Negovelov <negovel at uc.jinr.ru>
> Organization: University Center, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
> To: sassisch at geocities.com
> Subject: Newfoundland English
>
>     Dear Mr. Ron Hahn,
>     I am very glad to see your Lowlands site: it is a wonderful example
> of the Internet being a means of promotion of lesser used languages and
> dialects. Here is my suggestion: let your site include the Newfoundland
> dialect of English. This dialect should be very interesting as
> Newfoundland's English-speaking community is the oldest (or, at least,
> one of the oldest) in America, and relatively few immigrants came there
> later, after the first wave of immigrants from southwestern England and
> southern Ireland. For all I know, Newfie English should be rather
> archaic and different from any other kind of American and Canadian
> English.
>
>     Kind regards
>     Sergey Negovelov, negovel at uc.jinr.ru
>     Dubna, Moscow Region, Russia

In fact I made a request for discussion of this dialect on the list a few
years ago, but there didn't seem to be any takers.

Newfoundland dialect is rather like the traditional English dialect of the
south west of England ("Wessexian") and as far as I understand preserves
more archaic forms than the Wessexian dialect spoken in the south west of
England today. For example, Newfoundland speech better preserves the old
three-gender dialect forms for nouns that in Wessex now involves only the
masculine and neuter for the most part. I believe Appalachian,  the English
of the south of Ireland, and for that matter General American, all came from
Wessexian. In the south of Ireland this replaced Scots, which was in the
process of replacing Gaelic, and while there's obvious Scots influence in
Appalachian, there's also obvious Wessexian influence, and I don't really
know which came first.

I haven't got any examples of Newfoundland dialect, unfortunately.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
http://www.fleimin.demon.co.uk

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