LL-L: "Phonology" (was "Poetics") LOWLANDS-L, 14.MAR.2000 (01) [E/German]

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From: Stephen Israel [sisrael at imap.pitt.edu]
Subject: LL-L: "Poetics" LOWLANDS-L, 13.MAR.2000 (03) [E]

Ron wrote about Groth's "use of "æ" where "œ" is more appropriate for /øø/
";

The middle and what remained of upper class pronunciation of Platt did
deround umlaut vowels, like the rest of German dialects.  This started in
the late 1600's;  as their sociolect gradually died out in the course of
the 1800's, the derounding peculiar to it died with it, leaving the larger
part of the North German population still speaking Platt with front rounded
vowels.
Thus, Groth likely did  mean "ae" intead of "oe"/øø/ .

___NOTES from a draft for my dissertation on Early New Low German, giving
some examples________________
        King George I of England/Hannover confused Haeussler/Heissler, and middle
class speakers explicitly pointed out that they pronounced words like
_hoeker_ as haeker

FROM: Gertrud Ahlmann 1991  Zur Geschichte des Fruehneuniederdeutschen in
Schleswig-Holstein...
        p.89-91: PHONOLOGY: derounding shows up occasionally in MLG, and rarely
before c. 1650; after then it occurs frequently; in 1768 in the "Versuch
eines bremisch-niedersaechsischen Woerterbuchs" "haeker, oder wie
gemeiniglich aber zu unrecht geschrieben wird höker" and klötern: "wir
sprechen es aber klaetern."

        In 1819 rounded and derounded variants still appeared in the same
manuscript...  But by 1892 a Glückstädter... could say "Vor etwa 50 Jahren
war der Vokalismus ein etwas anderer; man sprach nämlich statt [...] z.B.
groen = gr aen; [...] die Leute, die so sprachen, (mag auch der eine oder
andere noch leben) sind jetzt ausgestorben."
        Derounding occurred elsewhere, e.g. in Stralsund of 1786, (Herrmann-Winter
1995:188) again, the educated imitating High Germans' rendition of the
umlaut vowels (...did they render ae as a low or mid vowel?)

>  L O W L A N D S - L * 13.MAR.2000
> From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
> Subject: Poetics

> As you can see, it is totally German-based, with hardly any
> differentiation between short and long vowels, let alone differentiation
> between diphthongs and long vowels.  (Added to this in many of Groth's
> publications is the use of "æ" where "œ" is more appropriate for /øø/ --
> apparently a consistent error on the part of the typesetters.)

---------

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

Thanks for the explanation above.

Is it known how this unrounding started?  Was is as the result of some sort of
affectation in an upper-crust sociolect, or was it derived from a certain
dialect?

I noticed that some eastern dialects still have extensive unrounding, e.g.,
/e:ver/ vs /ø:ver/.  Might this have been the origin of the above-mentioned,
or is it the result of it?

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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