LL-L: "Orthography" LOWLANDS-L, 28.MAY.2000 (01) [D/E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 28.MAY.2000 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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[Sorry. This one slipped away under the wrong subject heading. RFH.]

From: Roger Thijs [Roger.Thijs at village.uunet.be]
Subject: Orthography

I think it is an issue "how one should write in dialect":
- or one comes close to the koinè, but leaves only some local vocabulary
and expressions in the text (most regional "idiotica" over here are based
on that approach)
- or one tries to be phonetecally correct, be it with a normal alphabeth,
but the result may look morphologically very strange, and even unreadable
for people from the parish itself. A second result is that one ends with as

many dialects as there are parishes in the country.

This saturday I found the first 10 vols of the magazine "Taal en tongval"
in a second hand book shop. In vol. VII 1955 p. 27-42 the issue is raised
by E. Blancquaert, "Een moderne dialecttekst". The dialect is from Opdorp
(situated there where the provinces East-Flanders, Antwerpen and Vlaams
Brabant meet)

B was written initially by somebody from the municipality in an attempt to
write in dialect. A was composed by Prof. Blanquaert together with 3
dialect speakers from the municipality.

a (small) sample

- quote from "Lezing A":

Dattad alzellèive pjèèremèt chewest èi, en datter sèrreworreg implèk fa
vaaëv of sezondert pjèèrn en veulekes messchien giën ondert nemië kommen,
da chèfter nieks oum;  en dasse dou nà mè landbàmasjiene stùn èn mè
cherieëlen en teugelz en kùrreven en wann en zaasses em pieken en
wetstieënn, en oumerz en al dache dienke künt fam boernóulam, da feranderd
oeëk nieks on de zouk.
(the a's with accent above must have a flat accent, and not an "aigu" one)

- quote from "Lezing B":
Dat dat àl zijn leven peerdemerkt geweest het, en dat er tegenwoordig in
plek van vijf- of zeshonderd peerden en veulekes misschien geen honderd
niemeer komen, dat geeft er niks aan; en dat ze daar nu met
landbouwmaschienen staan en met garelen en teugels en korven en wannen en
zeisens en pikken en wetstenen en hamers en al dat ge denken kunt van
boerenalaam, dat verandert niets aan de zaak.

In B the Dutch "paard" is found as the old-Brabantish literary "peerd" but
the vowel+r into j+vowel transformation is lost. Also the final d
disappears in the plural form in A.
The vowel+r into j+vowel transformation is widespread though. I have it
also in my Limburgish from Vliermaal: pjaad (both singular and plural,
without umlaut in this case, be it with tonal differences though: sleeptoon

sigular, stoottoon plural)

The typical Brabantish loss of r in "markt" (mèt) is also not visible in
the B version.

The West-Brabantish _loss_ of the initial "h" is not visible in B: B "het",

A "èi" (Dutch: "heeft"). The final "t" in B may be coming from more common
Brabantish.

For the initial h, cf. also A "ondert", B "honderd" etc.
Fot the loss of final t, cf. also: A "mè", B "met", A "da", B "dat".

The typical brabantisch diphtongues are also not given: e.g. "èi" for "ee":

A "alzellèive", B "àl zijn leven", Dutch "altijd al"
Similar for monophtongues for diphtongues: A "landbà", B "landbouw"

It is curious that "zaasses" in A is given as "zeisens" in B (Dutch
"zeisen"). B clearly combines both plural forms.

I guess much more comments can be destillated from this small excerpt.

The point is: A gives the real dialect, but hardly anybody can read it as
written text. B does not give the dialect "as is", gives just a flavor of
it, but is it easy to read and understand.
So: do we need to accept a bi-linguism with written and spoken languages?
Even for the dialects? (when one writes something down, it's mostly with
the intention others can read it, I guess) Aren't written forms of
languages not damned to be koinè for a larger regional area, and more or
less standardized?

Regards,

Roger

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