LL-L "Phonology" 2002.06.04 (01) [A/E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 04.JUN.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: "" <johnno55 at excite.com>
Subject: E/a vowel shift in leeglanner languages

Hello to all

I have been fascinated by the discussions about the various languages
and their varients in our leeglanners group.

Some many years ago as a young undergraduate I had to do some research
into the vowel shift e to a in Afrikaans.

I have noticed that many of our contributors use an "e" where I would
have used an "a". Laaglanders not leeglanners.

In Afrikaans there appears to be a shift to using "a" not "e" - laagte
instead of leegte for a hollow in the topography of an
area. The same is true of aardappel instead of erdappel for a potato.

Yet there is no doublet or move in some cases: Afrikaans perd (German
Pferd) as against Dutch paard.

Have the lowlands languages settled on their usages or is there still a
shift occuring in these?

If any of our contributors can cast some light on this I shall be very
grateful.

Ek sê sommer baie dankie by voorbaat

John le Grange

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject Phonology

Dag, John, en welkom!

I was under the impression that Dutch and Afrikaans did *not* shift (at
least not in most cases), while most Low Saxon (Low German) variants
(and also German) underwent a shift called umlauting, where a vowel is
fronted and raised by a non-low front vowel that occurs in the next
syllable; e.g., German _Kran_ 'crane' > _Kräne_ 'cranes', and _Blatt_
'leaf' > _Blätter_ 'leafs' (where nowadays the <ä> is pronounced like
<e>, short or long).  In Low Saxon this applies less extensively (e.g.,
_Kraan_ > _Kraans_) and not in as straightforward a fashion.  For
instance, you get /blad/ _Bladd_ [blat] (in Germany unfortunately mostly
written <Blatt> because they want to make it look like German) 'leaf',
'newsletter', 'newspaper', where, depending on the dialect, the plural
form may be _Bläder_ ~ _Bleder_ ['ble:d3] or rounded as well to _Blöder_
['blø:d3] ~ ['bl9:d3] or _Blööd'_ [blø:.d] ~ [bl9:.d] (< _Blöde_ <
_Blade_).

As for Dutch and Afrikaans _laag_, I thought there was no shift, as also
in the Scots cognate _law_ and the (rounded) English cognate _low_,
which are apparently derived from Old Norse _lâgr_ (where the _-r_ is a
suffix). The Northern Low Saxon cognate _leeg_ ~ _leeg'_ is one of those
unfortunate cases where German-oriented spelling is misleading in that
most systems do not distinguish long vowels from diphthongs.  _Leeg_ has
a diphthong rather than a long vowel, is pronounced as [lE.IC] or
[lE:IG] and really ought to be written as something like _leyg_ ~
_leyg'_ or _leig_ ~ _leig'_ or _läig_ ~ _läig'_.  German does not have
such a diphthong and no way of writing it, so, in their endeavor to make
Low Saxon of Germany look as much as possible like German dialects, they
simply ignored the difference between non-German-sounding diphthongs and
long vowels.

It would help if you noted down and presented to us cases in which you
observe <aa> vs <ee>, so we could discuss them.

(By the way, Low Saxon _leeg_ is semantically interesting in that it
means both 'low' (and also 'flat', thus _Leegland_ 'low-lying, flat
land') and 'bad' (> 'inferior', 'evil', 'naughty').)

> Yet there is no doublet or move in some cases: Afrikaans perd (German > Pferd) as against Dutch paard.

Yes, this is an interesting case in that Afrikaans is different from
Dutch.  In Low Saxon, 'horse' is _Peerd_, again with a diphthong:
[pE.I3t], and the plural form is _Peerd'_ (usually written _Peer_ in
Germany) [pE:I3d] ~ [pE:I3] (< _Peerde_ ['pE.I3de]).

However, Low Saxon also has genuine long /ee/; e.g., _Weeg'_ [ve:.G] ~
[vE:.G] 'ways' (< _Weg_ [vEC] 'way'), and _geven_ ['ge:vm=] ~ ['gE:vm=]
'to give'.  So you also get minimal pairs; e.g., _leev'!_ [le:.v] ~
[lE:.v] 'live!' vs _leev'!_ [lE:Iv] 'love!'.  (Some academic distinguish
the long vowel by putting a little hook underneath it, while some
writers use <ä> for the long /ee/; thus _lääv'!_ vs _leev'!_.)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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