LL-L "Lexicon" 2002.05.13 (05) [E]

Wed May 15 04:24:44 UTC 2002

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 13.MAY.2002 (05) * 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: Lone Elisabeth Olesen <baxichedda at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2002.05.13 (06) [E/LS]

Hello all,

R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com> wrote:

>First of all, let me say that, whatever happened in
the >past, most
>North
>Germans, especially the thinking type, not only have
>nothing against
>Danes but in fact like and admire them and their
>country.  Belonging to
>the post-war generation, I had lots of company in
>having a crush on
>Denmark, and in Schleswig many "Germans," disgusted
>with their
>inherited
>stigma, miraculously became members of the Danish
>minority virtually
>overnight.  I spent a lot of time in Denmark and had
>95% good
>experiences (though in the 1960s I was refused
service >in restaurants
>twice, despite my effort to speak Danish).

>If there are any anti-Danish feelings, they must be
>very old, because
>the North Saxon areas constantly got overrun by
Danish >"Vikings," and
>my
>native Hamburg (the northernmost Christian bastion of
>Bishop Ansgar who
>Christianized the northern "heathens") got sacked,
>plundered and burned
>by them several times.  Not being one of them, I
can't >speak for the
>people of Schleswig-Holstein that were intermittently
>under Danish rule
>in a long tug-of-war between Germany and Denmark.
(...)

>What puzzled me about this _wedderdäänsch_ was that
it >is a *negative*
>state of being, i.e., that it sounds like Danish rule
is >good and ought
>not be revolted against!
>
>But wait! There's more! The plot thickens ...  I
looked >up
>_wedderdäänsch_ in Renate Herrmann-Winter's
>_Plattdeutsch-hochdeutsches
>Wörterbuch_ (for dialects of Mecklenburg and Western
>Pomerania).  She
>writes that _wedderdäänsch_ comes from _wedder_
>'against' (German
>_wider_) and _daun_ (i.e., _doon_) 'to do'!
(Remember that many
>Eastern
>dialects tend to unround non-high vowels, e.g.,
_äver_ >for _över_,
>hence
>I suppose _doon_ > _dään..._.  Wait again!  That
doesn't >tally up.  Or
>does it?  There should be a diphthong (_doon_ [do.Un]
> >*_deen_
>[dE.In])
>unless you take the past participial form _daan_ and
>umlaut it.  I'm
>confused!
>
>So, this "Danish" thing may have been my own
>misinterpretation.
>Undskyld!  I wonder if others perceive it like that
too, >if perhaps
>this
>is a case of "contamination."

>Up elkeen Fall, leve Dänen, wi hebbt Ju leev!

Thanks for the kind words, and oops... First of all,
I'm sorry I didn't make it absolutely clear that I was
halfway joking, I was not thinking in terms of any
"anti-Danish" feelings. I just found it interesting
that war events involving Danes from back in the 1600s
were mentioned in a folk tale that was written down
much later - and so made the connection in my head
that _wedderdäänsch_ might have been reflecting past
perceptions of Danes. It appealed a lot to the former
history student in me that old events should be
"visible" in present language! But yes, according to
the Hermann-Winter dictionary sounds like I was a bit
too creative in my attempt to support the connection.
Or it might be that the use of a few loans of
"wedder-" into "veder-" in Danish confused me - eg.
_vederfare_ (happen to sb. or st.) and _vederkvæge_
(strengthen, refresh). And I can even use a LS
loanword to say that I think it sounds quite
_viderværdigt_ (unpleasant or disgusting) to me that
they would behave like that with you in restaurants in
the 1960s, the past is the past.

However, I understand words with the prefix "wedder-"
as having almost the same meaning as the word
beginning with "counter-" "with-" and "re-" in English
and therefore also the meaning "again/a repeating
action"?
I have always been fascinated with just how many words
have been created using a prefix that has a meaning
similar to resistance or repetition... it sounds like
a direct connection to a more laborious past, but I
better call it a night before I digress too much.
Greetings/hilsner
Lone Olesen

----------

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

Lone,

I knew you were half joking, and it was I who took a more serious turn
(in part because it was an opportunity to talk about a relevant topic),
but I should have made this clearer.  Sorry about making *you* apologize
instead of apologizing to you.

Low Saxon _wedder-_ is confusing because it is homophone for (1) 'again'
(German _wieder_) and (2) 'against' (German _wider_, only the spelling
being different).

> _vederfare_

I believe this is a Low Saxon loan: Middle Low Saxon _wedervaren_ 'to
happen (to sb.)' (_weder_ 'against' + _varen_ 'travel', "something with
which one collides," so to speak, _Et is my wedervaren_ 'It happened to
me.').  German has _wiederfahren_ in the same sense.  It's really
archaic in both languages, but the old Lutheran hymn books abound with
these words, probably also the Danish ones.

> _vederkvæge_

In this case _veder-_ connotes "again'.  I also suspect this to be a Low
Saxon loan, although *_wedderquicken_ ~ *_wedderkwicken_ does not seem
to exist in Modern Low Saxon, probably Middle Low Saxon *_wederquikken_
'to revive'.  _Quicken_ ~ _kwicken_ is still used in the sense of 'to
refresh', 'to revive', also German _erquicken_.  Yes, it is related to
English _quick_ in the sense of 'lively' < 'alive'.  Low Saxon also has
_quick_ ~ _kwick_ 'lively', as in my translation of "'T was the Night
before Christmas" (_Quickborn_ year 91, No. 4, 2001, p. 2):

   With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
   I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

   Dat ol' Fuhrmanntje keek so quick dwars un dweer.
   Daar wüss ick ok foorts, dat 't de Wiehnachtsmann weer.

Hence also _Quickborn_, the name of a famous and the oldest Low Saxon
periodical and society in Germany and the title of Klaus Groth's famous
collection.  It connotes the idea of "lively and refreshing wellspring"
(cf. English "bourne", Scots _burn_ 'brook', 'rivulet').

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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