LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.10.02 (06) [E]
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L O W L A N D S - L * 02.OCT.2002 (06) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic
V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at pandora.be>
Subject: Language survival
Beste liëglanners,
Recently I've been reading all kinds of declarations about the linguistic
character of Brussels that somehow managed to stir my mind.
It goes without saying (but not without writing maybe *s*) that Brabantish
has always been the main language of Brussels (and Antwerp and Den Bosch and
Leuven) until the late 19th century. Surely there were pockets of "high
class people" that spoke French, but 99 % of the local population
spoke plain Brabantish. Even in the so called "Marolles". Also bear in mind
that Flemish on the other hand has always suffered much more influence from
French than Brabantish. France used to have a very tight grip on the county
of Flanders for centuries and centuries, and this shows...still today, if
one takes into account the sometimes overly sensitive reactions of many a
Fleming that would qualify himself a "flamingant". Those among you, who do
not know how
such a person is perceived by "les francophones", should listen to a song by
Jacques Brel titled "Les F-".
In order to give you an idea of how thoroughly "unfrench" (and also
"unflemish") popular language still was somewhere around 1860 in Brussels, I
will now quote the lemma "dietsch" from a dictionary that was roughly
written between 1850 and 1882 by the Brabantish priest L.W. Schuermans :
>DIETSCH, bijv. en z. nw. Dit is de echte algemeene naam onzer taal, nog
zeer in Br., Antw. en Limb. in voege om de vlaamsche of nederduitsche of
nederlandsche spraak aan te duiden. De Brusselaar spreekt "disch",
"plat-tisch", met den duitschen sch-klank, uit; door "dosch" verstaat hij
hoogduitsch. Te Leuv. en omstr. zegt men niet "diets" maar "duts", even als
in Limb. en dat bet. hetzelfde als in 't engl. "dutch", d.i. vlaamsch of
nederduits; om het hgd. aan te duiden zegt men in Br. "duitsch", of
"deutsch" (met korten eu-klank) en "duitsch" of "hoogduts", "hoogdutsch"
(sch uitgespr. als in 't hgd.) in Limb.
But then things changed...very rapidly...By the end of the 19th century,
more and more (Belgian) people found Brussels to be very attractive and a
huge influx was taking place...many of them were Flemings and soon they
abandoned their native language...no doubt because French was fashionable
(in more than one sense) and if you wanted to get a job in the city,
Flemish, Brabantish or Limburgish was much less useful. On a more positive
note, French was the "lingua franca" that united people from West-Vlaanderen
and Limburg and Luxemburg in this young kingdom.
At the same time people all over the northern part of Belgium started
reacting and demanded more rights for their community...in those days even
the university of Ghent for example was not yet "dutch-speaking", and sure
enough the ongoing battle (then !) had valid reasons in my opinion.
Because "their enemy", so to speak, was common, both Flemish, Brabantish and
Limburgish people kind of unified their forces and chose to be labelled
"Flemish" ("Vlaamse Beweging"), but linguistically speaking this was
incorrect. "Eendracht maakt macht" and "Het doel heiligt de middelen", you
know. *s*
Up till this day though, people from the provinces of Vlaams-Brabant (wrong
name actually, but another name would be untranslatable in French because
"francophones" make little or no distinction between people living north of
the linguistic border) and Antwerp and Noord-Brabant (and especially
dutch-speaking people from Brussels !) do not consider themselves very much
"Vlaams". Yes they do if they have to show their profile towards an outsider
living far away (the words Flanders, Flemish and Fleming are better known in
English than any other words derived from Brabant for that matter), but
within a Benelux-context history still plays a (minor) role.
In my version of Brabantish for example we'll say that we speak sort of
"Vloms" ~ "Vlaams" (D), yet people from the two provinces of Flanders speak
"Vlojners" ~ "Vlaanders", which is quite different. We'll also rarely
qualify ourselves as being "ne Vlàmink" ~ "een Vlaming" (D), and the term
"ne Vlojnereir" ~ "een Vlaanderaar" is certainly exclusively used for people
living in the old county of Flanders.
The difference in "heimatgefühl" between Flemings and Brabantians (don't
even know whether this word exists *s*) is also quite obvious when you take
a look at the distribution of Belgian family names on the following site :
http://geonome.metaphor.be/cgi-bin/geonome.pl
People from Brabant are known as "De Brabander(e)" in Flanders, but not in
their homelands of course, whereas Flemings are not only called "Vleminckx"
outside Flanders, but apparently they even use the name "Vlaeminck" within
their homelands...judge for yourself...
This rivalry between the county of Flanders and the duchy of Brabant used to
be much more outspoken in the past (resulting in a series of war-like
battles because "Vlaanderen" and "Brabant" were both trying to expand
eastwards), but slowly this seems to fade, as younger people are focussing
less and less inside their communities and tend to broaden their horizons.
In Brussels itself however, this anti-Flemish, anti-"Hollands" and
anti-German(ic) resentment can still be felt; and so, if anything,
dutch-speaking folk there, often consider themselves "Brussels" in the first
place, "Brabants" in the second, and "European" in the third. Off the
record, I'm not "Brussels" myself.
Briefly, imho Marco Evenhuis got it completely right in his last message.
Voila *s*, my two cents ... next one, please...
Greetings,
Luc Hellinckx
----------
From: Colin Wilson <lcwilson at btinternet.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.10.01 (06) [E]
At 23:09 01/10/02, Mike Wintzer wrote:
>hi Lowlanders,
>A short while ago someone (cannot find the message back) suggested that
>Scots, rather than having been derived from English on a Gaelic/Norse
>substrate, might have evolved rather independently and in parallel with
>English from the languages of the early Anglo-Saxon invaders. I´ve had now
>for a few months my first real exposure - through reading LL postings - to
>written Scots, and I find about the same degree of Latin (Norman)
>superstrate in Scots as in English. Shouldn´t one expect rather less
>Normannic words in Scots than in English if the a.m. supposition was true?
Not at all. Indeed, for centuries Scotland and France not only were
allies against their common enemy, England, but also traded with each
other a great deal, and so one might even expect to see *more*.
It's certainly true that Scots has a range of vocabulary
derived from French, that isn't found in English. Some examples are
_rooser_ (arrosoir), _pell-mell_ (pêle-mêle), _groset_ (groseille),
_gigot_, _gibbet_ (gibet), _ashet_ (assiete), and there are more.
Goodwill to all,
Colin Wilson.
----------
From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.10.01 (02) [D/E]
Lowlands-L heeft op dinsdag, 1 okt 2002 om 17:28 (Europe/Brussels) het
volgende geschreven:
> From: Marco Evenhuis <evenhuis at zeelandnet.nl>
> Subject: LL-L "Language policies" 2002.09.30 (05) [D]
>
> Beste mensen,
>
> Stefaan Vermeire reageerde uitgebreid op mijn
> antwoord op eerdere berichten van Luc Vanbra-
> bant & Simon Hoare. Ik kreeg bij het lezen van
> het antwoord van Stefaan sterk de indruk dat hij
> de context van mijn bericht, dat nadrukkelijk slechts
> een reactie is op een eerder schrijven van Luc & Simon,
> enigszins verkeerd begrepen heeft.
> Zoals ik Stefaan's bericht lees, heeft hij menen te
> moeten concluderen dat ik mij af wens te zetten
> tegen begrippen als 'Vlaams' en 'Vlaanderen' als
> paraplubegrippen voor respectievelijk de Germaanse
> taalvarianten van noord-België en het administratieve
> gebied waar deze varianten gesproken worden. Dat is
> onjuist.
> In mijn schrijven probeerde ik slechts aan te geven
> dat Simon, die eerder aangaf verbaasd te zijn over het
> feit dat de niet geheel verfranste Brusselaars zich afzet-
> ten tegen hun 'Vlaams-zijn', terwijl de zelfs geheel ver-
> franste inwoners van Lille/Rijssel hun Vlaamse af-
> komst niet onder stoelen of banken steken en
> de naam Vlaming zelfs als geuzennaam gebruiken.
Misschien splijt ik hier wind, maar de Vlaamse naam voor Lille is
Rijsel, met één s. Voor de inwoners gebruiken wij al altijd de naam
'Rijselnaars' maar daar kan ik niet met 100% zekerheid zeggen dat het
taalkundig correct is.
Rijsel en Lille zijn trouwens etymologisch van hetzelfde woord
afkomstig: insula werd " ter isla "(V) en "l'isla"(Frans)
Groetjes
Luc Vanbrabant
Oekene
----------
From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2002.09.30 (04) [D/E]
Lowlands-L heeft op maandag, 30 sep 2002 om 20:26 (Europe/Brussels) het
volgende geschreven:
> From: W. Jaap Engelsman <engelsma at euronet.nl>
> Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2002.09.29 (02) [D/E]
>
> Beste Laaglanders,
>
> Luc Vanbrabant schreef:
>
>> Perhaps it would be interesting to send to our Lowland site all the
>> French words who are derived from one of the lowland tongues.
>
> Maar laten we niet vergeten dat er op dit gebied al veel werk verzet
> is. In
> het reuzenwerk van W. von Wartburg, "Französisches etymologisches
> Wörterbuch" (1928-), zijn de delen 15-17 gewijd aan "Die germanischen
> Elemente".
>
> Een zeer interessante analyse van de sporen van de Oudnederlandse
> woordenschat in het Frankisch is te vinden in: Nicoline van der Sijs,
> "Chronologisch woordenboek" (2001), hoofdstuk 2.2.
>
> Jaap Engelsman
Dag Jaap,
Inderdaad, het chronologisch woordenboek geeft ons een interessante
analyse. Maar er worden daaruit hooguit 90 woorden vermeld.
Toen ik met mijn fluo-stift een etymologisch woordenboek doorbladerde,
vond ik er toch een 400-tal.
Daarbij moet je ook naar de zinsconstructies zelf kijken Frans is zo
anders dan de andere Romaanse talen, precies door die Frankische
invloed. Een Franse en een Latijnse zin tonen veel minder overeenkomst
dan een Franse en een Vlaamse zin.
Goetjes
Luc Vanbrabant
Oekene
----------
From: George M Gibault <gmg at direct.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.10.01 (06) [E]
Fellow Lowlanders,
The presence of many French loan words in Scots is not at all surprising
for three reasons:
1. French was the "universal" (in Europe) language of culture in the Middle
Ages
2. There were close political ties between France and Scotland, which often
allied against England
- in fact there is a Scots term for this - the "Auld Alliance." Bonnie
Prince Charlie, for example, spoke French as his first language
3. There was a significant French immigration to Scotland in the 11th and
12th centuries (which few Scots realize) - such typically Scots names as
Fraser Archibald and Stewart for example being Norman and Breton in origin.
Another typ9cal Scottish name - Fleming - of course refers to Vlaams who
brought the wool trade
Because the Reformation was particularly violent in Scotland and religious
prejudices often extreme, Scots protestants were often encouraged to
downplay or ignore the "French (Catholic) connection" to their history -
indeed much of the substantial 18th century Catholic population of Scotland
emigrated to Ireland and Canada. The degree of English influence on Scots
evolution increased steadily over time, particularly after the Union of the
crowns in the early 1700s - which, ironically, put a Scot on the throne of
England!
Scots for aye George
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