LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.01.12 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 12.JAN.2003 (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) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Stan Levinson <stlev99 at yahoo.com>
Subject:  LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.01.12 (04) [E]

Ron, Ian, Others,
As a native English speaker who has nearly 100%
reading comprehension in Dutch (with a dictionary),
50-100% aural comprehension depending on the subject
and the linguistics idiosyncracies of the speaker; a
decent knowledge of Afrikaans grammar and some grammar
peculiarities, and about 70-100% reading comprehension
(the high number only with a good dictionary and a
non-technical subject), I have to say that my limited
experience listening to Afrikaans sure makes ME feel
like they are clearly different languages!
While I think it is (as in all language learning) a
matter of experience and practice, what I'm trying to
say is that my aural comprehension of Dutch doesn't
make me "automatically" understand Afrikaans, clearly
a different language.
On the other hand, the very regular way (by and large)
in which it differs from modern Dutch (remember
Afrikaans was just a spoken language until about 100
years ago) does give the feeling of a "simplified
form" of Dutch.  I mean, it doesn't look like a
"parallel development" of Dutch in the way that, say,
Scots (as constantly shown on this email list) is
certainly parallel to English and not some kind of
"simplified" or "deviant" version.  When I see some of
the written Scots discussion on this list, all I can
say is "Huh?"  Of course this is partially due to the
fact that our Scots speakers seem to be trying to
write a sort of phonetic version of the Scots they
speak, whereas Afrikaans LOOKS more like Dutch even
when it doesn't SOUND more like it.
It seems to me that the relationship between Afrikaans
and Dutch evolved from something similar to the
relationship between "Black English" and "Standard
American English", but that at some point, when
Afrikaans became a written tongue, it "established"
its peculiarities.  Of course a difference is that
once Afrikaans became recognized by its own speakers
as a separate language, the "other language", in this
case Dutch, was no longer competing.
Stan

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