LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.07 (04) [A/E/S]

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From: Mark Foster <esperis at operamail.com>
Subject: Resources

Thought there might be a few people interested in the following information
taken from a posting on languagehat:

SCOTS.

The Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech project (SCOTS) has created a search
facility that allows you to find all occurrences of a given form in their
half-million-word corpus. As the Scotsman story puts it:

>>From today, the most detailed analysis to date of the Scots language will
be accessible on the internet.

Containing 400 texts, the Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech project
(SCOTS), aims to help instil in Scots, both native and expatriate, a pride
in their national identity, as well as to try to halt the decline of the
language, which unlike Gaelic receives relatively little promotion.

It has taken researchers from Glasgow University three years to compile the
archive from all areas of Scots culture. Ranging from broad Scots to
Scottish English, examples of prose, poetry, drama, essays and
correspondence are included, along with additional audio and video material.

All texts will come accompanied with cultural and social commentary and
analysis about the work and its author...

Dr Wendy Anderson, from the Department of English Language at the University
of Glasgow, said: "We’re interested in the currency of distinctively
Scottish words, such as gallus, canny, muckle, sonsie and braw. All Scots
know these words; indeed they are often used to stereotype the people of
Scotland, but are they actually still used? By whom? Where? In what
contexts?

"And what about the grammatical features of Scots? Some people might frown
on yous as a plural form of you, but research shows it’s
overwhelmingly common in spoken language and written representations of
speech."

(LINGUIST List announcement here.) I got this via Mark Liberman at Language
Log, who got it from abnu at Wordlab, and they both quote this wonderful
paragraph from Alexander Fenton's "Craiters: 'I cannot get enough of it',"
which I can't resist either:

Faar I wis brocht up, e only seabirds we'd see wis e seamaas. In my time we
caad em seagulls, bit aaler fowk wid say seamaas, makin't soon like
'simaaze'. Ere's ay change goin on in e dialect, an ye get a mixter o aal an
new, bit it's e life o language tae be aye adaptin tae different generations
an different times. It's naething tae greet aboot. Naething staans still,
bit gin a wye o spikkin's richt hannlet, fa's tae say bit fit it michna
leave its mark tee on fit ey caa e standard language? - for ere's nae doot
at e standard language sair needs a bit o revitalisation noo an aan. Bit I'm
on aboot seagulls, nae hobbyhorses.

"Seamaa" is known to the OED as seamaw, not that it matters (it's an archaic
word for 'seagull'), and "greet" is Scots for 'cry'; I assume "bit gin a wye
o spikkin's richt hannlet, fa's tae say bit fit" is 'but if a way of
speaking is handled right, who's to say but what.' The rest shouldn't be too
hard; there's always the Dictionary of the Scots Language if you're stuck.
Posted by languagehat at December 1, 2004 08:42 PM

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001655.php

Mark Foster
esperis at operamail.com

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.07 (01) [E/F/French/German]

> Elsie het geskryf:
> Thanks Ingmar, for the lecture on the brei-R.
>  It might interest you that even some Sotho speakers don't trill their
R's.

>>>>> Yes, it does, interesting!

> Perhaps it is an alternative speech type (rather than speech 'defect') and
> has a genetic link, such as stuttering and lisping have.

>>>>> Oh, I didn't know that about stuttering/lisping. Is that partly
genetic?
What I do know that my oldest son has uvular r, where I don't.
But, his mother has again, so... No wonder, since Barbara was born in
Brabant (Eindhoven)
and she's from German Jewish descent... *Ingmar

>Helge schrieb:
> But pronunciation with tongue R has been the standard ("theatre")
pronunciation
> for a long time, and if you listen to old music or speech recordings, you
will hear
> the tongue R far more often than today. this may be due to the "theatre
standard", but still
> sounds odd to me when listening today, especially postvocalic tongue R,
>  which (that? ;)) even in regional substandard today is mostly mute. >

>>>>> Exactly the same situation in the Netherlands! Tongue r is considered
to be clearer,
and Theatre and Opera student are (were?) trained to use it instead of
uvular r.
I know that for quite a few of them, especially those of Brabant I think,
this is almost an
impossible task. My wife Barbara (again) -who did Theatre School in Arnhem
and Utrecht-
simply cannot pronounce a tongue r, she'll always stick to uvularity even if
she tries not...
and her teachers really tried to change that...
Maybe dew to the genetic links Elsie was talking about? *Ingmar

> Henno het skreaun:

> It begruttet my al dat de Noard-Friezen en Sealter Friezen (at dy der
> al op 'e list binne?, de lêsten binne seldsum) harren net faker hearre
litte.

>>>>> My ek... Me too...

> Yn 'e stêden wurdt Stedfrysk praten, en de measte stêden hewwe yndie in
> brijkjende, keel-R. dit komt faker foar, dat stêden in oare R hawwe as
> it lân deromhinne, dit is ek sa foar Swol en Kampen mids de Oeriselske
> dialekten. Myn omke (oantroud) komt út Swol (Zwolle) en het yndie sa'n
> R, mar net sa'n opfallenden ien as myn omkes út Harns (Harlingen)....
> It jildt ek as in middel om jin te ûnderskieden fan de "boeren" út de
> omkriten....
> De lytsere stêden (as Dokkum) hewwe neffens my mear in tong r bewarre,
> hoewol't dat tink allinnich mar mear jildt foar de âldere ginneraasje.

>>>>> Is this uvular r only used in Stedfrysk or in real Frisian too, in
some
cities or villages? I mean, there must be cities in Friesland where Frisian
is spoken in stead of this 'City Frisian', e.g. It Fean (Heerenveen)?
*Ingmar

> Reinhard schreev:

> As you yourself mentioned, Portuguese initial and
> double /r/ is pronounced [R(:)] (as opposed to [r] in other positions).
> In many Brasilian dialects this has spread to all instances of /r/ (with
> variants such as [x(:)] and [h].)

>>>>> The r-/rr =[x] in Portuguese I hear everyday at my job, where I work
with (a lot of) people from Angola, who's mother language is Portuguese.
So r/rr > [x] it's not only Brasilian I think, or not anymore.
The Portuguese of Angola is (almost) identical with that of Europe (Lisbon).
For instance, personal names like Rui and Rubem they pronounce as
[xui] and ["xubai~], which can lead to a lot of confusing at the telephone
for my Dutch colleagues who don't know Portuguese, because they call these
people ["rywi] and ["ryb at m]...
The funny thing is that although they use [r] for single, intervocal or word
final
r, when they speak Dutch the Angolans pronounce every r as [R].

Same thing I noticed with my Congolese, Togolese, Guinean clients, all
of them having tongue r in their native Lingala, Susu or Pulaar, but when
they
speak Dutch they automatically use uvular r from their French second
language,
in fact, their whole accent sounds pretty 'Froggy'.
Is there an automatism at work here, that sais: Dutch is a European
language,
as is French, so we use our French accent when we speak Dutch, even if our
first language sounds completely different? *Ingmar

> Also note that (among other countries) Iraq once had a thriving Sephardic
> community (most members having emigrated to Irael and the United States).

>>>>>Yes, but the Sephardis will not have been there in the Middle-ages
already
when the first uvular r's in Iraq were described....

> So, yes, Ingmar, I do see your point, but I'm still skeptical with regard
to
> the [r] to [R] shift in Europe.  It may well be unrelated, and I really
> doubt that Old Hebrew used [R] for /r/.

>>>>>Depends in HOW Old Hebrew... I think Hebrew wasn't already a living
languages in the time of J.C., since he spoke already the closely related
Aramaic,
and Greek (?)
We'd have to find out how the present day Aramaic speakers of Suryoyo and
Syriac
pronounce their r's, maybe this can tell us more about the r-mystery in
Byblical
times... *Ingmar

> Note that [R] for [r] is considered a speech impediment in some languages.
> I was told that this is so in Finland (at least used to be so decades
ago).
> I'm not sure, but I don't think this could have emanated from Swedish
> dialects of Finland (which I believe not to have [R]).  So there seems to
be
> some "innate" relationship between [r] and [R] that the latter comes to be
> used as a substitute, much like [v] can act as a substitute for [D], [f]
for
> [T], and [w], [u] and [o] for [L].

>>>>> Or [v] for [f], [D] for [T]?
BTW, all the Southern part of Sweden has uvular r, like Danish, so some
Finland
Swedes may have their [R] impediment from there...
It is a strange relationship, that of [r] and [R], though.
These pronunciations don't even seem to look very much like each other, like
e.g. t and d, or v and f, s and z etc etc.
But on the other hand, when I try to speak with my mouth full, I
automatically
use [R] to replace [r], because the latter can't possibly be pronounced
then...
*Ingmar

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From: R. F. Hahn <lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net>
Subject: Language varieties

Thank you so much, Mark, and welcome to the List and its speakers' corner!

Ingmar (above):

> So r/rr > [x] it's not only Brasilian I think, or not anymore.

Many or most Portuguese dialects of Portugual pronounce initial and double
/r/ as [R].  It's always been my assumption that in the case of Brazilian
Portuguese it's a matter of spread.

Regards,
Reinhard "Ron" F. Hahn
Founder & Administrator, Lowlands-L
lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
http://www.lowlands-l.net

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From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.07 (01) [E/F/French/German]

Dierghbaghe Inghmagh, Ghon, Elsie, Helge & Henno;

Onderwerp: Language Varieties

Ewe timmerigs versoek, mak ek my spaan hier induik?

Betreffende die 'R' - laat ek in Engels (die bron van die aanhaling)
oorskakel.
Ahem: I don't know what rates as 'old' in lingiistic terms, or 'expert' but
here goes.
"--- Joinville quotes him (King Louis IX): 'To restore [rendre] is such a
hard thing to do that even in speaking of it the word itself raps one's
throat because of the 'r's that are in it. These 'r's are, so to speak, like
the rakes of the devil, with which he would draw to himself all those who
wish to "restore" what they have taken from others'  (The temark indicates
that the Parisian or uvular 'r' was current in the thirteenth century)."

Betreffende die 'R' se oorsprong in die Kaap. Die VOC se wil jeens die
Hugenote is om hulle te integreer, en nie 'n afsonderlikke element in die
bevolking laat word nie, en hulle het daarin geslaag, maar op 'n sonderlinge
wyse. Die VOC se beleid in elk geval is om reine Hollands af te dwing, en so
is die Hugenote ook verplig, maar hulle het onder die druk gebokspring, saam
met hulle nie-Franse bure. Die Gowerneur is toe so roekeloos as om in 'n
opstand persoonlik in te meng, en die mees opstandige opgedra om te laat
vaar.
Maar die betrokkene, 'n perderuiter met 'n trom, het aanhoudend die ding
gespeel en in die Taal verklaar, "Ek veRstaan nie daaRdie gespRek nie." in
die geesdriftige beäming van sy Dietse bure. Soos my Ouma dit verhaal het,
is die bRei toe al in die Hugenote gevestig. In daardie tyd is Franschhoek
nog grensgebied, met geen gevestigde plantasies wat dure arbeid kon
bekostig. Die Slamaaiers in daardie tyd is die vernuftige snoeiers en
vrugteboom bewerkers, en gevestig in die Onder-Kaap, meestal onder VOC
plaasbestuurders. Hulle invloed op die grens en Vryburghers is nie sterk
gewees nie.

Die Uwe,
Mark.

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