LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.06.22 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 22.JUN.2004 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
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)
=======================================================================

From: Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth at gnu.org>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2004.06.22 (04) [E]

The following might be wrong, but it is what I have understood from
reading various articles about Afrikaans...

> Dear Kenneth  & Reinhard,
> Subject: LL-L "Morphology"
>
> My pennyworth:
>     I don't see that the word 'loan' applies here: The artifact & the name
> is native to the culture & language. I aver that the Taal evolved
initially
> 'tween decks in the VOC packets, & there was a mengelmoes enough of
tongues
> to 'borrow', if that happened, plural forms familiar to speakers of other
> West Netherfrankish dialects than the native tongue of the Hollandse
Seeman.
>     What is the Zeeus form? skoe - skoen, skoen - skoene, skoen - skoenen,
> or something else?

The VOC spoke a southern Hollandic dialect (look at the Kroeke dialect
maps)

>     To to offer  the Hottentot's guess of the appropriate form for a
plural
> is not useful. 'He' would have to have 'guessed' the appropriate form from
a
> selection of related Indo-Germanic dialects he heard using the term. There
> is no disputing that the plurals, howsoever idosyncratic, are nonetheless
> Germanic. Now - now, which were these dialects? His own Khoikhoi languages
> would be no help, & the Hottentot 'dialects', I know about, among them
> Grikwa & Koranna, developed from an already substantially established
> language.

Well it is a lot more complicated and I am not competent to explain
this. Please read 'Hans den Besten 'From Khoekhoe Foreignertalk via
Hottentot Dutch to Afrikaans: the Creation of a Novel Grammar, from:
Martin Pütz, REné Dirven (eds.), Wheels within wheels. Papers of the
Duisburg Symposium on Pidgin and Creole Languages, 1989, p. 207-249

It explain pretty well what could have happened and attacks the opinion
of the Afrikaanse Skole.

Thomas L. Markey, 'Afrikaans: Creole of Non-Creole', Zeitschrift für
Dialektologie un Linguistik 49 (1982), p. 169-207 is also very
interesting, but highly technical.

What I was saying is that though the mengelmoes the Dutch system has
often disappeared, like what for instance is the case with the
attributive adjectives (if you can read Danish, I can send you my paper
- which unfortunately contains a few mistakes :))

>     Please elaborate on the thesis that the Cape Hottentots spoke ?two?
> Dutch-based pidgins.

There are signs of pidgins being developed before 1652 based on English
and Dutch...and later this led to a Dutch based pidgin/creole spoken by
the Khoi and another Dutch-based creole spoken by the slaves of which
many already spoke a creole language based on Malay-Portuguese (that is
where they think the vir construction comes from - direct object marker
- related to Malay-Portuguese per)

>     Unfortunately, Afrikaans just hasn't been around long enough to
develop
> much more than 'styles'. There are a few variable forms such as I have
noted
> in a previous letter, all mutually intelligible, & available to any
speaker,
> dependant mostly on how formally he wishes to speak. Adam Small makes the
> point that it was not until the political alienation between the races
that
> came into being in the Last Century, that any notable racially distinctive
> forms of Afrikaans developed.

Well Afrikaans (when not looking at the standardized language) is a
group of dialects, with West Cape Afrikaans being closest to Dutch and
Standard Afrikaans, and Orange River Afrikaans (mostly spoken by the
Oorlaam - Khoikhoi who learned "Dutch" and became christen to gane
social status) being furthest from Dutch - and a lot more creolized.

> > Was kinder used before the standardization of the language? And what is
> > used in Orange River Afrikaans?
>
>     Are you referring to the Afrikaans spoken by the Poet & President of
the
> O.F.S. Reitz, or to that of the denizens of Kanoneiland, or to the Grikwa
> dialect of Afrikaans, which was nonetheles to them only an alternative to
> their own Khoikhoi language, according to G.F. Selous?

Orange River Afrikaans (mostly spoken in Namibia) is the 'Dutch' spoken
by the Khoikhoi which later has been influence by the Dutch spoken by
the rest...all these various dialects and pidgins based on Dutch has
influenced eachother and are today considered one language called
Afrikaans consisting of various dialects.

Cheers,
Kenneth

==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================