LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.06.23 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 23.JUN.2004 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.06.22 (05) [E]

Dear Kenneth,

 Subject: LL-L "Morphology"

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

    Sorry, The VOC spoke several dialects. Even the Heeren XVII spoke their
local dialects on business. I have read that the Representative for the
Middelburg House complained of a headache from trying to follow his
collegues in council of the Amsterdam House. Jan Alleman in his Diary shows
that the overwhelming majority of the VOC's employees came from outside the
Hollands speaking area, so much so that it was good business to be an agent,
for said would-be recruits!

    But you are correct, in respect of 'official' language policy, which
could not, of course be enforced across the board. This was a lasting
problem according to the Cape Company Administration & ultimately
unmanageable. They tried to suppress Afrikaans.
Now the effect of this policy was that compliance or fluency became a matter
for promotion & advancement. Remember, the Cape was only a way-station on
the VOC Books. Fluent Hollands speakers got promoted out, to Maritius, even,
& ultimately to Batavia. Those left behind were with rare exceptions not
dialect compliant.

> 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

    Well, That which you have passed on to me is not convincing. The little
Nama I have invites me to look for indications in Afrikaans of Khoikhoi
speech patterns, terminology, & pronunciation, even sounds. & with the
single exception, the 'Eina!' expression, I find none. The conclusion is
that native Hottentot speakers were not the medium of transmission from
Dutch to Afrikaans. Tell me, this Hans den Besten: Does he speak Nama?
Between you & me & the gatepost, Afrikaans Grammar is not really novel. The
analytic form has its roots in the usages of many West Netherfrankish
dialects, & Inglis, or Lowlands Scots, could make a better case for being
the medium of transmission from Dutch to Afrikaans than the Capoid tongues.
See D.F. Bleek, 'BUSHMAN LANGUAGES'. By the way, the VOC was chockful of
Scots. The Last VOC Governer of the Cape was even an ethnic Scot, by the
name of Gordon.

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

I distrust theories based on what 'could have happened'.
What is 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.

I also distrust linguistic use of the term 'Creole' The difficulty is to
define it in a way that any two scholars working in the same field agree, &
find it useful.

> 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 :))

Well, an Afrikaans speaker might [think] he can follow written Danish (I
do), I am well aware I couldn't do it justice in any scientific sense. If
it's any consolation, I would almost certainly miss the mistakes.
there is a simpler way, though.
Give us a brief list of the attributive adjective in Hollands, but Hollands,
& in parallel with the attributive form in Afrikaans. How did it look in
Zeeus? Ron might help here.

> >     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)

    This is correct, but I would call the one Malay-Portuguese based & the
other English based (Harry the Hottentot, the interpreter for Van Riebeek's
colony, had shipped on an English vessel, & learned his English there). When
Jan Van Riebeek's party came ashore at the Cape, the Hottentots there
greeted them, brought them the post, & asked in English & in French for Rum.
VOC language policy differed from the English & the Portuguese. They were
hostile to 'pidgins' across the board, & promoted their employees who
studied the languages of their customers & colonies. They also established
schools for their servants & slaves to inculcate fluency & literacy in
Hollands. English traders were content to make themselves understood in a
simple way. They borrowed freely from the lingo of their 'customers' & their
previous trading contacts, & as a result, there are Colonial British pidgins
with a non-English substrate all over the world e.g. Creole, Beche le Mar, &
even Pidgin.
The Portuguese were equally casual, thus contributing magnificantly to the
richness of Afrikaans (as well as our cuisene). However, the usage you have
quoted is not Hottentot, but Cape Malay, an influental  linguistic heritage
still open to deep study.
Some things that may be called dialects later developed among the
Hottentots, based  on a Cape Dutch substrate, but they did not communicate
with their Dietsman neighbours or employers in that tongue, but Afrikaans.
So much so that they even resorted to it as 'private speech' in the company
of strangers.

> 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.

    Ja, well I dislike the notion of any 'standardised language' don't you?
I differ - I differ, but first let us clear some ground. Dutch is not a
language, but a language group. Are we speaking of Algemeen Beskaafde
Nederlands - Hollands? Afrikaans grew from a body of 17th Century Dutch
dialects, of which the Hollands [of that day] was only one. Modern
Afrikaans, Modern Hollands & even the A.G. Nederlands have evolved from
there. Three & a half centuries have passed.
The scholars of Stellenbosch have long lost their hold, & Standard
Afrikaans, alas, is much closer to the Transvaal form than the Cape form
(klankbreek). It is the arrested development of klankbreek in Cape Afrikaans
alone, to my mind, that gives Cape Afrikaans any degree of proximity to
modern Dutch dialects.
Klankbreek is also, along with the RRRiebeek Wes BRRRei, or the Platkops
Dorp practise of pronouncing the 'J' the English way (Cape Coloureds do it
too), one of the three significant 'dialectic' features of local Afrikaans.
This, in my opinion, doesn't rate 'Dialect'.
I will only say - ask, in respect of Grikwa, to what extent is their
language a product of the agglommaration of Afrikaans & Khoikhoi; & to what
extent is it the product of ablation of Dutch & Khoikhoi dialects? These two
considerations give useful information. To call something 'creolized',
doesn't contribute to understanding a Tongue's relationships or the  process
of development. Nobody would differ that Grikwa is some distance from
Hollands, but a Grikwa in conversation with a stranger, or the Dominee, will
speak 'standard' Arikaans.

> > > Was kinder used before the standardization of the language? And what
is
> > > used in Orange River Afrikaans?

'Kinders', to both, according to my reading.

This is Fun! Thanks, Kenneth

Cheers,
Mark

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