LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.03.11 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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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: Mathieu. van Woerkom <Mathieu.vanWoerkom at student.kun.nl>
Subject: language varieties

Holger wrote:

> I don't know which dialect that is but the sentence is very easy for me
> to understand compared with Eastern Frisian Low Saxon.
> There it would be:
> Dō sē God: 'Dor maut lcht wēsen (or: worden)!' Un kīk
(better: s ), dor
> h r jī 't lecht! You see: we also use "lecht" (l echt [lE:@Xt].

And Ron anwered:

> It's similar in other versions of Lowlands Saxon (Low German), even if
> you translate it word for word:

This indeed shows that there is one Low Saxon language (with dialectical
variation of course), instead of just Dutch and German dialects on both
sides
of the border!

regards,
Mathieu

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Mathieu:

> This indeed shows that there is one Low Saxon language (with dialectical
> variation of course), instead of just Dutch and German dialects on both
sides
> of the border!

Thanks for saying that, Mathieu!  You've made my day.  :-)

Differences are really not that great between the dialects, certainly not on
the spoken level.  If people spoke relatively slowly they should be able to
understand each other even if their dialects belonged to the geographic
extremes -- say, to Overijssel (Netherlands) and to Western Pomerania
(Germany, on the border with Poland).  Many of the differences are lexical,
due to Frisian substrates (Fryslân, Emsland, Oldenburg, Eastern Friesland,
Westcoast Schleswig-Holstein) and Slavonic substrates (anywhere east of
Hamburg), plus Dutch versus German influences due to power language
pressures.  The rest is mostly orthographic, i.e., not on the spoken level.
Using Dutch-based versus German-based spelling systems has driven a wedge
between the dialects on the Netherlands side versus the German side of the
border.  This is exacerbated by the facts that spelling guidelines are
followed haphazardly and most people "out there" are orthographically not as
adaptable as most of us on this list are.  This has led to in my opinion
unnecessary and unfortunate segregation and fragmentation.  People's false
notions that there are vast differences between the dialects and that
orthographic standardization would be tantamount to eradicating dialects
constitute one of the great obstacles on the way toward restoring language
cohesion.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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