LL-L "Phonology" 2004.05.18 (01) [E]

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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: marco [evenhuiscommunicatie] <marco at evenhuiscommunicatie.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2004.05.17 (01) [E]

Frederic wrote:

> I'm very doubtful it comes from a french influence since french west
> flemish possesses more nasal vowels than french (i.e. the nasal "oe" is
> impossible to pronunce for a french speaker : I tried with friends of
mine).

I'm quite sure that it's not a French influence. Frenche had a huge impact
on the vocabular of Zeelandic. Even more than on the vocabular of West
Flemish and French West Flemish (although the latter obviously does have
quite a big number of very recent French loans). But French did not have any
influence on Zeelandic phonology at all. There are a few scholars who did
research on this subject and all come to this conclusion.

> In french west flemish, "n" is the only consonant that can nasalize a
> vowel. Nevertheless, nasalization can occur if there is an intervening non
> nasal consonant and if this consonant is a "g" (I mentioned this
phenomenon
> in a mail a few weeks ago). This makes for example the first e of "zeggen"
> a nasal one.
> But an hypothesis is possible about the particular case of the verb "to
> have" in french west flemish : the word is "hebben" in dutch but "hen" in
> west flemish. Could the disappearance of the "bb" be due to nasalisation
of
> the first e like the "gg" of "zeggen" is tending nowadays to disappear?

In some Zeelandic dialects people do not even consider _zegn_ to be a
correct spelling of their pronounciation of the Dutch word 'zeggen' (to
say). They only "accept" the word spelled as _zèn_.
The Dutch word 'hebben' (to have) in Zeelandic is pronounced the same as in
French West Flemish, although we spell the silent h as an apostrophe: _'en_
or _'èn_
I believe the disappearing of the b's in _'èn_ (Du. hebben) is in fact due
to nasalisationof the first e. In Zeelandic, there's even more. In verbs
like _maeken_ _laeten_ and _smeken_ (to make, to let and to beg
respectively), in some dialects (that of the isle of Zuid-Beveland for
example) the k's and t's are not pronounced. In stead there is a glottal
stop: mae'n, lae'n, sme'n. That also accounts for the final n's in these
verbs are not pronounced: mae'e, lae'e and sme'e.

Ron quoted Frederic:
> > I'm very doubtful it comes from a french influence since french west
> > flemish possesses more nasal vowels than french (i.e. the nasal "oe" is
> > impossible to pronunce for a french speaker : I tried with friends of
> mine).

Ron answered:
> Well, that in itself could be refuted by considering the possibility of
> French influence having been the trigger and French West Flemish having
> developed it further.

I very much doubt that. Like I said earlier, there has been no influence of
French on Zeelandic phonology and nevertheless there is at least just as
much nasalization in Zeelandic as there is in French West Flemish (and it
has the same system - no surprise considered they are almost the same
language).

> However, you may very well be right.  We have to consider the possibility
of
> this being an areal feature.  An areal feature is one that is shared by
all
> or most language varieties of a given area, irrespective of their
genealogy
> and their relationship with each other.  Such a feature may be the result
of
> mere spread, or it may be due to a substrate of a language that used to be
> spoken in that area.  In the case of French and West Flemish this could be
> due to Celtic (Gaulish) substrates.

As far as I know, the roman Picard dialect neighbouring French West Flemish
in the south, does not have as much nasalization as standard French and
certainly not as much as French West Flemish (and Zeelandic). Also note that
nasalization is very much a feature of Zeelandic, a germanic language that
is spoken in a region that was populated from the germanic north rather than
from the south where celtic people used to live. So I don't know about this
theory about a celtic substrate. Well, speculating about the origins of
features like this would always remain guessing anyway I presume...

Regards,

Marco Evenhuis

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