LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.14 (10) [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: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.15 (02) [E]

Hopefully this doesn't count for the ones who don't know how to write the
name of this (in)famous people  ;-}
"Fries" "Friesian" "Frieslanders" ???

> may I throw in my own guess?  If indeed the West Frieslanders were evicted
> by stronger (and ruder) neighbors, in coalition with Good King Etzel,
who's
> to say their former holdings were not taken over by East or even North
> Friesians?
> It all conjecture isn't it?  People who can't write should not complain if
> others screw up their history.
> Cheers,
> Bill

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From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Language varieties

Mark said: "What about those phrases you wanted me to translate (without
peeking)?"

We were doing a little experiment on the mutual intelligibility of languages
and I gave him some phrases in an unspecified language (actually Frisian, as
previously described). They were chosen so that at least one word in each
wasn't an obvious match (to me) in Eng or Du. His interpretation and the
translation given in the source text follow:

> Heit geit nei syn wurk.
(My Senior) goes to his work / gets to work. (can 'heit' also be 'Father?)
Father goes to his work.

> Dou stiest njonken my. / You stand beside/against me. You stand next to
me.

> Hoe stiet it libben? / How's Life? / How are you.

> De gripe leit yn it heafek.
The allergy is in the head.
The fork is in the hay in the barn. Probably not the most accurate
rendering: "hay store" seems better for "heafek". (Du: De greep ligt in het
hooivak.)

> It wie syn iennichste hynder. (Clue: "iennich"= Du "enig") / It is his
only chicken. / It was his only horse.

> It famke wie slim siik. / It appears to be a grave illness. / The girl was
very ill.

I'm grateful to Mark for "being a sport" and "'avin' a go". Interesting
points are (1) false friends (2) recognising and correctly dividing compound
words (3) getting the tense of verbs (especially irregular verbs) right (4)
identifying parts of speech correctly.

BTW it's not an intelligence test. Furthermore it wasn't designed optimally
and the sample was too small and biased and everything was wrong with our
experiment _except_ that we actually did it! Positive comments gratefully
received.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: Henry Pijffers <henry.pijffers at saxnot.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.15 (02) [E]

Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net> wrote:
>
  > Dear John,
>
> Subject: Language varieties
>
>>On a different point, Mark wrote:
>>
>>"Well, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Fries were recruited to man King
>>Alfred's Navy, since they were, unlike the English of that time, seamen.
>
>>>From here on it's me, swinging from the shoulder. However I stand by my
> thesis. According to the sagas, the Norse didn't often raid in Friesia.
> Reputedly they didn't like honest seamen (read 'thieves'), & they didn't
> mind fighting over water. Also, I imagine, there was precious little to
> steal from them.
>
> They were warriors of note & they spoke a dialect mutually intelligable to
>
>>the English. Their only problem was unfamiliarity with keels..."
>
>>Where is this from? Is "they spoke a dialect mutually intelligable to the
>>English" a contemporary observation? I can only find a reference in 897 to
>>the fact that Alfred designed ships unlike Frisian and Danish ones.
>
> The same passage (in the AS Chronicle) goes on to describe their
> introduction to keel-ships & ebbing tide.
>
It still however doesn't mention the level of intelligibility of the
languages mentioned.

Furthermore, it's roughly 400 years after the first arrival of Angles,
Saxons and Jutes in Britain. So this still doesn't prove that Frisians
were among the settlers, nor that at that time there was any people
named Frisians. It only proves that 400 years later there was one and
that some of them set foot in England.

Henry

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