LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.31 (04) [E]

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From: Marsha Wilson <NanaMarsha at msn.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.31 (03) [E]


Is Alsatian considered a dead dialect of German now?  High?  Low?  Something 
else entirely?  In doing some genealogy, I discovered that my grandfather's 
second wife, Helen Horneng, emigrated from Alsace (year unknown but she 
would have been born around 1880's).  The family always said she was 
"German" and she suffered quite a bit of ill-feeling during the second World 
War.  All I remember of her is her saying my father's name as "Chem" instead 
of Jim.
Thanks,
Marsha

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

Hi, Marsha!

Good to hear from you again.

As far as I know, Alsatian is a group of Alemannic varieties, is thus 
related to the dialect groups Swabian (of most of Swabia, Germany), Upper 
Alemannic (of Switzerland, Vorarlberg of Western Austria, and the Southern 
Black Forest area of Germany) and Uppermost Alemannic (of Canton Wallis, 
Switzerland).  Specifically, Alsatian belongs to the Lower Alemannic group, 
to which also the dialect of Basel, Switzerland, belongs.  Most 
specifically, Alsatian is the westernmost reach of the Upper Rhine Alemannic 
group that straddles the Rhine and the French-German border just south of 
Karlsruhe, includes the dialects of the cities Freiburg im Breisgau 
(Germany), Colmar (France) and Strassbourg/Straßburg (France).

Alsatian is indeed still used, also in the media, in amateur theater and so 
forth.  Its speakers' position has been difficult, what with wanting to 
continue their dialects and at the same time dealing with the pressures of 
coming across as good citizens of a country that is unsupportive and in 
denial, if not outright hostile, regarding minority languages.  In addition, 
the two world wars and post-war Franco-German tensions have pushed many 
Alsatians into distancing themselves from Germans, including from the 
Alemannic speakers just across the border.  Several Germans have told me 
about Alsatian-speakers preferring to speak French or English to Germans, 
and there are rampant reports of particularly Germans being treated in more 
surly and even rude ways than in other parts of France.  I can not vouch for 
the veracity of such reports.  Also, I don't know about the survival 
prospects of Alsatian.  I assume they are not terribly good, given the 
pressures of young French citizens to be "with it," which means to be as 
"Franco-French" as possible and at the same time to worship 
English-dominated international popular culture.

This is probably more than you had hoped for.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.31 (03) [E]

Interesting, that the Ruhrgebiet has both j- (as in Köln etc) and palatal
g- (as in Southern Dutch/Kleverlands etc)! This indicates that j- for g-
is derived from palatal g- originally, because we find dialects with j-
next to those with g-. I think palatal g- is more difficult to pronounce
for strangers, and that could be a reason that is was replaced by related
but more common j- in cities, like Berlin, Köln, etc.

The Ruhr-area is linguistically devided: the West is (was) speaking Low
Franconian "Kleverland" dialects, and the East Low Saxon "Westphalian"
dialects. So we could call it a linguistic Ruhrpott as well ;-)

Ingmar

>From: Jan Strunk <strunkjan at hotmail.com>
>Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.28 (07) [E]
>>You won't find initial j- for g- in most of the Ruhrgebiet. It might be
used
>by older people in the southwesternmost corner which borders on the Low
>Franconian dialects of the Rhine, such as Mühlheim, Duisburg, and so on.
In
>the central and eastern parts of the Ruhrgebiet which belong to Westphalia
>you would rather sometimes find the g- pronounced as a voiceless or voiced
>palatal fricative, though mostly assimilated to a preceding word final one
>such as in:
>
>weg gegang  ---> [wechegang]

>Ingmar wrote:
>> Furthermore, my own theory has always been that this j- for g- is from
the
>> West too. You think it's Slavic influence, but does this "shift" really
>> occur only before front vowels? We find j- for g-also in German areas
>> adjacent to the Netherlands and Belgium, like in Köln, Aachen, and I
think
>> in the Ruhrgebiet too. We find it in the Netherlands in South Eastern
>> Limburg.

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