LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.08.08 (01) [E]

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Mon Aug 8 18:23:22 UTC 2005 

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L O W L A N D S - L * 08.AUG.2005 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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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: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Deaf culture" [E]

This is harking back to a post made by Ron on 2004-06-23.

> From: R. F. Hahn <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Deaf culture
...
> also, or do they have their own variant?  What about Limburgish people?  I
> understand that there is only one sign language in the UK now, the Old
> Kentish one being extinct (though its derivative Matha's Vineyard Sign
> Language of Massachussetts is apparently still used, as is Hawaiian Pidgin
> Signing besides American Sign Language in the US.)  So I take it this 
> means
> that in England, Wales, Scotland, The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands
> only one sign language is used despite diversity in spoken language.  I
> furthermore wonder if it is right to assume that both Irish and British 
> Sign
> Language are used in Northern Ireland.

Some recent observations.

In Mary Brennan's obituary in the latest issue of SignMatters (the British 
Deaf Association magazine) it was stated that Mary Brennan was the pioneer 
of the term "British Sign Language". She was based at Moray House College of 
Education in Edinburgh.

The Brennan/Colville/Lawson book "Words in Hand", which was part of the 
Edinburgh BSL Research Project, gives many example BSL signs. Although I 
recognise many of them as being exactly the same as my south of England BSL, 
many of them are completely different from what I would sign.

In a discussion with a Deaf couple a few weeks ago, I learned that they 
frequently visited Scotland and they made mention of a separate sign 
language which they called "SSL".

In the personals column of SignMatters a couple of months ago, an Edinburgh 
man described himself as a speaker of "Scottish Sign Language and BSL".

As I quoted previously on this list, there is an Northern Ireland Sign 
Language which is described as a creole of Irish, British and American Sign 
Languages.

In a discussion a few days ago with a Deaf man who grew up in the south west 
of England, I asked him if he found the television BSL interpreters easy to 
understand. He said yes, unless they were from Wales, London or the north of 
England, in which case he can't understand everything.

It all builds up a sort of a picture.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Language varieties" [E]

> From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.08.05 (05) [D/E]
>
> Dear Sandy,
>
> you wrote:
> > Why's that, then?
>
> To write a language without any clearly ruled grammar is hard, and I don't
> like this very much.
> The other handicap rises from the fact that very small differences in
> stressing any word, any part of a word makes big differences for the sense
> of the whole thing, sometimes. It's an effect one just can learn when
> speaking, when using a language very often- a truism, of course, and valid
> for a lot of languages, as I presume.
>
> And- in addition- specially in LS I'm often aware of the lack of a special
> word for any special matter. You are forced to circumwrite the whole 
> thing,
> a long and boring procedure, which you don't feel when you're speaking.

Isn't this simply saying that it would be nice to be able to write the 
language, but it's not worth the effort?

It's probably truer in English than in many other languages that stress and 
tone can make a big difference to the meaning. This doesn't stop it from 
having a widely-written form (I say "form" because there's no standard). 
When it comes to Scots, the only difference is that speakers would rather 
write English because it's what they learned at school.

You can make a choice between writing in a commonly accepted form or 
avoiding writing in order to preserve the quirky form that belongs to your 
particular area (with all it's stresses and tones and stuff), but if you 
don't write it much it will die out anyway, and then not only do you lose 
the quirkyness, you lose everything.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.08.07 (08) [E]

Naturally, first a possible Slavonic influence comes to thought here.
But in the "far West", in this case the province of Limburg in the
Netherlands, and in Belgium Brabant and other parts of Flanders as well.
There we still find <vinjer> etc for Dutch <vinger> "finger".
In French Flanders and parts of West Flanders: <enje dienje>, <ejje dieje>
= Dutch <enge dingen> "narrow things", and <lawwe towwe> = Dutch <lange
tongen> "long tongues" (with Southern Dutch <w>, i.e. as in English).
All examples from Prof Dr A Weijnen's 'Nederlandse Dialectkunde', which
also states that <ng> -> <nj> is Hollandic and Frisian.

Maybe Slavonic influence played a main role in the East, and Romance
(French/Walloon) in the West, or both, after the Western dialects from the
Southern Netherlands were transported to the Eastern German areas.

Ingmar

 Reinhard schrieb:
>This makes a lot more sense to me, would fit into general Silesian
>phonology while having certain special characteristics.  Among the more
>interesting features of certain Germanic varieties in the east you
>find /ng/ > /nj/, >thus _brengen_ > _brenga_ > _brenja_ '(they) bring'.
>This is a feature shared by Mennonite Low Saxon (Plautdietsch, that came
>from much farther north).
>It would be interesting to know if this is a feature acquired in the east
>or if it was imported from the far west.

----------

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

Thanks for sharing snippets about remaining sign language diversity in 
Britain and Ireland, Sandy.  I'm not all that surprised, given that people 
started moving around relatively recently.

Ingmar, thanks for your bit.  I'm beginning to suspect that we are dealing 
with a farwestern feature, considering that it is found in Mennonite 
varieties as well (which has its earliest roots in the Netherlands).  What 
we need to look at is if it is found in varieties in areas that we are 
fairly certain that no significant farwestern immigration occurred.

In Mennonite varieties, /d/ changes to [j] after /n/ as well, thus _kinder_ 
 > _kinjer_ (written <Kinja>) 'children'.

What is interesting here is that in many Rhenish varieties, including 
Limburgish, /d/ changes to [N] (probably after changing to [g], thus /nd/ > 
/ng/ -> [Ng] -> [N]), hence _kenger_ 'children'.  I'm tending to see this as 
an intermediate or "preparatory" step for [nj], but I'm not sure if it's 
actually a step in a different direction.

Note that none of this happened in Eastern Yiddish (קינדער _kinder_).  As 
far as I know, there has been no significant farwestern influence (besides 
imported Old Yiddish itself) in the East Yiddish speaking area, at least 
none that could have affected all of Yiddish.

Sandy again:

> You can make a choice between writing in a commonly accepted form
> or avoiding writing in order to preserve the quirky form that belongs to
> your particular area (with all it's stresses and tones and stuff), but if 
> you
> don't write it much it will die out anyway, and then not only do you lose
> the quirkyness, you lose everything.

Hear! Hear!

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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