LL-L "Lexicon" 2005.02.11 (03) [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:  Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2005.02.10 (01) [E]


Gary Taylor wrote:
"I'd be interested to hear what makes you think that the vowel shift might
be Norman influenced."

Simply the merest suspicion, Gary. I knew that the vowel shift occurred at
the time when English was beginning to come out from under the domination of
Norman French (it is interesting to compare Chaucer's pronunciation of
English to Old English and to then both to that of Shakespeare), and that
most of the continental Germanic languages did not undergo as radical a
change. So, basically, a conjecture based on a timeframe and a lack of
change in Dutch and the rest.

Indeed, whenever I read Dutch - or German for that matter - it appears to me
as phonemically archaic comparative to the extreme changes that underwent
English. My way of looking at this is informed by my background in the
Celtic languages, where phonemic mutation is an everyday part of speech. I
look at English as, phonologically speaking, one step on in predictable
sound shift from the continental Germanic languages. What sparked this
wholesale nudge to the side sound-wise (and why the continental languages
did not undergo it as well) fascinates me.

I understand your scepticism: I cannot think of any other language that has
undergone such a radical phonemic rebirth whilst under linguistic domination
itself either. But instinctively I feel that it cannot be a coincidence that
English changed so much just at the time that it lost its status to a
Romance language. Then again, there may be some worth in viewing the period
1000-1300 as the period in which English began as a creole formed from a
compromise between Old English and (certainly in the Northumbrian-speaking
areas that included what later became Scots-speaking) Old Norse.

I am a hobby linguist with a background in the Celtic languages. I may be
proffering utter nonsense based on the misunderstanding of half-truths and
phonological fantasies!

Ron wrote:
"Schachtel = schachtel (?) : carton (box), box (usually made of carton or
paper)"

Presumably this is cognate with, or the origin of, or utterly unrelated to,
the now endangered English word _satchel_ which referred to the leather
schoolbags previously endemic to most schools in the Anglophone world.
Originally replaced by _rucksack_ which has now been largely replaced
amongst the young by the term _backpack_ for the same item. _schoolbag_ is
and always has been the generic synonym.

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Criostóir.

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