LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.28 (07) [E]

Thu Jul 28 20:53:00 UTC 2005

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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 "Idiomatica" 2005.07.28 (05) [E]

You forgot to answer to my message too, Ron, about Brandenburgerisch being
rather Low Franconian/Dutch/Flemish influenced than Eatsphalian. What do
you think about the arguments linguistic I gave?
Ingmar

Reyn skreev:
>Hey, Luc!
>>Sorry I forgot to answer your question under "Etymology" today.  So I'll
>do it here along with other stuff.
>I wrote:
>> In my book, those dialects ...

I (Ingmar wrote):
I always learned and understood that the Brandenburg area was settled by
colonists from the West, a lot of them from the Netherlands, both North
but especially from the South, and that the local dialects still have a
lot of traces from Dutch/Flemish etc.
So that's something else than Eastphalian, which does have a load of
diphthongs and breaking for instance, and a different set of pronouns.
In the dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache, which has a lot of dialect maps,
a large area around Berlin has uo or ue like in older and Southern Dutch,
for ProtoGermanic long o, but Eastphalian has au, in a word like Bruder.
In two quite large areas to the North of Berlin, Bruder even has a -j-
for -d- (which no other area in Germany has on this map), very typically
for Southern Dutch too.
Whereas Eastphalian has forms like "jök", "dek", "ek", "mek", "us" for
you, I, me, our area has forms without -k, and "ik" and "uns" with <n> as
in Dutch.
Also, it has "klein" (D klein) in stead of EF "lüttig", "Flieder" (D
vlier) with <ie> for EF "Kalken" = Holunder, "trecken" in stead of "teien"
etc.
Plural verbs end in -en like in Dutch, not -et like in Eastphalian.

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.
You have to take this into account: g is pronounced very palatal, called
<zachte g> "soft g", like a voiced variety of German ich-laut [ç] in the
Southern half of the Dutch language area, i.e. Brabant, Flanders, Limburg
and Southern Gelderland, as well as in some more Northern areas like the
province of Utrecht. Exaclty the area where the Brandenburg settlers were
from. In fact, this palatal g closely related to j, try to pronounce j
with more force, more intensively and you say soft g. Btw, oft g is
nowhere limited to front vowels. I think j is from this soft g rather than
from Slavic, what's more, Slavonic doesn't have j from g itself, does it?
Well, maybe Old Slavonic did, but I doubt this process was still going on
in the time the Lowlands settlers came to Brandenburg, or that the Slavs
could transfer it to their dialects.
 Ingmar

Reyn wrote:
In my book, those dialects are
>the easternmost extension of Eastphalian (of which our Gabriele's secret
>dialect is a westernmost representative).  The reason why they are classed
>as Eastern is mostly because of noticeable Slavonic influences, most
notably
>the shift g > j before front vowels (e.g., _Jejend_ for _Gegend_ 'area'),
>possibly also the scarcity of diphthongs in comparison with North Saxon;
>e.g., _Been_ 'leg' = Berl/Br [be:n] vs NS [bE%In] (like "bane" in
English).
>
>Further about your examples _Been_ 'leg' and _alleen_ (Brl/Br [?a"le:n],
NS
>[?a"lE%In]) 'alone'.  It is my theory that in the North Saxon region
>adoption of German /ai/ (spelled <ei>) was easier because the sound
already
>existed in those Low Saxon dialects and was absent or rare in the
>Brandenburg dialects.

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From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.25 (13) [E]

Hi lowlanders!

I agree with Gary, that Hamburg Missingsch is pretty HG, when you imagine
how it's spoken by talking loud when reading it. But I think it is nearly
totally LG/LS in respect to syntax and melodie (Satzmelodie). In Concerning
soundshifts they seem to be "übereifrig", so they say fannkuchen instead of
Pfannkuchen/pancake.

Its a kind of understandable LG for HG speakers. Remember that the
"Volksbühnen" in Hamburg perform alternately in LS and Missingsch for HG
people to get a LG feel.

Maybe the palatalization of g to j in Brandenburgish-LG is slavonic
influenced and enhanced, but there is also a palatalization in Franconian
dialects, Koelsch/Cologne the most prominent example. I think this kind of
palatalization can also be found in certain Dutch varieties.

Does the name "Missingsch" really mean "Meissnisch"? I suppose there must be
the word "Missing" in LG coresponding to HG "Mischung". This would make
sense of Missingsch to be a mixing between LG and HG.

I think Missingsch has a potential to reabsorb a lot of LS in further
development. So the name "Meissnisch" should maybe replaced by another word,
perhaps "Nord(hoch)deutsch".

People from the North especially from what I think is Eastphalia for example
Hannover often proudly say: "Wir kommen aus einem dialektfreien Gebiet, bei
uns spricht man das beste Hochdeutsch." Could be, but its an illusion to
believe a standard language can be free of dialect/sociolect etc. For me
this would be a "Konservendeutsch", German out of a tin.

And these young people think they speak a "reines Hochdeutsch", but suddenly
you hear things like: "'Ey alder hasse ma' Feuer?" or: "Kuck dia dass (!)
ann!" Dass and not das, for me Missingsch "dass" is pretty close to "dat".

This is sometimes called "Szenesprache", I think it is the most modern
variety of Missingsch, spoken by the young wanting to be "in", a language of
their own (Jugendsprache). Some more examples: "Yo mann", I think it's
equivalent to E "Yeah, man", the usage of "Pep" instead of "Pfeffer" in
certain situations, many English words as: easy, forever, never ever, the
unavoidable: cool etc.

I hope the mingling of HG and LG will be a never ending story! Today English
has somehow taken the role of LG/LS to mingle with HG, future will show, how
much todays LS/LG speaking people can hand over their heritage to the young
to create their Missingsch-language.

Regards,
Karl-Heinz

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

Sorry, Ingmar.  I've been a tad distracted.

You may well be onto something there.  I've been aware of the "Flemish"
influences in Eastern Germany, but maybe I underestimated them.

And you are right: g > j is a general rule, hence also _janz_ in Berlin.

What I had inferred was Slavonic palatalization developed farther.

Blame the heat ... and insufficient sleep.

Hi again, Karl-Heinz!

> But I think it is nearly
> totally LG/LS in respect to syntax and melodie (Satzmelodie).

Quite so, daddy-o. And also idiomatic expressions, not to mention the
productive phonology (vowel lengthening before sonorants, high degree of
pre-nasalization, syllable-final g-fricativization, aspiration only in
syllables with main stress, rounding of long /a/, non-rhotic with /ar/ ->
[a:], etc.).

> In Concerning
> soundshifts they seem to be "übereifrig", so they say fannkuchen instead
> of
> Pfannkuchen/pancake.

I'm not so sure it's a case of over-compensation.  I'm inclined to think
it's a case of not being able to getting one's tongue (or rather lips in
this case) around such an affricate, just as for instance English speakers
don't as a rule.  Such a sound does not exist in Low Saxon (nor in English).
It took me a long time to master _pf_ as a child, and when I relax I still
often say [f] for [pf] in German at the beginning of a word (e.g.,
_Fangkuuchng_ for _Pfannkuchen_ 'pancake'; _pan-kouken_ <Pannkoken> in LS).
Yes, I confess that I do reenter Missingschland with one foot while speaking
German with North German friends and family in a very relaxed manner, though
I don't as a rule go as far as collapsing dative and accusative into a
common objective LS-style, which is a hallmark of "hardcore" Missingsch.

> Does the name "Missingsch" really mean "Meissnisch"?

That's the generally accepted story.  At a certain time, the German dialect
spoken in Meissen was considered exemplary, apparently only because it
happened where money and power were at that time.

> I suppose there must be the word "Missing" in LG coresponding to HG
> "Mischung".

That would be _missing_ (<Missing>) 'brass' (German _Messing_).  (In modern
dialects, 'to mix' is _mischen_, more often _mengeleyren_ (<mengeleern>).)
The Upper Sorbian name for the city is _Mišno_ (Czech _Míšeň_), hence >
(*Mieschen > *Miesen >) _Meissen_.  (In Meissen, the Sorbian language was
outlawed in 1424.)

I hardly think that in the early days speakers of Low Saxon aiming for
Meissen German had the concept of mixing.  It was probably later, probably
after Meissen wasn't considered so chic anymore, when many of those
transition attempts became notorious and the upper crust derided them that
the name Missingsch was demoted to the meaning "half-cooked German."

> I think Missingsch has a potential to reabsorb a lot of LS in further
> development.

Do you really think that could happen?

Well, Missingsch as we know and were taught to scorn it in the North Saxon
area is pretty much a think of the past, is disappearing fast at least.

> So the name "Meissnisch" should maybe replaced by
> another word, perhaps "Nord(hoch)deutsch".

Interesting!  Clearly, Northern German dialects are largely derived from
Missingsch, are more or less step-by-step "cleaned-up" versions of it, there
being no clear demarkation line between them and hardcore Missingsch.  So
the general label "Northern German" (_Norddeutsch_) may not be such a bad
idea.

I have to hand it to you, Karl-Heinz.  You're pretty darn clued up about the
matters for an Austrian (and I mean this in the best possible way ;-) ).  If
you keep that up you may get excommunicated.  ;-)  But we Lowlanders can
keep a secret.

Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: Ben J. Bloomgren <godsquad at cox.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.28 (03) [D/E]

Luke (I'm not sure which one),

«And Elvis!! "You're the devil in disguise... oh yesh you are..." - sounds a
bit like Mooch the cat from the great cartoon "Mutts".»

Here in Arizona, we say many final s's with sh. I go to Arizona State
University, and its obvious abbreviation is ASU. However, most people who do
not go here will say "A esh U." I used to say that until I started to attend
classes down there.
Ben
p.s. It's groashries!

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