LL-L 'Language varieties' 2006.07.20 (02) [E]

Sun Jul 30 17:08:47 UTC 2006

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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 (Zeeuws)
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L O W L A N D S - L * 30 July 2006 * Volume 02
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From: 'Yasuji Waki' <yasuji at amber.plala.or.jp>
Subject: Low German

From: Yasuji Waki
Subject: Low German

Hello Friends,
Recently I have found a radio station in Quito as follows. The
language used by this radio station seems one Plautdietsch.
http://www.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php\?StationID=42

Having heard this broadcasting, I found it was too difficult to
understand the speach for me. And also I wonder if Plautdietsch is
spoken in Ecuador.

Could any of you linsten to the above radio station and answer to my
question?

Thanks,

Yasuji ut Japan

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

Hello, Yasuji!

The website and radio station you are referring belongs to a Mennonite missionary
organization stationed in Quito.  In Latin America, there are permanent Mennonite
missionary establishments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay, and occasionally there
are assignments in other places.  I believe that Mennonites live in all these
places and that there are least some speakers of Low Saxon among all of them.  I
do know that there are sizeable speaker groups in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and
Paraguay.

I believe you are experiencing initial problems adjusting to Eastern Low Saxon
phonological shifts.  The "jump" accross from Northern Low Saxon (to which you
are used) to the fareastern dialects (of which the Mennonite ones remain the only
vital ones) can seem a very long one.  But the differences are regular and
predictable; e.g.,

NLS < > MennLS (Plautdietsch)
k   < > kj > tj (before front vowels)
g   < > j (before front vowels)
nd  < > nj (before front vowels)
e   < > a
a   < > au
i   < > e
uu  < > uu > Ã¼Ã¼
Ã¼   < > i
Ã¼Ã¼  < > ii (ie)
Ã¶   < > e
Ã¶Ã¶  < > ee

(I wrote short vowels as single and long as double.)

So, take _PlattdÃ¼Ã¼tsch_ ["platdy:tS] and apply the above shifts.  What you get is
_Plautdietsch_ ["plAUtdi:tS].

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties'

Beste Henry,

Trust me, I also don't like "taalparticularisme". It is one-sided and
personally I think there should be some balance between what Lowlanders
share and what divides them. This is precisely the very reason why I
replied to Karl-Heinz' statement about Tyrolean conjugation. I wanted to
show that sometimes similar expressions exist in a "far-off" place where
you may not immediately expect them.

You wrote:

> I wonder why people often limited their view to just their
> own specific dialect, instead of their language or even
> language group in general.
>
Your wording seems to rely on the notion of a rigid hierarchy among
languages (dialect < language < language group, behaving like sets and
subsets in a neat static partition). To me, linguistic reality is more
fluid and like a fuzzy continuum.
> For example, in Dutch one could say the very same as the
> above in 2 identical ways:
>
> "Ben je op de markt iets wezen kopen?"
>
> Or
>
> "Ben je op de markt iets gaan kopen?"
>
> If you're from Brabant and speak Brabantish, then you must
> from from the Netherlands and speak Dutch. Hence, you must
> have been aware of the identicallity.
>
Indeed, I know that Dutch has similar expressions, and I was long in
doubt whether I should point that out too, before writing my message,
but finally I didn't, because of the following reason.
The Alemannic "BeispielsÃ¤tze" all seemed to make use of a past
participle (like _gsi_ or _gwÃ¤_), just like _wÃ©sten_ (B). I can't give
you the etymology of _wÃ©sten_, but please note that it has a "t" in the
"middle", therefore to my gut feeling, it could be related to "geweest"
(D). As far as I know, Saxon systematically omits the initial "ge-" in a
past participle (btw, French-Flemish has this feature as well to a
lesser extent); but Brabantish never does, and that's why this _wÃ©sten_
is still a bit of a mystery to me, so I did not elaborate on it any
further.
What is certain however, is that _wÃ©sten_ does not at all have the same
function as the Dutch verb "wezen", which from a southern point of view
sounds typically "Hollands"; e.g.:

"Je moet er vlug bij wezen" (D)
"Kan best waar wezen, maar ik hoef hem niet" (D)"
"Ze mocht er wezen" (D)

would in Brabantish (and also in Flemish afaik) never have the verb
_wezen_, but always _zijn_. The infinitive _wezen_ doesn't exist around
here, wheras in your phrase:

"Ben je op de markt iets wezen kopen"

this _wezen_ looks like the infinitive of an auxiliary verb. As such,
the Brabantish and Dutch expressions are not identical.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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