LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.28 (02) [D/E/LS]
Lowlands-L
lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Tue Mar 28 16:46:18 UTC 2006
======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
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)
=======================================================================
28 March 2006 * Volume 02
=======================================================================
From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.27 (04) [E]
About learning a language through your mother tongue:
I've often heard that Low Saxon speaking Dutchmen had a great advantage of
their maternal language when learning the Dutch orthography before WW II.
The old orthography was more etymologically based than the present one and
had multiple spellings for one sound, e.g. e- and ee- [e:], o- and oo-
[o:], -ss- and -ssch- [S], ei and ij [Ei], ou and au [Au]. The latter two
still are in use, the other were simplified to e-, o-, -ss-. But the point
is that from the corresponding Low Saxon sounds one could make out whether
to write ee- or e-, oo- or o-, -ss- or -ssch-, ij or ei in Dutch, whereas
Dutch children from other region or who just knew Standard Dutch, had
great difficulties with the orthography of words that were pronounced
alike but spelled differently.
E.g.:
Pre War Dutch
wasschen ["v\as@(n)] to wash - Modern Dutch: wassen
wassen ["v\as@(n)] to grow or to wax - Modern Dutch: wassen
kooper ["ko:p at r] buyer - Modern Dutch: koper
koper ["ko:p at r] copper - Modern Dutch: koper
beenen ["be:n@(n) legs - Modern Dutch: benen
beter ["be:t at r] better - Modern Dutch: beter
eigen ["EiG@(n)] own - Modern Dutch: eigen
stijgen ["stEiG@(n)] to rise - Modern Dutch: stijgen
nou [nAu] now - Modern Dutch: nou
nauw [nAu] narrow - Modern Dutch: nauw
Compared to Low Saxon (examples from Hamaland LS):
Pre War Dutch Low Saxon
wasschen [s] was-chen [sx] or wasken to wash
wassen [s] wossen [s] to grow
kooper [o:] koper [o:] buyer
koper [o:] kopper [O] or koaper [O:] copper
beenen [e:] bene [e:] legs, bones
beter [e:] better [E] or baeter [E:] better
eigen [Ei] eigen [Ei] or aegen [E:] own
stijgen [Ei] stiegen [i:] to rise
nou [Au] now [ou], noe [u], no [o:] now
nauw [Au] nòw [Ou], nauw [Au] narrow
I think for the understanding between (written) Dutch and Low Saxon, the
Post War Dutch orthographic reform was a loss, especially for Low Saxons
from Germany the older spelling was much closer to their own language than
the modern one.
Also because of Pre War Dutch still had some conjungation and genders, e.g:
aan den grooten man - Modern Dutch: aan de grote man
aan de groote vrouw - Modern Dutch: aan de grote vrouw
Does someone who has read Pre War Dutch texts recognize this?
Groeten
Ingmar
----------
From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong <Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.27 (07) [E/LS]
Re: language varieties 2006.03.27 (97)
Folks, this was an extremely rich posting.
firstly:
-----Original Message-----
From: Lowlands Languages & Cultures
[mailto:LOWLANDS-L at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of Lowlands-L
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 7:07 PM
To: LOWLANDS-L at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.27 (07) [E/LS]
This was a very rich posting!
Marcel and Ben: "Will you come with"
My children have always been very careful in keeping their Dutch separate
from their English. They grew up with one parent who spoke English with
them, but who understood Dutch because he grew up speaking Jiddish and
another parent who insisted on speaking "proper English" even though her
first language was Dutch. My daughter especially must have had an
understanding of what was intrinsic Dutch and what was English. She never
was bothered by syntax and switched from one language into the other without
"batting an eyelash". One expression however escaped the two sets of
"Cerberi"; "Ga je mee?" became "Will you come with?". Jacqueline
>>From Piet Bult: <Daoromme daenk ik dan
ok dat et niet alliend komt van in wat tael aj' grootbrocht binnen mar meer
nog et feit dat aj' MIT tael grootbrocht binnen>.
Hoi Piet, Je kon best eens gelijk hebben. Het is me vaak opgevallen dat
mensen die hun eigen taal beter spreken ook een andere taal beter spreken.
Wat daar verder nog interessant bij is dat bijvoorbeeld de Nederlanders en
de Noren, die historisch geacht werden handelsvaarders te zijn, geacht
werden makkelijker vreemde talen leerden dan anderen. Misschien moet ik dit
begrip wat wijder maken en Low-Saxon ook tot die voedingsbodems rekenen.
Jacqueline
>>From Andrys: < My mother's "Brand is erger" became "Worse
things happen at sea." >
That is priceless. Do you have a to the point translation for
"Om het af te leren"?
About counting: That is the most difficult thing to let go.
You will find me at the bridge table counting in Dutch.
Which is fine unless it turns out that the opposition is a couple from South
Africa.
And so it goes. Jacqueline
----------
From: Marcel Bas <marcelbas at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.27 (07) [E/LS]
Dear Lowlanders, dear Ben Bloomgren and Kevin Caldwell,
You said that some or all of the following africanderisms are also in use in
the United States:
"I live by the station" (< ek woon by die stasie)
"I'm busy relaxing" (< ek is besig om uit te rus)
"Will you come with"? (< Sal jy saamkom?)
I read about the last example that its occurrence in the United States (in
the West) could well be of Dutch origin. But I would imagine the East being
more prone to Dutchisms, since the state of New York has so many fine Dutch
cultural ' heirlooms' (such as the ' stoops' and place-names in and around
NY, and words like _cookie_, _coleslaw_, _boss_, etc.). What you said about
the influence of Dutch- émigré was very interesting, in that respect!
Anyway, when people analyse World Englishes, it is still ' Bräuche und
Sitten' to take British English as the basis of comparisons. If USEng would
have been taken as the variety against which other World Englishes are being
foiled, the abovementioned constructions would probably not have been worth
mentioning.
I like taking the Dutch word _stoep_ as a nice example of a Dutch/Afrikaans
word which has entered World English in two ways. _Stoep_ was first used in
New York in the 17th century where the high houses had porches and platforms
leading to the houses' entrances. These were called 'stoep' by the Dutch and
until this day, people in Northeastern US use this word, with English
spelling _stoop_ for this porch structure.
In 16th and 17th century South Africa, the Dutch built houses with verandahs
which they called ' stoep', too. These porches are larger than the stoops in
NY; contrary to USEng, SAEng writes the word in (Cape) Dutch spelling.
If a South African were to go to Manhattan and he would ask if it's OK to
sit outside, on the stoop, he will have made himself perfectly understood.
The nice thing is that both in NY and in SA stoops/stoeps are still being
built, so the word will live on.
One other South African construction is this:
"I'll see you now!" = I'll see you in a while;
_now_ is a reduction of _just now_, which, in turn, calques Afrikaans
_netnou_: in a while (not immediately!). This is always good material for a
confusing conversation when South Africans are abroad (of when English
speakers visit South Africa). You could also say " I'll see you now-now",
which denotes 'a little sooner than in a while' (could have its origins in
some South Africans's tendency to procrastinate things :-)).
Do you maybe have some more examples of Dutch-like syntactic constructions
in American English?
Best regards,
Marcel.
----------
From: Felix Hülsey <felix.huelsey at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L Language varieties
Hallo Jonny and all,
Jonny wrote:
>
> According to my experiences it's much easier for Germans from the North
> (close to LS-regions) to learn English than for people who grew up in
> the Southern parts.
> This really doesn't depend on how much knowledge about LS the learners
> have, but could be a result of *sleeping* influence.
>
> A sometimes funny sounding result can be watched when (non-native)
> people from Northern G. first try to learn LS- they like to pronounce it
> the English way, mixed with English grammar.
A similar thing from the Dutch courses I give:
In Dutch, as in German, the sentence "Ik ga naar huis" with a temporal
adverb becomes e.g. "Straks ga ik naar huis" ; i.e. the word order after
the adverb is VS because the verb always has to take second position,
exactly like in German.
Very often however, beginners use the English SV-word order though they
know that in Dutch, they can do it exactly as in their mother tongue
German. Obviously they associate "foreign language" with "different word
order" and need a while to switch back to German/Dutch word order.
Kind regards
Felix
----------
From: jpkrause <jpkrause at sunflower.com>
Subject: LL-L Language Varieties
>From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder
>
>In fact that would be an interesting question: do the Low Germans learn
>the related foreign language English out of their mother tongue, or
>through High German. And is there any Low German influence on their
>English, rather than High German? And is this similar to the Dutch
>influence on English?
>
>Regards
>Ingmar
>
I went to college at a small liberal arts school. Many of the students
who were from Kansas came from small relatively ethnic homogeneous Low
German farming communities that exist in the central part of the state.
A common expression I heard that struck me as being very Dutchy, if
you'll pardon me coining a word, was "Hey John, come here once." Hey
Johannes, komm hia mol, which is very proper usage in Plautdietsch. Or
again I heard "Look once. " Kjikj eenmol.
A standard in-joke was "I think I'll go down town and get my
hair cut."
To which the comedic reply was "Which one?" Because some of the older
generation still could be heard to say "I think I'll go downtown and get
my hairs cut."
Then there were the deliberately tortured constructions
poking fun at themselves:
"Don't eat yourself full Pop, there's pie back yet."
"Jake, throw the horse over the fence his hay."
"Mom, make me an egg for breakfast."
"So then, is your mother living yet?"
I think in many instances, given the close relationship between
Low Saxon and English, the tendency is to borrow sentence structure, and
grammar from LS and transliterate them into Enlgish.
Jim Krause
----------
From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.03.27 (04) [E]
Dear Ron,
you wrote:
> Jonny, I find it interesting that you feel that North Germans have an
> easier
> time learning English even if they don't know LS. Definitely, in the
> "olden" days, when there was little exposure to English in everyday life,
> those kids who had some command of LS, even if only passive, seemed to do
> better with school English, and at that time you could definitely say
> that,
> on the whole, North Germans did better than did South Germans, Austrians,
> etc., also had very different "accents." However, I'm not so sure if this
> is so cut and dry these days,
D'accord! After having read your answer I at first thought that I just had
regarded my own experiences of long times ago... But- as some modern
investigations show you'll still find considerable differences in their
different access to English.
You cannot deny that even Standard German in the North of Germany is closer
to English than e.g. that, what the Bavarians *call* Standard G. :-)! I
don't think that it (learning English easier) depends on a basic knowledge
of LS- because: aren't there many words enlisted in the DUDEN which are
considered to be typical North- resp. South-bounded?
> as English teaching methods have improved
> vastly, all of Germany is constantly barraged by English language media,
> and
> most young North Germans wouldn't know LS if it hit them in the head,
> certainly don't rely on it as a medium, but much rather use English as a
> bridge to learn LS, as you said. Everytime I revisit Northern Germany it
> hits me that Germanization has made more inroads, that LS influences are
> disappearing fast. I wonder if those younger people who do better than
> the
> everage Southerner don't in fact have at least considerable passive
> command
> of Low Saxon since early childhood.
A total Germanization, if I understood your words correctly, should imply a
standardization of all regional dialects, and I don't believe this to happen
within a foreseeable future. Even in the U.S., the country of greatest
mobility and migration, there are very clearly bordered dialectal regions.
Have a look into your own development. Similar to my own youth your parents
partly hadn't been 'native Hamburgers', but I guess you/we caught a
considerable amount of LS and Missingsch even in our very early childhood-
from neighbours, adult friends and, maybe, relatives.
The next steps we've done on the roads, and even in a linguistic melting pot
like Hamburg the dominating 'slang' was, is and (for my guess) will remain
typically northern shaped.
Even for our new Turkish etc. citizens it will only take three more
generations to be linguistically absorbed (and ethnically after another two
or three); depending on their localization they will become *real*
Hamburgers or *real* Bavarians- and that's slightly different from becoming
*real* Germans ;-).
Greutens/Regards
Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties
Hi, everyone!
I'm very busy but can't help myself, just have to add a couple of remarks in
response to a couple of postings above.
Jonny:
> A total Germanization, if I understood your words correctly, should imply
> a
> standardization of all regional dialects, and I don't believe this to
> happen
> within a foreseeable future. Even in the U.S., the country of greatest
> mobility
> and migration, there are very clearly bordered dialectal regions.
In my book, total, or ultimate, Germanization would mean total loss of
minority languages, not necessarily German dialects. When you say
"standardization of all regional dialects," that to me would be a case of
"total, ultimate standardization." These are two different things. While I
believe that the former could very well take place, is in fact very likely
to occur if things continue the way they are now, the total disappearance of
German dialects would take a lot longer. My prediction here is based upon
the assumption Low Saxon, like Frisian (and of course Sorbian and Romany),
is not German but a separate language (although speakers of LS in Germany
have lost their ethnic identity and are now considered ethnically German).
As you said, the German we Northerners speak, or rather spoke (and both my
parents spoke *very* strong Hamburg German dialects, though different ones,
my father as a foreign language), is/was more or less strongly influenced by
Low Saxon, either directly (mostly in rural settings) or via Missingsch
"hybrids" (in urban settings). This includes not only the normal, casual
speech modes but also formal modes. In other words, when people spoke what
they considered "good High German" they sounded strongly northern and used
Low-Saxon-derived vocabulary and idiomatic expressions (e.g., LS _dat kan ik
nich af_ > _das kann ich nicht ab_ for _das kann ich nicht
leiden/vertragen/ausstehen_ 'I can't stand that'). In other words, there
used to be an uninterupted continuum between Missingsch and "Standard."
I am talking about the loss of intermediary varieties, such as Missingsch
and Missingsch-colored "Standard" German and a gradual but accelerating
shift toward a less northern, more neutral Standard German. While the
phonological "accent" is still there, though much less so than in our youth,
vocabulary and idiom are definitely becoming less northern at a fast pace,
assumedly under the influence of media and education centralization. When I
hear my friends and siblings and their children speak I hear many
expressions that in my childhood I would have perceived as "Southern" and/or
as "stuck up" (even "small" words like _nunmehr_ 'henceforth', 'from now
on', and _vorerst_ 'for the time being', which in true Northern fashion
would be _von nun/jetzt ab/an_ and _(nun/jetzt) erstmal_ respectively; cf.
LS _vun nu (af) an_ and _(nu) eyrstmaal_). Being around it all day every
day, it may not be as obvious to you as it is to me who visits and
telephones only occasionally.
Hmmm ... Who'd join me in doing Wren renditions (written and spoken) in
"true" Northern German (which is neither Missingsch nor Low Saxon)? Think
of it as important documentation of varieties that will soon be historical.
Marcel about "Will you come with?":
> I read about the last example that its occurrence in the United States
> (in the West) could well be of Dutch origin.
There are bunches of claims flying around about this one. It could also be
of German or of Yiddish origin, to name but two:
German:
Kommst du mit? ~ Kommt ihr mit?
Yiddish:
? קומט איר מיט ? ~ קומסט דו מיט
Kumst du mit? ~ Kumt ir mit?
Or Low Saxon:
Kümst (du) mit? ~ Kaamt jy mit?
By the way, don't underestimate the influence of Low Saxon in earlier
American history. It used to be widely used, not only in the Midwest but
also in large centers like New York City. In fact, unbeknownst to many,
there used to be an American patriotic literary tradition in Low Saxon!
Ingmar, I'll add forms in North Saxon of Germany:
Pre War Dutch Low Saxon Low Saxon (D)
wasschen [s] was-chen [sx] or wasken waschen [S]~[sG]~[sx]~[sk]
wassen [s] wossen [s] wassen [s]
kooper [o:] koper [o:] koyper [9I] ~ [OI]
koper [o:] kopper [O] or koaper [O:] kopper [O] ~ kupper [U]
beenen [e:] bene [e:] beyn(e) [E:I] ~
[a:I]
beter [e:] better [E] or baeter [E:] beter [e:] ~ [E:]
eigen [Ei] eigen [Ei] or aegen [E:] eygen [EI] ~ [aI]
stijgen [Ei] stiegen [i:] stygen [i:]
nou [Au] now [ou], noe [u], no [o:] nu [u]
nauw [Au] nòw [Ou], nauw [Au] nau [a(:)U]
German-based spelling:
waschen
wassen
Köper
Kopper ~ Kupper
Been(e) ~ Bein(e)
beter ~ bäter
egen ~ eegen ~ eigen
stiegen
nu
nau
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
======================================================================
More information about the LOWLANDS-L
mailing list