LL-L "Etymology" 2007.08.22 (01) [D/E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  22 August 2007 - Volume 01
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at telenet.be>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.08.15 (01) [D/E]

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

Bedankt voor de belangrijke informasie, beste Roland.

En ter informatie: het oude Noord-West-Vlaamse woord voor "zout" was niet
"zoet", maar "zoekt". In Oostende sinds bijna honderd jaar verdwenen, in
Brugge nog hier en daar te horen, net als "oekd" (oud), striekboekte
(strijkbout), enz.----

This is phonologically really interesting, folks, what Roland reports here,
namely that in the older versions of Northwestern Flemish older /l/ changed
to [k] before (all?) syllable-final stop consonants.  It looks a bit like
stop assimilation but there is no assimilation as to place of articulation,
which is highly unusual.

So, as most of you know, Dutch change /l/ to /w/ in such instances, as
in *zolt>
zout 'salt' and * old > oud 'old'. West Flemish dialects have a short [U] as
the vowel here, so you get zoet [zUt] and oed [Ut] respectively.  But in the
traditional Northwestern dialects you get zoekt [zUkt] and oekd [Ukt]
respectively.

I wonder if this is a case of insertion rather than assimilation. But why?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron


Hi Ron,
In Western Flemish  'Horkt ne keêr hier' (D: Luister/Hoor eens hier) there
is also the 'k'  who appears.  But nowadays you just here 'Hort ne keêr
hier'.
Vriendelijke groeten,
Luc Vanbrabant
Oekene

(BTW: I did not receive e-mails since the 17th of august)

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

Well, if it isn't one of our favorite Lucs to break the silence! Hi, Luc,
and thanks.

There haven't been any submissions since August 17.  I guess much has to do
with this being the time when many Europeans without school-aged children
can take their vacations.

Luc, I have a feeling we're talking about a different verb from transitive
horen 'to hear', namely about archaic intransitive horken, the cognate of
English archaic (*heorcian* > herkien >) "h(e)ark(en)", Scots herk ~ hark ~
hearken, and German horchen with the connotation of "to listen attentively".
In Old Frisian you get *herkia* ~ *harkia* (> North Frisian harke), in
Middle Dutch *horken* ~ *horcken* which in some West Flemish dialects was
preserved as horken ~ heurken.  Some Low Saxon dialects use horken, which
may be a German loan, considering that there appears to be no Old Saxon
cognate. Also, I find no trace of it in Old Low Franconian.

Like Dutch (luisteren), most Low Saxon dialects use luustern or lüüstern for
'to listen', a cognate of German lauschen.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

(virtually on his way to California)
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