LL-L "Grammar" 2007.08.31 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  31 August 2007 - Volume 03
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar"

Beste Ron,

You wrote:
> Don't many or most Brabantish varieties have (East) Flemish substrates?

It's actually more or less the other way round. Eastern Flemish is
usually categorized under "Central Dutch Dialects" nowadays.

One of the reasons is that all the lands lying east of river Schelde
used to be part of the Holy Roman Empire. So called "Rijks-Vlaanderen"
(= roughly the territory between Schelde and Dender) for example, became
Flemish property as late as during the 11th century. In the city of
Ghent, nowadays, one can still see some relics of this period: a street
named Ottogracht, which some believe to be named after Otto, one of the
emperors of the Holy Roman Empire; and the Brabantdam, which was on the
border with the Duchy of Brabant. The historical heartland of the County
of Flanders however, lies west of the river Schelde (that's where you'll
find a major bundle of isoglosses, running parallel with Schelde and
Leie), Bruges being the political powerhouse. Friesians used to live in
the backyard of Bruges' backyard "het Zwin", and even Antwerp must have
bordered Frisia one day.

Brabantish on the other hand is more the result of the colonization of
both Salian and Ripuarian Franks (see:
http://www.eupedia.com/images/content/France-linguistic.jpg)

It's true however that between the 12th and the 14th century, the county
of Flanders was economically speaking quite dominant, and as such
influenced speech in the neighboring regions. Between the 14th and the
16th century, power shifted eastward, and central dialects became more
"de rigueur". Still later on, the County of Holland started becoming
prosperous, resulting in Standard Dutch, which clearly reflects the
importance of Holland's "Gouden Eeuw" (17th c). So yes, there has been
mutual linguistic influence between Flanders and Brabant, but I can find
no immediate reason to speak of a substrate.

Whether coastal Flemish (and Hollandish?) can be viewed as Franconian on
a Friesian substrate, now that is something else! ;=)

> Could this feature belong to it?

Clitic doubling/tripling sounds indeed more like a western than an
eastern feature to me. It's not only pronouns that get duplicated
though, just today I noticed for example that I also say "Ik heb dat
niet gezegd dat"; instead of "Ik heb dat niet gezegd". Just a wild
guess, maybe this structure is the added result of Dutch "Ik heb dat
niet gezegd", clashing with French "Je n'ai pas dit ça" ;=)

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx
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