LL-L "Idiomatica" 2008.04.14 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 14 April 2008 - Volume 03
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Idiomatica

Well, well, we're pretty darn lucky to have our Roland who keeps adding West
Flemish information, especially that of authentic Ostend Flemish (and I
still strongly recommend getting a copy of his dictionary, which doubles as
a cultural encyclopedia). More about Roland a bit farther down.

From what the rest of you wrote and from what I myself have gathered from my
numerous intercultural encounters, in the "alternative" system "yes" and
"no" simply serve as affirmative and negative respectively with regard to a
preceding statement or question. Paul may very well be correct when he says
that this system is likely to predominate among the world's languages. After
all, it's very logical.

What this suggests to me, or rather reminds me of, is one of the main
pitfalls of foreign language learning and teaching. We want to translate
simply word for word if we can get away with it. This involves tagging each
new word or morpheme with the closest equivalent in our first language or
another language with which we are more familiar. And then we are confused
when that doesn't always work. In the case of the system we're talking about
we, the speakers of West European languages, ought to learn and be taught
differently. Rather than attaching the label "X = yes" we ought to think "X
= what you said is correct", and instead of "Y = no" we ought to think "X =
what you said is incorrect". That makes it much clearer I believe.

So far so good. And along comes Roland with a more puzzling system in
Western Flemish, and it's back to the drawing board:

*En hé je gie mo twi oogn? Nin'k!*
"And do you have [but/just] two eyes. No I!"

*En hét hen hie mo tien joengers. Nainhen! Twi knéchtjoengers én acht
méjsjoengers!*
"And does he have [but/just] ten children. No-they! Two boys and eight
girls!"

*En zie je giender mo gister gewist? Nainme!*
"And were you over there [but/just] yesterday? No-we!"

The answer to all of these would be "yes" in our terms.

Crucial here seems to be the use of *mo*, the seeming equivalent of Standard
Dutch *maar*, Afrikaans *maar*, Low Saxon *maor*, *maar*, *man*, etc.
(cognate of English "mere," I believe), which can serves as "but", "just",
"only" etc. The replies sound as though they negate the *mo* aspect. I can't
profess to grasp this entirely yet.

Another thing is the use of personal pronouns in conjunction with "no". This
too can be found aplenty in medieval and early modern Flemish writing. It
seems to be an old feature of the south.

I believe several of us need some more remedial lessons in this.

At any rate, it's great to have Roland, "the horse's mouth," who is able and
eager to share these things with us.

The Kahuna is smiling. (http://lowlands-l.net/treasures/kahuna.htm)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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