LL-L "Orthography" 2008.12.15 (04) [E/LS]

[Lowlands-L List]

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 15 December 2008 - Volume 04
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.
===========================================


From: Mike Wintzer <k9mw at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2008.12.15 (01) [E/LS]

Dear LLs

Marcus schreef:

Nu warrst du unreell. "Rehg" is veel öller as Sass. Kummt to'n Bispeel al
1854 in Raabe sien 'Allgemeines plattdeutsches Volksbuch' vör. Mi gefallt de
Schrievwies 'Rehg' ok nich. Dücht mi nich besünners klook (dat 'h' in
'Reihe' is ja etymoloogsch verwandt mit dat 'g' in 'Reeg' un dat 'w' in
'row'). 'Rehg' is keen 'misspelling'. Dat is hööchstens en 'unwitty
spelling'. Sass gefallt dat 'h' allerdings ok nich un bi Sass is 'Reeg'
vertekent. Sass hett denn ok nix "respelt" dat dat "as German as possible"
utsüht. He hett blot de Schrievregeln, de dat ok vörher al geven harr, en
beten op Reeg bröcht un 'normaliseert'. De Lüüd hebbt ok al vör Sass na
hoochdüütsche Schrievregeln schreven. He harr ok nich "as German as
possible" in'n Sinn. He harr "as recognizable as possible for people
educated in German-only schools" in'n Sinn

Al weer wat tauliert, Marcus.

Ron, you remember, my thinking was more orthodox than yours, wanting to see
your Hanse-based orthography intoduced.

Over the years I have become more pragmatic. By no means should we make this
a Glaubenskrieg,

but continue Ron, Marc et al. to sort out the facts, all the facts.

Gratefully, Mike Wintzer

----------

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

*Glaubenskrieg?* Absolutely not, at least not as far as I am concerned. It
seems you read too much into my efforts, Mike, when I was going no farther
than thinking about an auxiliary system to make up for the inadequacies of
the Sass system as it is widely used for the northern dialects.

Pretty much any system will do as long as it ...

   - is typologically easy (i.e. not full of "exotic" letters and
   diacritics,
   - is easy to learn,
   - does not pretend to be a phonetic writing system,
   - represents *all* phonemes.


Sass did not pick his system out of thin air. He took several things from
predecessors such as Rabe. But it is *he* who is commonly credited with this
because he tried to synthesize and regularize the *system* and others
followed him, which is why we are talking about the "Sass System" or Sass
Guidelines". This is what I was referring to before Marcus threw me the Rabe
curve ball.

Sass made quite clear that where accuracy is required an *ogonek* be used
underneath an "e" ~ "ee" ~ "eh" and "ö" ~ "ö" ~ "öh" to mark them as long
monophthongs and thus distinguish them from their unmarked equivelents that
stand for diphthongs.

Sass or one of his followers said that this is not necessary in the case of
"o" ~ "oo" ~ "oh" since in most dialects monophthongs and diphthongs have
been leveled to become diphthongs. However, the difference does remain in
quite a few dialects, and the "ou" diphthong in those corresponds to the
"au" diphthong in other dialects, such as those of Mecklenburg (as in *tau
liehrt*).

Somewhere along the line, "ä" ~ "ää" ~ "äh" came to be used as an
alternative for "e"-*ogonek* and "œ" ~ "œh" as an alternative for "ö"-*
ogonek*, since this is typologically easier. This is what the *New
Sass*people did, and I applaud them for having made the effort to
distinguish
monophthongs and dipthongs, as behooves all authors of dictionaries and
textbooks. It is these people and authors of linguistic literature that no
doubt Sass had in mind when he "prescribed" use of the *ogonek*.

Non-distinction of diphthongs and long monophthongs leads to
mispronunciation among learners. Ideally therefore, they ought to be
distinguished everywhere. At a minimum, they must be distinguished in
reference and teaching material.

The use of the German *Dehnungs-H* is becoming less and less controversial
as more and more people agree that it's kind of silly and certainly
redundant.

Likewise redundant and linguistically untenable is the Sass tradition of
representing final devoicing where and only where German spelling shows a
final voiceless consonant; e.g.

wide: *wiet* vs *wiede ...* (because of German *weit* vs *weite ...*)
but ...
dress: *Kleed* vs *Kleder (*because of German *Kleid* vs *Kleider*)

My point is that the choice of letters is not so important, but that proper
and consistent distinction of phonemes is very important. If the "official"
system does not properly distinguish them, then it must be *made* to do so,
or else an auxiliary system needs to be employed that does properly
represent phonemic structure.

What bothers me about the Sass system as it is *popularly* used (i.e. the
watered-down version) is that on the one hand it lacks necessary
distinctions and on the other hand it dictates unnecessary fluff such as the
*Dehnungs-H* and selective representation of final devoicing (which is a
phonetic detail and thus doesn't belong into a writing system other than a
phonetic one). In any case, the aim to make it look as German as possible
seems to override the need for consistency and integrity, and this seems
like a shaky foundation to me, as well as a disservice to learners, to say
the least.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20081215/1ff18c5b/attachment.htm>