LL-L Phonology" 2008.02.07 (02) [D/E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  07 February 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Roland Desnerck <desnerck.roland at skynet.be>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2008.02.05 (08) [E]

Beste Ron, Ingmar en alle andere Lowlanders,

In de meeste West-Vlaamse dialecten klnikt de "oe" als een diftong. Het zijn
meestal stijgende diftongen, d.w.z. de klemtoon ligt op de tweede
klankgreep.

Zo klinkt:
goed = goewd of gwoed  (eigenlijk: hoewd of hwoed)
zoet = zoewte of zwoete
bloeden = blwoen

maar:
boek = boek
zoeken = zoekn
koel = koele

In vele West-Vlaamse dialecten klinkt ook de "oo" als een diftong. Zo in
Ichtegem, Eernegem:

rood = rwed tot rowed
hoog = hwegge tot howegge (eigenlijk: wehhe, owehhe)

De "ee" is in Geheel West-Vlaanderen een diftong met uitzondering van
Oostende waar die klinkt als de "ai" in het Franse "maître, pair"

Nederlands       West-Vlaams          Oostends
een                     jin, ijin                      ain
twee                   twji                           twai
klein                   kljinne                      klaine
heer                   jirre                           aire
enz.

Toetnoasteki
Roland Desnerck

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

Thanks for this interesting information, dear Roland.

It looks to me as though we are dealing with "breaking" in the case of
Western Flemish (and probably also in Zeelandic, *Zeeuws*).

Simply put, this "breaking" begins with a falling diphthong (which may have
developed from a long monophthong, e.g., *ee* > *ea*, *ii* > *ie, uu > uo*).
In some cases, the first component of the diphthong may be raised (e.g. *ea*>
*ia*). The next step is development of the first component to a glide
("semi-vowel" or "semi-consonant," e.g. *ie* > *je*, *uo* > *wo*). It can
also begin with a non-high, usually mid-level vowel (e.g., *ee* > *ie* > *je
*, *oo* > *uo* > *wo*). (This can be observed a lot in stressed syllables in
numerous Russian varieties; e.g. *озеро о́зеро* ['ozʲerə] ~ ['ʊozʲerə]
'lake'.)

The actual "breaking" part is the shift from vowel to glide; e.g., *ua > wa,
ie > je*.

maar:
boek = boek
zoeken = zoekn
koel = koele

Are or were these vowels short perhaps?

Within the language group we are dealing with here, this sort of breaking,
namely the sort you demonstrated in Western Flemish, is a well-known
phenomenon in Frisian, specifically Westerlauwer (West) Frisian. I therefore
wonder if it is in fact due to an old Frisian substratum, considering that
Zeeland and the adjacent northwestern of Flanders was the southernmost
extent of the Frisian language at its height.

Old Frisian   W. Frisian   W. Flemish
ên                    ien            jin, ijin
hêra                hear              jirre

As soon as you go farther south along the coast and arrive at Ostend you
seem to leave that area. In addition, that is an area in which Saxons
settled at one time, which probably influenced the local language varieties.

Nederlands       West-Vlaams          Oostends      Northern Low Saxon
een                     jin, ijin                      ain
eyn (~ ayn)
twee                   twji                           twai              twey
(~ tway)
klein                   kljinne                      klaine
(kleyn (~ klayn))

In the case of Dutch *oe* [u(:)], Old Franconian has *uo* (and Old German
has *uo* where Modern German has *u* [u(:)]). So perhaps what happened was
that *uo* changed to *uu* (written *oe*) in the north, but in Western
Flanders it broke from *uo* to *wo*.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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