LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.29 (03) [D/E]

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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  29 January 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.29 (01) [E]

Exactly the same as in Dutch, those Afrikaans examples. Dutch:
Die vrouw schreeuwt als een viswijf.
"wijffie" is colloquial Dutch used in the same way as you say in
Afrikaans, it's Hollandic, hence the -ie instead of -je diminutive.
And a "wijfje" is a female animal: het wijfje van de spin maakt het
mannetje dood na de paring.

Ingmar

Elsie Zinsser schreef:

Gary, the Afrikaans form 'wyf' is now only used in a pejorative sense as
in:
Die vrou skreeu soos 'n viswyf. (The woman yells like a fishwife.)

Wyfie is occasionally used in the sense of 'little wife", which I find
patriarchal, although I hear it is inherently innocent. (Like 'chick' I
suppose).

The female animal form is also called 'wyfie' in Afrikaans. (Die
wyfie knopiespinnekop maak die mannetjie dood na paring).

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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.29 (02) [D/E/V]

On wijf, kerel and vent:

Wijf: funnily enough the West-Flemish form with /uu/ seems to be more
popular around here than the /ij/ nowadays, especially amongst students.
It's not uncommon of my friends to ask me how it's going with "de wuvves",
for example;
Kerel: also seems to have (re?)gained use in slang, as equivalent for Engl.
"dude". A (cool) guy addresses his guy friend often with "ej kerel"; much
alike the use of "gast". In 5th-6th grade in highschool we usually said
"kerel joenge gast!" when someone had done/said something stupid or so.
Vent: the traditional word for "man", which in dialect is scarcely used.
Nowadays "man" is getting into the language, but its position is not as
strong as "vrouw" for "wijf" (maybe because 'vulgarity' is more accepted
when concerning men than when talking about women). Vent [vINt] /vengt/ is
still quite normal among people in informal situations who don't care that
much about sounding 'correct' and speaking standard language. Or used
'gekscherend' as Roland called it: talking about "x eure vengt" has a
different and more humorous connotation than "x are man" (x's husband).

In my 'humorous'/dialect/slang register, the world is divided into "vente"
and "kerels" on the one side, and "wijve" and "griete" on the other. But as
with "wijf", also my use of "griet" gets commented on uniformally. (the
first of the 2 always referring to the older specimens, kerel/griet to a
person in the same age-group)

Viele Gruesze!
Diederik

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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"

Beste Lowlanders,

Regarding the devolution of words in German/Dutch for "wife", view this:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df2hffj_8fxvtj8dc

(source: dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache)

By the way, you can read the document better if you save the image to
your computer first and then open the file in a graphic software program.

What the article roughly says, is that in the course of time, new words
often come from "above". Certain words are in use in higher classes,
then for some reason get dumped (or the higher class itself disappears),
and are later on picked up by lower classes. This could be true I think,
especially in medieval times, when class-consciousness was probably
higher than it is now.

That's what must have happened with German "Weib" and "Frau", during the
17th/18th century. Before that time, "Frau" was exclusively used for
women of high class, and "Weib" was the ordinary word (just like wife in
English). Then under French influence, new words like "Madame",
"Demoiselle" and "Mamsell" got in vogue and "Frau" was deflated,
substituting "Weib", which in turn couldn't sink much lower, so it
became a pejorative word.

If this is true, it could mean that English society never truly got
impregnated with 17th/18th century French court culture (in contrast
with the continent).

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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From: Frank <frank.verhoft at skynet.be>
Subject: Etymology

 Hoi,

Ik vraag me een beetje af hoe het (oude?) woord 'weef' (=weduwe) in het
rijtje 'wijf', 'wuuf', 'wuve' etc. past.


Alvast bedankt.

Groetjes,

Frank Verhoft

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