LL-L "Language contacts" 2008.05.23 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 23 May 2008 - Volume 05
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language contacts

Hello, Íveson!

Yesterday you asked:

Can anyone tell me what the origin of the Jutlandic definite article
æ/å is? It's strange if compared to Norwegian, Swedish or Danish but very
beautiful.

As you seem to know, in Scandinavian language varieties the definite article
follows the noun as an enclitic or suffix. For instance, in Danish *en
mand*means 'a man' while
*manden* means 'the man', and *et hus* means 'a house' while *huset* means
'the house'. The general Scandinavian principle seems to be that a preposed
article is indefinite and a postposed article is definite.

This does not apply in Jutish, at least not in most dialects, and
non-application of the Scandinavian pattern is stronger the farther south
you go, namely all the way down across the Danish-German border into
Schleswig-Holstein. The pattern is that of West Germanic languages. This
suggests that it is due to many centuries of intensive contacts and overlap
with Low Saxon. Still in the recent past, if not to some degree even
nowadays, many people in Southern Jutland (including today's German region
of Schleswig) were bilingual in Jutish and Low Saxon, and they would have
varying degrees of German and Danish proficiency as well, some of them in
the southwest North Frisian as well. Furthermore, Southern Jutish has even
more Low Saxon loanwords than have other Scandinavian varieties, and the
northernmost Low Saxon varieties have Jutish and Danish loans and features.
Also, Jutish, particularly the southern varieties, have Low Saxon
phonological features, including fricativization and devoicing of
syllable-final /g/ as [X], also the tendency toward dropping final *-e*.
Please also bear in mind that most of what is now the German state of
Schleswig-Holstein was part of Denmark and some time or other, at times as
far south as to the borders of Hamburg (which made Altona, now a part of
Hamburg, part of Denmark at one time). So we are talking about an
inextricable overlap in one of Europe's most multilingual regions.

To find more about Jutish and its features as well as examples of the use of
the article, please take a look at my introduction to Jutish for the
Anniversary presentation: http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/jysk-info.php

The general "rule" is that many Western Jutish dialects distinguish two
"genders" as does Danish, while Southern Jutish does not:

            "the wren" - "the house"
Danish:  gærdesmutt*en* - hus*et*
W. Jut.: *æ* gærresmutte - *å* hus
S. Jut.:  *æ* gærresmut' -  *æ* hus
L. Sax.: de tuunkruyper - dat/et/it huus

On the other hand, Southern Jutish seems to have preserved two tones, as
have Norwegian and Swedish, while in Danish one of these tones has developed
into a glottal interruption (*stød*).

When I hear old-timers speak Southern Jutish, I can clearly hear a "Low
Saxon sound," a little bit in Eastern Jutish as well - as opposed to Western
Jutish and Insular Danish.

You listen to samples here: http://www.elkan.dk/dialekter/

"High" Copenhagen: Københavnsk høj københavnsk
Western Jutland: Vestjysk
Eastern Jutland: Østjysk
Southern Jutland: Sønderjysk

Of all the speakers I understand the South-Jutish-speaking lady the best,
whereas I had to listen to the other dialects several times to understand
the stories or at least get the gist.

I've always had a particularly soft spot for our northern neighbors.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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