LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.11.14 (04) [A/E]

Fri Nov 14 21:41:02 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L - 14 November 2008 - Volume 04
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Beste Mike,

You wrote:

Luc, when you say Frankish, do you include the Lower Frankish languages such
as Dutch?

Definitely. I can't describe the situation any better myself than in the
Wikipedia-article:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fränkische_Dialekte<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A4nkische_Dialekte>

Roughly speaking, Frankish is spoken all along the axis Nürnberg - Köln -
Rotterdam.

 (Whatever your answer, you might want to kill me for having asked so
naively.)

Naah...that's not me. By the way, I usually find naïveté quite charming.
Especially if you're female, that is *s*.

Singapur, o, o: I had the priviledge of observing this in close-up. Since
decades the Chinese-dominated government is forcing (sic!) Chinese (not
Indians, not Malay speakers, not Europeans) to switch to Mandarin which in
my view amounts to genocide, as the immigrants from the North belong to very
divers ethnic, linguistic, cultural groups ("Chinese" is just a generic term
such as "European". It's the unifying force of the Chinese writing system
which creates misunderstendings).

Speaking of Chinese, the Wikipedia-article mentions a structural similarity
between Afrikaans and Chinese:

Net soos Engels, wat in die Middeleeue onder 'n vergelykbare proses van
taalversteuring deurgeloop het, toon Afrikaans in struktureel-grammatikale
opsig tans meer ooreenkomste met isolerende tale soos Sjinees as met sy
sustertale in die Indo-Europese taalfamilie: Die grammatikale veranderinge
het in albei tale daartoe gelei dat woorde in 'n sin grotendeels onveranderd
bly en woordvolgorde 'n baie belangrike rol begin speel het.

Just for fun, what about the following poem then, written by Jupp Pasch in
his native Low-Rhenish dialect. Read aloud, and you will notice the phonetic
resemblance with Mandarin-Chinese:

Schäng möt den Honk jing,
dän haat en lang Ling
on, wä dän Honk kang,
woar vüer die Täng bang.

Woa Schäng nou langjing,
en Restaurang sting.
Schäng haat suovüel Bronk,
dat hä sech Bier dronk
on an deThek stung,
doabee jenn Eng fong.

Schäng laat na Huus jing.
Dän Honk möt die lang Ling
für Schäng de Wäeg fong.
Schäng laut en Le-id song.

Höersch hän ent Huus jing,
stung doa sin Frau Tring.
Tring ene Jronk fong,
dat se möt Schäng schong.

Schäng, da sin Aal kang,
woar vüer die Tring bang.
Tring wi-es üehr schärp Täng,
Schäng woard de Kroog eng,
hä jar jenn Wöert fong,
Schäng haat en schwoar Tong.

Ävvel die streng Tring
ördlich op Jonk jing:
dat hä wie ne Schlonk dronk,
sin Fahn uut de Monk stonk,
dat se dat ärg föng,
kört se ehm aanböng.

Dän Honk möt die lang Täng
hi-el möt dän Heär Schäng,
ri-et sech von sin Ling
on bi-et die streng Tring,
dat et üehr wi-ehding.

Jau se en Eng fong,
neht miehr möt Schäng schong.
Dän Honk deiht: dou aal Tang
on jing en sin Wäschmang.
China, ek jlöiv jlott,
kallt ook mar os Plott.

Translation can be found at http://www6.dw-world.de/de/dialekt.php under
"Niederrheinisch".

Perhaps we have overlooked still one aspect in this controversy "überdachen
or not" (what would be a good English term for*überdachen*?).

to coordinate?

Ron's home is Lower Saxony which had to put up with more or less
centralistic Frankish-speaking governments for most of the time during the
last 12 centuries (since Verden AD 782). Luc's home is (I may be mistaken?)
Vaanderen, which largely escaped such fate to this day.

Not quite. Technically speaking, I do live in Vlaanderen as the city of
Halle is today part of "het Vlaams Gewest", but that's just a political
judgment. Moreover, in the light of eternity, a fairly recent one *s*. My
native dialect/language is Brabantish, which does not constitute a subgroup
of Flemish. Confusion arose due to French, in which "le Flamand" was a term
mistakenly used for every patois spoken north of the linguistic divide. This
mistake perpetuated itself globally.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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

I have some information about Frankish varieties here:

http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/nederlands-info.php
http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/limburgs-info.php
http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/kleverlands-info.php
http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/ripoaresch-info.php

Thanks for the poem, Luc. Indeed, the widespread Rhenish tendency toward
rendering /-nd/ as /-ng/ (also in some Limburgish dialects, in some eastern
Brabantish ones as well I believe) is remarkable. It makes you wonder what
caused it. My so-far unfounded hypothesis is that /-nd/ first developed into
nasalization (e.g., …and > …ã, as in French) and, perhaps caused by
immigration from other Germanic-speaking communities, the nasalized vowel
later acquired a following /-ng/ (…ã > …ang). (This is how German and
Scandinavian speakers tend to pronounce nasalized vowels in French words
(e.g. *restorang*).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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