LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.11.24 (04) E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 24 November 2008 - Volume 04
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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.11.22 (03) [E]

>>From: Ben J. Bloomgren <ben.j.bloomgren at gmail.com>
>>Subject: [LLL] my first look at Afrikaans

>>Recently I came upon a Teach Yourself Afrikaans program. I was amazed as
the differences
>>more than I was the similarities with what I know as Dutch. The more
centralized phonology
>>and the lack of inflection reminded me of the Scandinavian languages more
than the West
>>Germanic relatives. My question then is this:  How did Afrikaans become so
much more
>>analytical than even Dutch or English? Did the Thanksgiving guests include
Mister and Misses Khoisan?

First of all, what do you mean by ´centralised phonology´ and how would
Scandinavian (or Afrikaans) have such a ´centralised phonology´?

Scandinavian being poorly inflected compared to the West-Germanic languages
sounds awkward to me too. If we leave out German and Icelandic, both being
quite highly inflected (Icelandic even more than HGerman), Danish, Swedish
and Norwegian still have a lot more inflection than English and Dutch...
For example standard Norwegian has 4 forms for every word,
indefinite/definite and sg/plural, giving mann, mannen, menn, mennene. Most
central Norwegian dialects still have a dative case, giving a total of 6
(dative only exists in definite form): sg would be manna/manni or many other
forms, pl monnom or similar.
Those 4 forms exist in Dan/Sw as well, some Sw dialects preserve dative as
well.

Dan/Standard Sw have 2 genders with their own set of endings, Norwegian and
most traditional Swe dialects have 3.
Within different genders there can be distinguished different subclasses as
well, at least in the Nynorsk form of Norwegian.
Masc Gut - guten - gutar - gutane
Masc Stad - staden - stader - stadene
Masc mann - mannen - menn(er) - mennene
Fem tid - tida (tidi) - tider - tidene

Fem øy - øya (øyi) - øyar - øyane
Fem jente (jenta) - jenta - jenter (jentor) - jentene (jentone)
Fem tong - tonga (tongi) - tenger - tengene
Neut barn - barnet - born (barn) - borna (borni, barna, barni)
Neut møte - møtet - møte - møta (møti)
Neut auga (auge) - auga (auget) - augo (auge) - augo (auga)

These are the main declensions, there might be a few irregular ones not
mentioned.

Adjectives in all Sc. standard languages have 3 different endings according
to function, but many dialects have still preserved more (eg. 5 in most of
Western Norway)

Articles are different for each gender

The difference between weak jan-verbs and on-verbs from germanic is still
maintained, and in Norwegian strong verbs still have umlaut in present
tense.

I could name many more, but I think Im being carried away a bit by
overenthousiasm:-) But I hope you see that the North germanic languages
surely aren't more grammatically "simplified" than West gmc.

Greetings, Diederik
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