LL-L "Etymology" 2009.08.10 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 10 August 2009 - Volume 02
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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.08.09 (03) [EN]

Luc:
I thought about "vaak" in the meaning of sleepiness when I wrote my previous
post.
but yes, you can say "'k Em vaak", which is in my feeling not exactly the
same as "'k Zen muug". The first one means you want to go to bed cuz you're
yawning (probably in the evening), the second can mean tired in any sense,
whether you just woke up, or you ran a marathon or also if you just want to
go to bed after a long day like the first one.
The a is the normal long Antw. aa, which often is transcribed /oa/ but in
the spelling we're working on usually /aa/, as the different pronunciation
shouldnt need a new spelling. And it avoids using more letters in eg. make,
instead of moake. The clear long a-sound is written /ae/, and the one in
between /au/ or /ou/ according to the dutch rules, so /een gitaer/ and /een
vrou/ (plural vrouwe).
And if both our observations about dikkels are correct, then it probably is
indeed due to the bigger standard-influence on Antwerp. I even know
young people incorporating 'vaak' into their dialect when they want to sound
"plat", because they don't feel it as a foreign word anymore.

Diederik

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

Beste Jacqueline,
You wrote:

Luc, you say "Vaak" has only one meaning here, it's what you feel like when
being sleepy: "'k Ém vaak".

Hmm, komt Klaas Vaak daar vandaan? Hij komt ’s avonds langs en strooit
zand in de kinderogen.

Yep, definitely.

Moreover, "vaak" (feeling drowsy) is also cognate with "to fag" (E) in the
sense of "to decline, to tire". Some interference here with "to flag", as in
"flagging attention". Maybe also related to "fag", British slang for
cigarette.
Interesting in this respect is another meaning of "to fag": to work hard.
Brabantish also has the verb "fakken", meaning exactly the same, but I
always thought it was an abbreviation of "travakken", Southern Dutch for "to
work" < travailler (F). Maybe an older verb, related to "to fag", has
influenced this construction.

On the other hand, a very lazy woman is called "een låå vak". Just hope this
"vak" is not an old Roman loanword (~ vacca) *s*.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx, Halle

•

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