LL-L "Orthography" 2010.08.06 (06) [EN]

Fri Aug 6 20:44:22 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 06 August 2010 - Volume 06
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From: Hellinckx Luc <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>

Subject: LL-L "Orthography"

Beste Paul,

You wrote:

From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>

Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2010.08.05 (01) [EN]

Strange that all the island Lowlands have lost the "k", and as far as I
know, all the mainland varieties have kept it.

It would be interesting to know when we lost it; spelling isn't much use
since we still write it today.  If I had to guess, I'd say Chaucer
pronounced it and Shakespeare didn't, but that would be complete
speculation.

First a referral to an older post,

Item #14029 (25 Oct 2006 15:04) - LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.10.25 (09)
[E]<http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0610D&L=LOWLANDS-L&P=R2734>

in which you can see that until the early 18th century, English writers
compared the phonetic value with hn, tn, dn or n. So it did survive the
Norman invasion. Maybe only in plain English and not in its upmarket
variety.

The original sound is difficult to represent graphically. Some Brabantish
has:

"tnien" for "knee" (E), "knie" (D)

"tnuëp" for "knoop" (D), "knot" (E)

"tnajnseln" for hypothetic "knijnselen", to gnaw at something (bone,
apple...)

"tnekken" for "knakken" (D), "to crack" (E)

even "tnootn" for "knoken" (D) ~ "knuckle" (E)

Flemish still has the sound too I reckon, 'cause I remember a friend of mine
from the coastal city of Knokke, pronounce his hometown as "Tnokke" (with a
glottal stop for -kk-). Fact is that the initial -t- is not a -t- as we know
it, the sound coincides more or less with a sudden puff of air, released in
the back of one's mouth, and then escaping via the nose. Voiceless, even
though the vocal cords seem to be involved in producing that airblast.

Guess that in English the sound eventually disappeared because it was
considered substandard.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium

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

Subject: Orthography

Luc’s posting above arrived a second after the last one on this topic.

It reminded me that in Low Saxon, too, we have this supposed sequence /tn/,
albeit never in initial position, e.g. *buten* (“buutn”) ‘outside’.

However, I still argue that the apparent allophone of /t/ in these cases is
really the mentioned “nasal stop”. You can’t say it any other way.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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