LL-L "Grammar" 2011.05.08 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 08 May 2011 - Volume 02
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From: Hellinckx Luc luc.hellinckx at gmail.com
Subject: LL-L "Grammar"

Beste Jacqueline,

You wrote:

     ‘It dawned upon me’ that in Dutch a poetic way to say “This day daws”
 is; “Het daget in den Oosten”. I think however that that is a pat
expression. However you can also say “ het begint my te dagen” = ‘I am
beginning to see the light’ as ‘I am starting to understand something’. So
then the question becomes were does the “n” in dawn come from.

As early as in 1300, the two forms "dawning" and "dawing" already coexisted.
Seems like those speakers that retained the -n- may just bear evidence of a
closer tie to their Germanic ancestors.

I think you can compare the process somewhat to:

own (E) - owe (E) - eigen (D)

dawn (E) - daw (E) - dagen (D)

Also note that Dutch "dragen" is actually cognate with English
"draw"...maybe in an older version of English the form "drawn" (for the
verb) also existed?

So I guess the -n- was there in the first place, but then some dialects
probably began to differentiate.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium


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