<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 26 June 2008 - Volume 03<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
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<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <<a href="mailto:ingmar.roerdinkholder@WORLDONLINE.NL">ingmar.roerdinkholder@WORLDONLINE.NL</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.06.23 (03) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
What is that something to be said for calling German etc. "South Germanic"</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
instead of West Germanic?</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
I can imagine a few things myself of course: the High German consonant</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
shift, dative and accusative pronouns (mir-mich), pronouns ending in -r</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
(er, wir, ihr), a part of lexicon, e.a.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
But what we should not forget is that present day German is much closer</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
related to Dutch and Low Saxon than English is. A Dutchman can understand</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
German without previous learning, so can a Low Saxon, but they don't have</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
a clue when an Englishman is speaking (or writing) without having learned</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
his language first.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
It would rather be a division between Continental West Germanic, including</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
German, and Insular West Germanic, including English.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
So I wonder whether we should stick to relations that existed maybe 1000</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
or more years ago to classify these languages, Reinhard.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Ingmar</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Reinhard:<br><br>
(I personally use "German" for the varieties other than "Low ...", and I<br>
think there is something to be said for the proposal to consider<br>
them "South<br>
Germanic" rather than considering them a group within West Germanic.)<br><br>
I agree that the Benrath Line is quite indistinct in the said area. The<br>
question is what criteria to use in distinguishing Low Franconian varieties<br>
from Ripuarian and other Central Franconian varieties. The labels "Dutch"<br>
and "German" ought not enter this discussion in my opinion.<br></div>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="3">From: R. F. Hahn <</font><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank"><font size="3">sassisch@yahoo.com</font></a><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="3"><br>
Subject: Projects<br><br>Ingmar,<br><br>Sure you can classify languages in several ways and at various points in time, taking into account also mutual influences.</font><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="3"> A
different approach might put English and French into one pot because of
strong mutual influences, never mind that they belong to different
sub-families.</font><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="3"> Later time layers, however, don't change the fact that there are longstanding relationships between the "Lowlands" languages that these days most people are not made aware of, and that's what we're about here. Furthermore, we're concerned about longstanding common cultural and identity traits and histories of interaction that are "typically" Lowlandic, while forums that paint with larger brushes include not only German but also the North Germanic sphere, as do you in constructing Middelsprake.<br>
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></font><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">A Dutchman can understand</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">
German without previous learning, so can a Low Saxon, </span><br></div><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="3"><br>I doubt the "without previously learning" part. Exposure is a type of learning situation, and people in the Netherlands and Northern Belgium are regularly exposed to German, alone through the media. Low Saxon speakers in Germany are of course brought up with German (as Scots speakers are brought up with English). However, it doesn't work like that the other way around. Most German speakers without Afrikaans, Dutch and Low Saxon exposure understand next to nothing when Afrikaans or Dutch are spoken, and the more resourceful among them will figure out a bit from written Afrikaans or Dutch. They understand a bit more of Low Saxon of Germany, but mostly because of Germanization, especially in highly Germanized varieties these days. They have a much harder time with authentically written and spoken Low Saxon. North Germans with some Low Saxon exposure understand Afrikaans and Dutch better, those with more exposure or knowledge understand a lot more and need just a bit of adjustment time to begin understanding spoken Afrikaans and Dutch. Common learning of English has facilitated much of this. It equips southern speakers of German for understanding otherwise incomprehensible basic Afrikaans, Dutch and Low Saxon words such as <i>later</i> ("later") and <i>redig</i> ("ready") in context. But then there are even greater multitudes of false friends that lead to misunderstanding of idiomatic expressions.<br>
<br>Ingmar, as you know, some people pick up other languages more easily than others. Much of it has to do with attitude, level of interest, and experience. For such people formal studies are not necessary to acquire listening and reading comprehension.</font><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="3"> You and
I obviously belong to that minority, for we are able to pick up
comprehension skills even across language group and family lines. </font><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="3"> I can understand Spanish (Castilian) well enough to follow Spanish language TV talk shows, but I've never had a formal Spanish lesson in my life. I had a few (bad) formal European Portuguese classes and lived in a "Portuguese street" (full of immigrants from Madeira) in Australia. This allowed me to "figure out" Castilian, Catalan and Galician with ease, and in the meantime exposure has provided me with at least some Spanish writing and speaking skills. Similarly, I have had two years of university-level Russian, and this allows me to "figure out" other Slavic languages. As I said, this has to do with my interest level and experience, which provide me with confidence. I am sure it's the same in your case. Furthermore, when I was a kid I started understanding English very quickly, more quickly than the rest of my class, and this was mostly because I immediately saw the connections with Low Saxon and adjusted my approach accordingly, whereas my classmates approached it from a purely German angle, aided by our teachers' lack of Low Saxon skills.<br>
<br>However, these "abilities" should not fool us into assuming that other people can do the same, for they can't. We should not be led to make generalizing statements on this basis. I have done informal tests with interested South Germans and Austrians (all of them with good English skills). They could only follow simple Low Saxon sentences if I pronounced them very, very slowly, and even then they frequently misunderstood something in them. When I did the same with Dutch, they understood less but got the general gist. And I'm only talking about simple sentences. I bet you you even would understand very little if someone spoke to you in authentic Bavarian German (in which I include non-Alemannic dialects of Austria and Northern Italy), less even in authentic Alemannic. They all agreed that they would have understood even less had they not had any knowledge of English. The average German has little exposure to Dutch and understands little Dutch, while the average Netherlander and North Belgian has a lot of exposure to German and understands a lot of German. However, there was one person among them that had a much easier time. According to what she told me, this was because she paid more attention to the English angle. Furthermore, she was the only one who had taken some basic linguistics classes, including an introductory phonology class in which sound shifts were covered fairly intensively. So this seems to have enhanced here analytical skills.<br>
<br>My point is that, when we talk about mutual comprehensibility we need to make a distinction between inherent and acquired features, and we must be aware that "learning" includes not only formal education but mere exposure as well.<br>
<br>Again: you can use different types of language typology and approaches. The one we use here is largely historically based, in great part because we deal with history and traditional culture as well. This as well as typology is a matter of approach.<br>
<br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br></font>