<div style="text-align: center;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 14 November 2008 - Volume 04<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">-------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">If viewing this in a web browser, please click on</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page </span><br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.</span><br>
===========================================<br></div><br><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Crhahn%5CLocal%20Settings%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:SimSun;
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;
mso-font-alt:宋体;
mso-font-charset:134;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@SimSun";
panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1;
mso-font-charset:134;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 135135232 16 0 262145 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:SimSun;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Beste Mike,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">You wrote:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><span style="word-spacing: 0px;">Luc, when you say Frankish, do you include the Lower
Frankish languages such as Dutch?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Definitely.
I can't describe the situation any better myself than in the
Wikipedia-article: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A4nkische_Dialekte" target="_blank">http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fränkische_Dialekte</a> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Roughly
speaking, Frankish is spoken all along the axis Nürnberg - Köln - Rotterdam.<br style="">
<br style="">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">(Whatever
your answer, you might want to kill me for having asked so naively.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Naah...that's
not me. By the way, I usually find naïveté quite charming. Especially if you're
female, that is *s*.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><span style="word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Singapur, o, o: I
had the priviledge of observing this in close-up. Since decades the
Chinese-dominated government is forcing (sic!) Chinese (not Indians, not Malay
speakers, not Europeans) to switch to Mandarin which in my view amounts to
genocide, as the immigrants from the North belong to very divers ethnic,
linguistic, cultural groups ("Chinese" is just a generic term such as
"European". It's the unifying force of the Chinese writing system
which creates misunderstendings).</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Speaking of
Chinese, the Wikipedia-article mentions a structural similarity between
Afrikaans and Chinese:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="NL">Net soos Engels, wat in die
Middeleeue onder 'n vergelykbare proses van taalversteuring deurgeloop
het, toon Afrikaans in struktureel-grammatikale opsig tans meer ooreenkomste
met isolerende tale soos Sjinees as met sy sustertale in die Indo-Europese
taalfamilie: Die grammatikale veranderinge het in albei tale daartoe gelei dat
woorde in 'n sin grotendeels onveranderd bly en woordvolgorde 'n baie
belangrike rol begin speel het.</span></p>
<p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="NL"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Just for
fun, what about the following poem then, written by Jupp Pasch in his native
Low-Rhenish dialect. Read aloud, and you will notice the phonetic resemblance
with Mandarin-Chinese:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Schäng
möt den Honk jing,<br>
dän haat en lang Ling<br>
on, wä dän Honk kang,<br>
woar vüer die Täng bang.<br>
<br>
Woa Schäng nou langjing,<br>
en Restaurang sting.<br>
Schäng haat suovüel Bronk,<br>
dat hä sech Bier dronk<br>
on an deThek stung,<br>
doabee jenn Eng fong.<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;" lang="DE">Schäng laat na Huus jing.<br>
Dän Honk möt die lang Ling<br>
für Schäng de Wäeg fong.<br>
Schäng laut en Le-id song.<br>
<br>
Höersch hän ent Huus jing,<br>
stung doa sin Frau Tring.<br>
Tring ene Jronk fong,<br>
dat se möt Schäng schong.<br>
<br>
Schäng, da sin Aal kang,<br>
woar vüer die Tring bang.<br>
Tring wi-es üehr schärp Täng,<br>
Schäng woard de Kroog eng,<br>
hä jar jenn Wöert fong,<br>
Schäng haat en schwoar Tong.<br>
<br>
Ävvel die streng Tring<br>
ördlich op Jonk jing:<br>
dat hä wie ne Schlonk dronk,<br>
sin Fahn uut de Monk stonk,<br>
dat se dat ärg föng,<br>
kört se ehm aanböng.<br>
<br>
Dän Honk möt die lang Täng<br>
hi-el möt dän Heär Schäng,<br>
ri-et sech von sin Ling<br>
on bi-et die streng Tring,<br>
dat et üehr wi-ehding.<br>
<br>
Jau se en Eng fong,<br>
neht miehr möt Schäng schong.<br>
Dän Honk deiht: dou aal Tang<br>
on jing en sin Wäschmang.<br>
China, ek jlöiv jlott,<br>
kallt ook mar os Plott.<br>
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.0866in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Translation
can be found at <a href="http://www6.dw-world.de/de/dialekt.php" target="_blank">http://www6.dw-world.de/de/dialekt.php</a> under
"Niederrheinisch".</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="word-spacing: 0px;">Perhaps we have
overlooked still one aspect in this controversy "überdachen or not"
(what would be a good English term for<em><span style="font-family: Arial;">überdachen</span></em>?).</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">to coordinate?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><span style="word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Ron's home is </span>Lower Saxony<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"> which had to put up with more or less
centralistic Frankish-speaking governments for most of the time during the last
12 centuries (since Verden AD 782). Luc's home is (I may be mistaken?)
Vaanderen, which largely escaped such fate to this day.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Not quite.
Technically speaking, I do live in Vlaanderen as the city of Halle is today part of "het Vlaams
Gewest", but that's just a political judgment. Moreover, in the light of
eternity, a fairly recent one *s*. My native dialect/language is Brabantish,
which does not constitute a subgroup of Flemish. Confusion arose due to French,
in which "le Flamand" was a term mistakenly used for every patois
spoken north of the linguistic divide. This mistake perpetuated itself
globally.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Kind
greetings,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Luc
Hellinckx</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">----------<br>
<br>
From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Language varieties<br>
<br>
I have some information about Frankish varieties here:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
<a href="http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/nederlands-info.php">http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/nederlands-info.php</a> <br>
<a href="http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/limburgs-info.php">http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/limburgs-info.php</a> <br>
<a href="http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/kleverlands-info.php">http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/kleverlands-info.php</a><br>
<a href="http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/ripoaresch-info.php">http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/ripoaresch-info.php</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Thanks for
the poem, Luc. Indeed, the widespread Rhenish tendency toward rendering /-nd/
as /-ng/ (also in some Limburgish dialects, in some eastern Brabantish ones as well
I believe) is remarkable. It makes you wonder what caused it. My so-far
unfounded hypothesis is that /-nd/ first developed into nasalization (e.g., …and
> …ã, as in French) and, perhaps caused by immigration from other
Germanic-speaking communities, the nasalized vowel later acquired a following
/-ng/ (…ã > …ang). (This is how German and Scandinavian speakers tend to pronounce nasalized vowels in French words (e.g. <i>restorang</i>).<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Reinhard/Ron</span></p>
<br>