<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 15 October 2009 - Volume 01<br></font><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font color="#999999"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a><br>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: Brooks, Mark <</font><a href="mailto:mark.brooks@twc.state.tx.us"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">mark.brooks@twc.state.tx.us</font></a><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.14 (04) [EN]</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Ron:<br> <br>I think we could say then that generally languages in contact tend to simplify. However, clearly something else operates as well. It just doesn’t seem satisfying to me to say that each language presents its own case, and that we don’t know from one situation to the next which course it will take. I would prefer to believe that although we may not know at present, we have some good ideas.<br>
 <br>So, my ideas go like this: 1) language contact in itself can cause simplification, 2) power or prestige inequality can influence which language simplifies, but 3) neither of those alone or together can completely explain all situations. What else might operate in these cases?<br>
 <br>Mark Brooks</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <</font><a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</font></a><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.14 (04) [EN]</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> From: R. F. Hahn <</font><a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">sassisch@yahoo.com</font></a><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">><br>
> Subject: Language varieties<br>> Again, could there have been other factors that we haven't looked at?<br>Â <br>Couldn't we not just add:<br>- ordinary dialectal diversification after settlement, <br>- followed by a standardization 100 to 500 yrs later, <br>
leading to "solving developped differences" by "simplification"?<br>Â <br>In West-Limburgish we have dialectal differences with some patterns:<br>- a gradual transition from Low-German to Middle German elements<br>
- some Romance influence, especially in the South: "de venster" (feminin, as la fénètre) versus "het venster" in Dutch.<br>- a move to some standardization (modernization, mainly adopting Dutch and Brabantish elements) tendency spreading from within the major market towns (as e.g. Hasselt).<br>
 <br>followed by pressure towards some kind of Standard Belgian Dutch ("opte letter" = as one writes; "gowd vlams" = Good Flemish, should be understood "Good Brabantish") leading to regiolects<br>
but with loss of tonality, with loss of quite some cases with Umlaut, <br>and finally with loss of masc/fem distinction for objects when evolving to std Dutch<br>Â <br>Add to that "migration" (within the slightly diversified language area), especially strong during thre religious wars.<br>
 <br>Regards,<br>Roger</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: Paul Finlow-Bates <</font><a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</font></a><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.14 (04) [EN]</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">From: R. F. Hahn <</font><a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">sassisch@yahoo.com</font></a><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">></font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">Subject: Language varieties</font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">..Look at the Eskimo-Aleut languages! Their long-standing contacts with Danish, English, French and Russian seem to have led to no grammatical simplification.</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">Regards,</font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">Reinhard/Ron</font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" color="#000099">Seattle, USA</font></div></blockquote>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Possibly because the Danish, English, French and Russian speakers by and large made little or no attempt to communicate with the Eskimo-Aleut speakers in their own languages; there was thus little or no cross-fertilisation. If the latter wanted to speak the new-comers, they had to learn the new language. There was no need for them to simplify the grammar of their own speech, since they only used it with people who understood the "proper" version anyway.</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Such immigrants as did have an interest in the native languages learned it for just that reason: they wanted to learn about the language and culture of the people, so learning a simplified or modified form would have defeated the object, they wanted the "real thing".</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The advent of the colonial people and their technology probably led to the meeting of different native languages, but even this would not have encouraged simplification: if the other language was similar enough to understand, they just spoke their own language; if it wasn't, it was easier to speak English or Russian or whatever.</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Paul</font></div></div></div></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: </font><a href="mailto:clarkedavid8@aol.com"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">clarkedavid8@aol.com</font></a></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.14 (04) [EN</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">I dont think the Normans ever left Britain. They slowly dissolved. It is interesting that the Normans had themselves presumably spoken Norse, not French, a couple of generations before they came to England.<br>
 <br>David Clarke</font></div>
<div><br><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: R. F. Hahn <</font><a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">sassisch@yahoo.com</font></a><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">><br>
Subject: Language varieties<br>Â <br>Â people adopted Norman as their first language and English was perceived as being endangered around the time the Normans left Britain,. </font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: R. F. Hahn <</font><a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">sassisch@yahoo.com</font></a><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">><br>
Subject: Language varieties<br><br>Excellent, point, David!<br><br>You can tell by the many "English" surnames of Norman origin. So, Norman and Normanized English adoption of the English language must have contributed to the development.</font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></font>Â </div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Normans in what are now France and the Channel Islands probably started off with a Romance language on a Norse substratum, and this Romance language came with a Celtic substratum. Add to this sporadic Saxon influx on the Norman coast.</font></div>
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<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron</font></div>
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Seattle, USA<br></font></div></div>
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