<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 19 October 2009 - Volume 05<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Sandy Fleming</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:sandy@fleimin.demon.co.uk">sandy@fleimin.demon.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.10.18 (02) [EN]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> Subject: Lexicon</span><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;">
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="im">> It is certainly not true to say that “basic,” “small” words are not<br>
> adopted from one language to another.<br>
<br>
</div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="im">> Are there opinions and information among you that might shed<br>
> additional light onto this?<br>
<br>
</div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I remember reading on this very list that "yes" in English is from the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Welsh "oes".</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;">
Could it even be that "yeah" and "yes" have different etymologies, from</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"ja" and "oes"?</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;">
For the Anglo-Saxon dialects of Britain I guess there's an interesting</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
study in the words for "yes":</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;">
"yes"</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"yeah"</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"ay" (Scotland and north of England)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"ah" (south west of England).</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;">
Is the use of "yah" in British English an affectation?</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;">
Where do such expressions as "mm-hm" and "uh-hu" come from?</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 wonder if basic words tend to get borrowed if they fill some sort of</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
logical vacuum in the language? Not all languages have simple words for</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
such seeming basics in English as "yes", "if" and "do". If a language</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
with a more tortuous, contextual or intonational way of expressing these</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
ideas comes into contact with such words, do they tend to get borrowed?</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;">
It seems to me that the word "if" evolved within English. Shakespeare</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
seems to have used "and" quite a lot where we would now use "if" (Burns</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
uses it when writing reported, as opposed to literary, Scots too), while</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"if" seems to have evolved from "given that" > "gif" > "if".</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;">
"If" is "os" in Welsh, I think, but it seems to me that the word isn't</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
actually used much in speech, while in Appalachian it seems to me that</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"if" is often omitted and the conditional implied by intonation or</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
rhythm. BSL also expresses "if" in the Appalachian way, although there</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
is a tendency to borrow the word as a fingerspelling from English or as</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
a sign from ASL (both of which I studiously resist :)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><br>
Sandy Fleming<br>
<a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a><br>
</font><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;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Subject: Lexicon</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;">Hi, Sandy! Interesting!</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 always assumed that "if" was a Germanic word, and the </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Oxford English Dictionary</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> seems to agree:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<p style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">[OE. </span><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ƽ</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">if </span></i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">(early
WS. rare </span><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ƽ</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ief</span></i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">),
late WS. </span><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ƽ</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">yf</span></i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
(Northumbr. rare </span><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ƽ</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ef</span></i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">),
corresp. (more or less) to OFris. <i>ief</i>, <i>gef</i>, <i>ef</i> (<i>jof</i>,
<i>of</i>), OS. <i>ef</i> (<i>of</i>) (MLG. <i>jof</i>, MDu. <i>jof</i>, <i>of</i>,
Du. <i>of</i>) ‘if’, OHG. <i>ibu</i> (<i>oba</i>, <i>ubi</i>), MHG. <i>obe</i>,
<i>ob</i>, Ger.
<i>ob</i> ‘whether, if’, ON. <i>ef</i> ‘if’, Goth. <i>ibai</i> ‘whether, lest’,
<i>jabai</i> ‘if, even if, although’. The phonetic relations of the various
forms. and their OTeut. type or types, have not been satisfactorily determined.
By many considered to represent one or more cases of the n. represented by OHG.
<i>iba</i> str. f., ‘condition, stipulation, doubt’, ON. <i>if</i>, <i>ef</i>
neut., <i>ifi</i>, <i>efi</i> wk. masc., ‘doubt, hesitation’ (whence <i>ifa</i>,
<i>efa</i> vb. ‘to doubt’, Sw. <i>jäf</i> ‘exception, challenge’, <i>jäfva</i>
‘to make an exception against, to challenge’), the conj. thus meaning
originally ‘on condition’, ‘on the stipulation (that)’; but it has not been
certainly determined whether the conj. is thus derived from the n., or the n.
founded on the conj. A notable point in ME. is the development of the northern
form GIF, q.v.] </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Modern Low Saxon has </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">of</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, in some dialects </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">ob</i><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;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In German and Low Saxon you can use it in the sense of for instance "I don't know </span><b style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">if</b><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> this is enough." You can not use it in the sense of for instance "I'll get sick </span><b style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">if</b><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I eat hazelnuts," in which case you'd use </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">wenn</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> (or </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">falls</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> in elevated German).</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;">Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Seattle, USA</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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