<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=====================================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 03 November 2010 - Volume 01<br>
<a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">lowlands.list@gmail.com</span></a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">http://lowlands-l.net/</span></a><br>
Posting: <a href="mailto:lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org</span></a><br>
Archive: <a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html</span></a><br>
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)<br>
Language Codes: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">lowlands-l.net/codes.php</span></a><br>
=====================================================</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: <span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Hellinckx Luc</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L
"Music"</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Beste Pat,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">You wrote:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">One of my funnest moments was in working with a girl from Liberia who
spoke Pidgin English and finding that the word for "who?" is
"whodat?" </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">While "whodat" has become famous b/c of the New Orleans
Saints football team, my mind back then went immediately to that great comedy
routine in the movies from the 40s (I think) where a Black character says,
"Who dat say who dat?"</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">In googling this I found, perusing 19 pages of google, nothing of
substance on this. Clearly, whodat must be the word for who in Gullah, the
English Creole spoken on the Sea Islands off Georgia
and South Carolina.
>From there, it must have slipped into African-American Vernacular English and
then into minstrelsey, vaudeville, and movies. From there, it moved into the
general circulation in WW II. Only the last is documented in anything I saw in
a search of google. I came up with the rest of this myself, so here is a case
of pidgin, again, contributing a common phrase to English, like top side and
look see, with little knowledge of its origin.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Numerous Southern Dutch
dialects have "wie da(t)" instead of "wie" (= who (E)). I
wouldn't rule out the possibility it may once have existed in English as
well. </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Example:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">A: "Harry Mulisch is
vorig weekend overleden"</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">B: "Wie-dat?"</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">The combination is not used
as a subject though, so it is:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">"Wie heeft er zoiets
gezegd?"</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">and not: "Wie-dat heeft
er zoiets gezegd?"</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Vernacular French uses
"Qui ça?" too, and Louisiana French has "Qui ça
dit?" for "What's up?".</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Same happens with
"how", which becomes "how that?", "hoe-da(t)?"</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Kind greetings,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">Luc Hellinckx,
Halle, Belgium</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=========================================================<br>
Send posting submissions to <a href="mailto:lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: none;">lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org</span></a>.<br>
Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.<br>
Send commands (including "signoff lowlands-l") to<br>
<a href="mailto:listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: none;">listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org</span></a>
or <a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: none;">lowlands.list@gmail.com</span></a><br>
<a href="http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: none;">http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html</span></a>.<br>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#%21/group.php?gid=118916521473498" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: none;">http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=118916521473498</span></a><br>
=========================================================</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>