LL-L: "Etymology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 05.AUG.1999 (07)
Lowlands-L Administrator
sassisch at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 6 04:20:19 UTC 1999
=========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 05.AUG.1999 (05) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/~sassisch/rhahn/lowlands/>
User's Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
=========================================================================
A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic
=========================================================================
You have received this because your account has been subscribed upon
request. To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l"
as message text from the same account to
<listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or sign off at
<http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
=========================================================================
From: Muhammed Suleiman [suleiman at lineone.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Etymology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 05.AUG.1999 (06)
Interesting that Chambers Dictionary seems to give the more plausible
explanation of _gormless_/_gaumless_, while the etymologists at the Oxford
English Dictionary can only compare it with the Irish dialectal English word
_gom_ (which they derive from an Irish Gaelic word).
Many thanks to Ron and Jasmine for providing such plausible cognates, and to
Sandy and John for their instructive comments.
Regards,
M Suleiman
----------
From: Muhammed Suleiman [suleiman at lineone.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Etymology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 05.AUG.1999 (06)
Apologies for cross-posting, but I would like to transfer some elements from
a discussion we are having on another list to this list, since the
listmaster is the same, and the discussion seems more pertinent to Altaic
studies.
Ron pointed out :
> I have found exactly this type of realysis [ sc. hypercorrection of -r in
non-rhotic dialects ] to be common in Modern Uyghur (a
> Turkic language used mostly in Xinjiang [Eastern Turkestan], under Chinese
> administration). Most Uyghur dialects are non-rhotic much in the way many
South
> English, Australian or New England dialects are (which is unusual among
the
> Turkic languages), but most people switch to "formal" or "correct"
recitative
> rhotic mode (when they sing songs or recite poetry, or when they make very
> formal speeches). In that mode they tend to insert an /r/ even where
there
> ought to be no /r/, namely in instances of long vowels that occur rarely
> (usually in foreign-derived words). Also like the mentioned English
dialects,
> Uyghur inserts a final /r/ after a (foreign-derived) long or unusual final
> vowel, e.g., English _Afrika(r)orAsia_ or _law(r)andorder_, where _law_ is
> treated like _lore_. (Find a detailed description and analysis in Hahn,
R. F.,
> "Modern Uyghur y~r-insertion: nativization through analogical extension,"
_Acta
> linguistica hafniensia_ 24:77-96, 1991.)
I had never realised that the various dialects of Uyghur were non-rhotic,
and reading Ron's comments made me run for my Philologiae Turcica Fundamenta
to verify his statement.
In his treatment on 'Die eigentliche neuuigurischen Dialekte', Omeljan
Pritsak mentions that the language of Kashgar converts intervocalic -r-
to -zh-, while Uyghur speakers in Yarkend convert r (even initial r) to y.
(Though in the same dialect, Arabic initial r- is changed to zh-).
Further on in his treatment of the Phonology, he gives us more details."In
Jarkend und Lobnor geht r in jeder Position ... in y u"ber ", he also
provides us with a number of examples. "r in den Verbindungen
rg,rq,rk,rgh,rch,ry,rm,rp sowie intervokalisches und auslautendes r ... hat
in allen Dialekten eine starke Tendenz zum Schwund, wobei menistens
Ersatzdehnung entsteht." "Im Kash. kann im Inlaut r mit zh
wechseln....Dieser Wechsel ist schon bei KLAPROTH zu finden."
Now, what interests me is that even though the Sinkiang area interests me
immensely, and even though I have studies quite a number of Turkic
languages, my knowledge of 'spoken' Uyghur is limited almost exclusively to
a grammar and dictionary of 'Turki' written by Shaw in the last century.
Unfortunately I do not have Shaw's book at hand, but at the time I read it
very intensively and retranscribed most of the dictionary for my own
convenience, and I am almost one hundred per cent certain that he recorded
all the original r-sounds intact. Now J. von Klaproth, who mentioned some of
these phonological changes, predated Shaw by half a century or more, and his
informant was a single individual from Turfan, but the language recorded by
Shaw is very conservative.
Is this because Shaw records the literary standard at the time, and all his
informants were being especially careful with their diction? Or is it
because most of the changes in the r's had not yet taken place at the time
Shaw was a member of the Forsyth expedition to Ya'qub Beg? Klaproth only
actually took down 87 words from his informant, whereas Shaw has clearly
tried to take down as much information as possible.
Furthermore, it is interesting to draw a parallel between these changes and
the developments in modern Turkish. I have particularly noticed that the
inhabitants of Ankara have developed a hissing type of r which very quickly
progresses into a sibilant.I have heard this sound as [s] / [z]/ and [zh].
This pronunciation seems to have a certain cachet about it, and certainly
seems to be spreading into other regions of Turkey. Initial r-, however,
still seems intact.
Awiting your scholarly comments,
Regards,
Dr M Suleiman
----------
From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Etymology
Dear Muhammed,
Getting into details of Turkic phonology is outside the scope of this list,
unless there is direct relevance to a Lowlandic problem. So I will confine this
to a relatively brief reply to your posting above.
At the time the _PTF_ came out, there was hardly any contact between Western
scholars and Central Asian Turkic speakers, leave along Turkic speakers under
Chinese administration. There was only scanty information written aroud the
turn of the century, mostly by people with little linguistic training. Later
there was some Soviet research published on Uyghurs in Kazakhstan and in China,
but much of this lacked great depth as far as phonology is concerned, and it was
prior to the introduction of modern concepts. The information in the _PTF_ and
similar Western publications at that time was mostly based on this type of
Soviet research, certainly as far as the fareastern Turkic languages were
concerned. Even this source dried up with the Sino-Soviet split. Chinese
sources, even now, tend to omit important details, such as stress and vowel
length. Not only were many important details unknown, but Western scholars used
scanty information to arrive at faulty conclusions, such as saying that Salar
(used even farther east in China) is an "isolated dialect group of Uyghur."
This seems ridiculous now that we have direct access to the speakers. (Salar is
genealogically most closely related to Turkmen, thus belongs to an entirely
different branch represented much farther west.) The _PTF_ was a nice start but
ought to be taken with a hefty grain of salt. Since the reopening of China we
have discovered or further investigated interesting features in Uyghur, such as
vowel devoicing and r-assimilation, and we got this directly from native
speakers. (Previously, "r-deletion" had only been mentioned in passing, as in
your citation.) Some of this is reflected in later publications, most recently
in Johanson, L., & E. A. Csato, eds., _The Turkic Languages_, Routledge Language
Family Descriptions, 1998. It is a type of recent equivalent of the _PTF_, if
you will. Also some recent publications in the Uyghurlanguage itself deal with
these features.
Yes, the few native speaker informants available at the time apparently tended
to switch to "elevated" recitative phonology when being interviewed, as also
seen in the material recorded by Gunnar Jarring in the 1930s (e.g., sporadic
r-insertion). I had the same problem. I had to demand normal speech from
informants, and this embarrassed some of them. (They had assumed I wanted to
hear "good" language.") I had to rely mostly on listening to them speak amongst
themselves in normal mode, and linguists who are Uyghur speakers themselves
confirmed the findings. Recordings are now available and further confirm it.
What you read about /r/ ([r] ~ [j] etc.) pertains only to prevocalic (onset)
position. In coda position, /r/ assimilates to the preceding vowel, very much
like it does in Low Saxon (Low German) and non-rhotic English. It's what is
known as "non-rhotic" and erroneously as "r-deletion."
So, having returned safely to the Lowlands, elegantly as usual, let me mention
that I have found, far away in fareastern Central Asian Turkic varieties,
phonological processes that bear astonishing resemblance to those in Lowlands
languages and that are quite absent from Turkic varieties used elsewhere. The
behavior of /r/ is an example. For instance, it made it easier for me to
understand what might be going on with final /r/ insertion (e.g.,
"lawrando:der") in English.
Thanks for your forbearance, Lowlanders.
> Apologies for cross-posting, but I would like to transfer some elements from
> a discussion we are having on another list to this list, since the
> listmaster is the same, and the discussion seems more pertinent to Altaic
> studies.
But there are huge differences: I'm almost totally "silent" there, and that list
(AltaiNet) has been varyng between "sedate" and "off-the-topic," may well be on
its last leg. Lowlands-L is anything but "sedate," and "off-the-topic" ...
well, at least rarely so. It certainly doesn't seem moribund, does it?
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
----------
From: Muhammed Suleiman [suleiman at lineone.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Etymology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 05.AUG.1999 (06)
Dear Lowlanders,
There is a well-known and very charming Scots expression :
Lang may your lum reek !
which in itself could stand as a proof - were proof indeed needed - that
Scots has a right to be considered an independant language.
What the phrase means is 'May your chimney smoke for a long time!', in other
words, 'May you be prosperous!'
The word _reek_ meaning 'smoke' is a very repectable Lowland word [Dutch
rook ; Old Frisian reek ; Old Saxon rook (i.e. with long o)], and if I am
not mistaken I have even heard the word _reek_ in modern Frisian. What about
the word _lum_ (chimney) though?
Suggestions are made that this comes from French _lumie're_, or that it is
something to do with Latin _lumen_. I have serious doubts about both these
etymologies, and so I thought I would pass the matter over to the
Lowlanders' excellent team of etymologists.
Secondly, do any of the other Lowland languages have any similar idioms to
this?
Rehards,
Dr M Suleiman
---------
From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Etymology
Bün ick al wedder ... (Me again ...)
Muhammed, in Low Saxon (Low German) 'smoke' is /rouk/ _Rook_ or umlauted /röük/
_Röök_. In most dialects (at least in the North Saxon ones) these are not long
vowels but diphthongs (or triphthongs): [r(e)ouk] and [rœYk] ~ [rœIk] ~ [rOIk]
respectively, the verb being /röük-/ _röken_ ['rœYk=N] ~ ['rœIk=N] ~ ['rOIk=N]
. Another set for 'smoke' is the noun /smouk/ _Smook_ [sm(e)ouk] (pronounced
very much like _smoke_ in Southern England, Australia and New Zealand) and the
verb /smöük-/ _smöken_ ['smœYk=N] ~ ['smœIk=N] ~ ['smOIk=N].
I definitely can't find a Low Saxon cognate of _lum_.
Best regards,
Reinhard/Ron
==================================END======================================
* Please submit contributions to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
* Contributions will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
to be sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or at
<http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
* Please use only Plain Text format, not Rich Text (HTML) or any other
type of format, in your submissions
==========================================================================
More information about the LOWLANDS-L
mailing list