LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 06.DEC.1999 (07) [E]

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language varieties

Earlier today I wrote in fresponse to the "news" that some farwestern Low Saxon
(Low German) dialects have two kinds of long /aa/, namely a more or less rounded
and an unrounded one:

> So, should we ever manage to introduce a language-wide uniform orthographic
> system (which is highly doubtful considering prevailing attitudes, especially
in
> Germany) we would have to come up with a way of representing the difference
> between the two kinds of long /a/.  I could see this done by, for example,
using
> _å_ or _â_ to represent the more or less rounded one and the unrounded one
using
> _a_.  In that case, in some dialects (A) you would write _laat_, _water_,
> _schååp_ and _nåber_ ~ _nåver_, and in others (B) you'd write _lååt_, _wåter_,

> _schååp_ and _nåber_ ~ _nåver_.   Of course, in the case of B it would be
> redundant to write _å_ because *all* long (not lengthened) /aa/s are more or
> less rounded, but it might be necessary for inter-dialectal communication,
also
> considering that writers in Germany keep clinging to German models and want to

> distinguish Low Saxon (Low German) long /aa/ from German long /aa/.
Lengthening
> by rule ought not be represented orthographically.  It would be redundant.

Let me add to this the non-diacritic orthographic option of _ao_ for the rounded
vowel.  This digraph device is already being used in some of the farwestern
dialects, including the Westphalian ones on the German side of the border.  I
don't think that representing it by means of _oa_, as in some dialects on the
Netherlands side, is such a good idea, mostly because some dialects (e.g.,
Plautdietsch) use _oa_ to represent the diphthong /oa/, and there are dialects
with similar diphthongs (e.g., _uo_ ~ _ua_ in Westphalian) for which it could be
mistaken.

Earlier I had written about short /a/ lengthened by rule:

> In the dialects east of the
> border, long /aa/ is pronounced as a somewhat to fully rounded low back vowel,

> while short /a/ lengthened by a directly following liquid or nasal consonant
> is only half or fully lengthened without changing other features (e.g., _al_
> [?a.L], _wardt_ [va:t] -- usually with a considerable degree of nasalization
> before nasals, hence _an_ [?ã.n], _Damp_ [dã.mp]; cf. German _an_ [?an],
> _Dampf_ [dampf]), in most dialects also by a glide (e.g., /ai/ _Ei_ [?a.I],
> _blau_ [bla.U]; cf. German _Ei_ [?aI], _blau_ [blaU]), thus sounding rather
> similar to long /aa/ in Standard Netherlands Dutch.  The difference in
> articulation between underlyingly long /aa/ and lengthened short /a/ is great
> in Low Saxon.  In the spelling of the Low Saxon dialects of the Netherlands
> this lengthening tends to be represented orthographically (e.g., _laand_,
> _gaank_), while in Germany this tends not to be done (e.g., _Land_ [lã.nt],
> _Gang_ [gã.Nk]).

I have noticed a fair degree of nasalization by some speakers also where a short
/a/ is lengthened by a non-nasal segment, especially by /r/ (which results in
full or extra lengthening due to r-vocalization: /ar/ -> a.r -> a.a -> [a:] ~
[a:.] ), e.g., _harr_ [hã:(.)] 'had', _wardt_ [vã:(.)t] 'becomes'.  These
dialects have a decidedly nasal "twang" to them.  The speakers of it that I know
(who are/were elderly and in their formative years had had a more nurturing Low
Saxon environment with somewhat less German pressure on them than had speakers
that were born later) tend to carry/carried this nasalization feature over to
their pronunciation of German.

Finally, in response to Roger's point:

> 2. The __m__ to __b_ shift.
>
> from a limerick in "bilisium", december 1999 (in Limburgian from Bilzen):
>      ...zègge ve èn 't goed milzers nau "be-" ofwaol "me-"sjiete?
> I'm not quoting the whole limerick, since it contains intential errors, for
> "milzers" read "bilzers".
>
> But fact is:
>     "__beschuiten__" in Dutch becomes, im my Limburgian version
> "__mesjuute__"

Roger, 'rusk (bread)' (_Zwieback_ in German) is also _Ma(a)schüüt_ ~ Moschüüt_
(plural _Ma(a)schüten_ ~ _Moschüten_) in North Saxon of Germany.  In some
dialects, and in _De Hamborger Veermaster_, the well-known Low Saxon sea chantey
with an English chorus, it is _Beschüüt_ (plural _Beschüten_) in reference to
'ships' biscuit'.  So, this b > m in this particular word may be some type of
areal feature.  Obviously, it all goes back to French _biscuit_.

Best regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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