LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 08.AUG.2000 (01) [E/Walloon]

Tue Aug 8 14:37:07 UTC 2000

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From: Roger Thijs [roger.thijs at village.uunet.be]
Subject: LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 07.AUG.2000 (01) [E]

At 10:19 7-8-2000 -0700, you wrote:

 >>>From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: Historical linguistics<<<<

Thanks Stefan for your extensive comments.

 >>>>>   > - occurrence of initial consonant dzj
  In Germanic words, or only in loanwords from French
etc.?<<<<<<<

Dzj is pronounced as d + zj, zj standing for the j in the French as in e.g.
Jean, Janvier

In walloon the spelling for the same sound is Dj (without the z)

I have been checking in some Limburgish literature, and not all write the
initial d in their spelling. It's not a real full d but rather an
"explosion" initiating the zj.

Jos Ghijsen writes DZJ in his books in Hasselt dialect,
cf. his book: "Rappleer dzj' oech nog?" (Herinner jij je nog), 1981,
Standaard Boekhandel, Hasselt.

Dzje is used as personal pronoun 2 person, singular + plural and
corresponds grammatically to the Brabantish "gij":

below: all forms are singular (the plural form is used for singular in
Brabantish):
West Limburgish:        dzji-e zit
Central Limburgish:     de/dich bis(t)
Dutch:          jij/je bent
Brabantish:             ga(i) zaa(i)t

It's obviously occuring also in words loaned from the Romance side of the
border, cf. the names:
Limburgish / Dutch
Dzjang / Jan
Dzjef / Jef
Dzjan (unnazalised, in French it would be written Jeanne) / Johanna

In wallon it is written dj,
cf. the magazine "Djåzans Walon" (Let's speak Walloon) from Liège.
They also have "TCH" e.g. for Tchantchès, the mascot puppet of Liège.
Quoting from the summer issue:

Li minme djoû, c'esteût co fièsse, la qu'lès facteûrs ènnè profitît po
r'mète a Tchantchès on bê costume di pus: li novê costume dès facteûrs po
l'an 2000. Et on pout dîre qui nosse Tchantchès årè stu l'prumîr a l'poleûr
pwèrter.

You all did understand Tchantchès will be the first to get the new
postman's suit.

Cf. pwèrter (French: porter): the r is kept here, but the w slipped before
the vowel.

Referring to the discussion about standardization of orthography:
The walloons from the Liège area organized a competition, and the best
proposal was accepted and published as a special issue:
Jules Feller, Essai d'orthographe wallonne
Prix: Médaille d'Or
of the magazine:
Bulletin de la Société liégeoise de littérature wallonne,
Tome XLI - Fasc. I
1901, Liège, Imprimerie H. Vaillant-Carmanne
xvii + 237 pp.

I found my copy in a second hand book shop.
Most walloons are following this orthography, certainly all walloons from
the Liège area.

In this book p. 59:

"... Voilà, semble-t-il, assez d'exemples pour montrer qu'il est nécessaire
d'avoir un _ch_, _j_ fricatifs à côté d'un _tch_, _dj_ explosifs..."

Regards,
Roger

r.thijs at ieee.org

----------

From: Roger Thijs [roger.thijs at village.uunet.be]
Subject: LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 07.AUG.2000 (01) [E]

In my last message, please read:
You all did understand Tchantchès was the first to get the new postman's suit.
for
You all did understand Tchantchès will be the first to get the new
postman's suit.

Regards,
Roger
r.thijs at ieee.org

----------

From: Henry Pijffers [hpijffers at home.nl]
Subject: LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 07.AUG.2000 (01) [E]

... wrote a very interesting message about historical linguistics.
But I have a few questions about it:

>Celtic.  Examples:  Saxones from _sahs_ "short-sword",
>thus "The Swordmen".
>
I have heared otherwise, that "sax" meant "stone knife". Of course
if a knife becomes long enough, it might as well be a short
sword, so maybe this is debatable? Notice I wrote "heared",
because I'm not sure whether the source was accurate or not.

>I've never seen a definitive answer to how much
>Germanic presence there was in Belgia of 50BC.  Gaul
>was Celtic, but along the Rhine there seems to have
>been heavy intermixing.
How 'bout the Batavians? Weren't they present in the lower-Rhine
area (roughly Dutch and Belgian Brabant) around that time?
Presumedly "put there" by the the Romans, as a shield against
other invading Germanic "barbarians". This could be of a
somewhat later date though.

>   = no brightening of a to ae/e:  dat vs. Old Frisian
>thet and Old English thaet.  Old Saxon brightened a,
>but soon restored it to [a] under High German (and
>Frankish/Dutch?) influence.
>
Are you sure about that? Because in my dialect we still brighten it
to "daet" / "det". Untill a few centuries ago, my area has largely
been a swamp area I believe, with only one treadable path and
also bordered by a river which could only be waded through in
one spot, so there was hardly any migration or influence.

grooten,
Henry

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