LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 11.AUG.2000 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Historical linguistics

Roger asked:

>Would you consider the J of Jim as two consonants or as a single one? In my
little English dictionary one writes indeed dz ...<

I would think one consonant but two phonemes. What sort of English
dictionary is this (size apart)? In monolingual English dictionaries
produced in English-speaking countries it is sufficient to give the phonetic
transcription "j" because that's how we normally pronounce the letter.

"Jim" is an interesting example because of the Jeanne Moreau/Oskar Werner
film "Jules et Jim" - the first "J" is [zh] and the second [dzh]. The point
is made explicitly in the dialogue.

A lot of Spanish speakers pronounce "you" as if it were "Jew", which sounds
very odd. Presumably they assimilate the foreign sound to the emphatic form
of the (semi-) consonant in their own language rather than the non-emphatic
form. In the Cono Sur, however, the normal pronunciation of "y" seems to be
[zh], so presumably people from there would tend to use that pronunciation
in English. Is that hypothesis correct?

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: Henry Pijffers [hpijffers at home.nl]
Subject: LL-L: "Historical linguistics" LOWLANDS-L, 09.AUG.2000 (01) [E]

>> > 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.
>
>Henry, what region do you come from?  Coastal NL?
>That could easily be traces of earlier Frisian; west
>of the Zuider Zee, in the Saxon dialects, that could
>be traces of the original Old Saxon.  If you're from
>an inland Frankish area--  I don't believe there's
>much evidence for a > ae for Old Dutch, but even then,
>some parts of Old Dutch territory could have borrowed
>this innovation some 15 centuries ago.
>
Sorry I was a bit unclear. My dialect is a SAXON dialect, not a Dutch one.
I live in Twente (Overijssel), only a few miles from the German border.
There we still use the brightening of the a, amongst some other features
with could directly stem from Old Saxon.

grouten,
Henry

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

John Feather said about the sax-/saxum/sahs root:

> Well, the root may mean "rock, stone" but according
> to Chambers Etymological
> Dictionary - if I understand it correctly - the
> sense "cutting device" had
> developed long before the Romans recorded the
> Saxones. CED does not make the
> connexion with L. "saxum".

I could not argue with you that the sense of cutting
must have been pre-Roman: I don't know when stone
blades completely dropped out of use in northern
Europe, but surely a millenium or more before Roman
times.  The transference of meaning has to go back at
least to the end of the Neolithic period.

Check various etymological dictionaries, you'll find
the connection in at least some.
You'll also find that the etymological dictionaries
disagree on many words: some etymologies are very
secure, others are highly debatable, and few
dictionaries indicate which are which.
The Saxon/saxum root has a moderately straightforward
etymology, though its case would be stronger if more
languages showed this root.

Stefan Israel
stefansfeder at yahoo.com

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Historical linguistics

John Feather wrote:

> A lot of Spanish speakers pronounce "you" as if it were "Jew", which > sounds
> very odd. Presumably they assimilate the foreign sound to the emphatic > form
> of the (semi-) consonant in their own language rather than the > non-emphatic
> form. In the Cono Sur, however, the normal pronunciation of "y" seems to > be
> [zh], so presumably people from there would tend to use that > pronunciation
> in English. Is that hypothesis correct?

John, the pronunciation of Spanish _y_ (and _ll_) is all over the place,
especially in the Americas.  I've heard Latin Americans pronounce _y_ as [j]
(as in 'you'), [C] (as in German _Chemie_), [Z] (as in 'azure'), [dZ] (as in
'Jew') and [S] (as in 'shoe'), or more like [s'] (as in Polish _siarki_).  The
[dZ] (or [dz']) pronunciation is quite frequent, and this would explain why
you encountered many Spanish speakers who pronounce English _y_ as what you
hear as _j_.

At least this is my theory.

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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