LL-L: "Kinship" LOWLANDS-L, 08.APR.2001 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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  L O W L A N D S - L * 08.APR.2001 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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  A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
  LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic, Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: "Kinship"

Críostóir was overmodest:

> Stefan is probably better versed than I on the
> historical sociolinguistics of my region

Oh no- what I've learned of English linguistics peters out in
the 1200's!  I'm happy if I can be of some mild help for later
English.  Beyond that, I am mostly stuck with considering what's
more and what's less likely, given the general trends of
historical linguistics.

> so far as I can ascertain it was (to keep the subject to
> Germanic languages) firstly Mercian (which I think is
> a variety of Anglo-Saxon but I'm unsure)

Just so- southern Old English was considered Saxon (Wessex,
Sussex etc.) by the Anglo-Saxons, plus putative Jutish in Kent;
the rest of England was considered Anglian, and Mercia was one
of the major subdivisions of Old English Anglian.  I highly
doubt that the settlement patterns were ever so clear-cut; even
the Anglo-Saxons were interpreting migrations that had happened
hundreds of years earlier.  But Mercian, regardless of what
varieties it came from, was one of the main OE dialects.

> As I think Marco pointed
> out, however, Long Eaton English (the particular form
> I speak) shares a cognate with Zeeuws (L.E.E. "senn"
> [self] and "selven"); the area has long been a trading
> terminus and its low midland location and orientation
> toward the North Sea (and presumably out to Zeeland,
> Denmark and the Netherlands proper) means that it has
> undoubtedly absorbed many "continental" terms,
> probably from merchants (although I can't for the life
> of me understand how a bourgeois professional language
> could spawn loan-words of such a fundamental sort
> [i.e., self] with a proletarian counterpart).

Well, bear in mind that merchant ships are sailed not just by a
few merchants but by the laboring crew.  It's not surprise that
nautical words like "boom", "deck" etc. were borrowed around
among Lowland languages, but it would be surprising for such a
basic word as "self" to jump languages.
The Zeeuws and Long Eaton English "senn" could be a chance
resemblance, of course, or maybe both varieties reinforced the
other's initially independent tendency.  Maybe maybe some
logbook etc. from a sailor etc. from the relevant centuries is
still preserved in some archive and could give us some hard
facts, but probably we're stuck without direct evidence and left
to arguing competing probabilities.

I like hard evidence, but that doesn't make informed speculation
any less interesting.
I hope this was of some help.

Christoir, you also raised the point about Frisian migration (I
don't know any specifics about that): what more specifically
were you wondering about their possible influence: "senn"
specifically, or other things?

Stefan Jsrael

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