LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 07.JAN.2001 (01) [D]

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  L O W L A N D S - L * 07.JAN.2001 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Language varieties

Criostoir wrote:
>only 55% of Frisians have managed to retain Frysk as their language.
Nonetheless a Dutch-speaking Frisian is a Frisian, totally.<

But how do you define this person by an argument which is not circular?

Ron wrote:
>As far as I am informed, the notion of ethnos existed before the notion of

nationhood as we now know it<
In Classical Greece Hellenic ethnicity was acknowledged, even though the
city-states were often at war with one another.

He also wrote:
> I personally do not believe in "race" (in the physical sense)<

I would be glad of an explanation of that.

Stefan wrote:
>You can see the difference by looking at Old and Middle English
dialects:  textbooks typically present a sanatized, normed
Middle English, but when you look at the dialects, ...<

Sweet's "First Middle English Primer" contains extracts from the "Ancren
Riwle" and "The Ormulum" in what is claimed to be the original spelling,
the
former in a dialect based on West Saxon and the latter in an East Midland
dialect, so neither sanitised nor normed. These are apparently the two
oldest substantial texts in ME, from about 1200. When I referred to Norman
French as the "prestige language" in England I did not mean to imply that
NF
words and grammar penetrated English. My understanding is that the result
of
the Conquest was that there was a hiatus in the use of OE in favour of NF
(and Latin) and when English reappears it does so as ME.

Stefan earlier wrote:
>I cant' find confirmation of whether OE [ae] was written <ae> from the
earliest times or not. <
It seemed to me that since the oldest texts (the runic ones) had a specific

way of writing "aesc" it was probable that this was carried over into ms
forms. I don't understand why Stefan should have responded
> runes were not involved in the text in question<
since there was no such text. Perhaps he just lost track of the discussion.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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

John, you responded:

> > I personally do not believe in "race" (in the physical sense)<
>
> I would be glad of an explanation of that.

I certainly appreciate your interest, as always.  However, this is not
entirely "scientifically" based but is tangled up with personal belief and
_Weltanschauung_, and it would probably end up in a terminological battle,
apart from being, in my opinion, an inappropriate discussion topic for this
particular forum.

Friendly regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language varieties

Mathieu van  wrote:

> I once read an article about Frisian history in a newspaper,
> because new
> archaeological discoveries were made. It is mostly about the
> history before
> the 8th century. I translated a part of the article
> (originally Dutch),
> maybe you’ll find it interesting.

Very interesting--  I would be interesting in reading more about
this archeology.  I did not find any leads on the web; does the
article mention where the research was published?

Stefan Israel
stefansfeder at yahoo.com

----------

From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Language varieties

Stefan wrote:

>Even in the 1200's, Wessex English and Frisian were still very
similar, and I hardly need mention the semi-intelligibility that
has remained into modern times. <

a) Is it possible to quantify "similarity"?
b) Is there any good academic research on the "mutual intelligibility"
question?

Regarding this last point, Stefan earlier wrote in reply to a point I had
made:
>Frisian did not change to become -more- like Middle English at all, it
became less and less like English with every passing century:  Frisian and
English had diverged from being identical circa 400 AD to being merely
similar by 1200.<

Since "-more-" did not make any sense I checked what I had written and
found:
> I therefore still find it difficult to see why Frisian ... should change
in
> such a way as to be similar to Middle English.<

It appears that, despite the improbability that I could possibly have meant

this, Stefan has interpreted "be" as "become". On the face of it he and I
speak the same language and in this case we are discussing a matter of
common interest in not-too-technical language. Yet an important
misunderstanding has occurred. (I have of course commented before on how
easy it is to be misunderstood when trying to communicate via e-mail.) You
may imagine that this does not reduce my scepticism about the alleged ease
of communication between people whose languages are described as "merely
similar".

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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