LL-L: "Pronouns" LOWLANDS-L, 27.JUN.2001 (01) [E]

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From: SeonaidhC at aol.com
Subject: LL-L: "Pronouns" LOWLANDS-L, 26.JUN.2001 (01) [D/E]

Doesn't Irish have 'tu' and 'sibh'? Just as Scots Gaelic 'thu' and 'sibh', cf
'tu' and ''vous' in French?

Seon Caimbeul

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Pronouns"

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Pronouns
>
> (Does it also
> apply to Appalachian?)  I am writing "survive" within quotation marks
> because I am not sure if it is a case of true survival, though I
> suspect it
> may be in a few dialects.  My wife's paternal grandmother, who
> was born and
> raised in rural Alabama and was heavily involved in African American
> Baptist traditions (the "the Bible-thumping, stomping in the aisle,
> yelling, screaming and falling down" type), would address people with
> "thee" (yes, consistently, even where "thou" ought to be used).  I
> understand that the ministers would say "thee" also, and I wonder if they
> just wanted to sound "biblical."  I vaguely remember that in an
> American TV
> series -- "Ann of Green Gables"? -- the woman played by Tyne Daly (sp?)
> addresses everyone with "thee" also.

This is correct usage, Ron, and would be just as I'd expect for
the survival of the pronoun in American dialects, as much of
American English is derived from West Country ("Wessexian")
speech. Rogers gives the pronoun system for modern Wessexian as:

                         Subject      Subject      Object
                         statement    question

1st pers. sing.             I           I/us       I/us/me
2nd pers. sing.            thee        (thee)      thee/ee
3rd pers. sing. masc.      he/a        she/er      er/she
                fem.      she/er       she/er      er/she
                neut.   he/she/a/it    'n/er/it    'n/er

1st pers. plur.            we/us        we/us      we/us
2nd pers. plur.            you          ee         ee
3rd pers. plur.            they         em         em

The subject question form of "thee" is bracketed to indicate
that it's normally omitted from sentences, as in the
example from my last email in this thread.

There are rules determining which of the alternative forms
of the pronouns are used, involving such things as emphasis,
but they vary from region to region. It's a popular local
cliché to point out that a tomcat is always "she"!

Note that in the villages around where I currently live, "I"
is pronounced "Utch" [VtS] or [VdZ], cf German "Ich".

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
                          - C.W.Wade,
                    'The Adventures o McNab'
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From: Criostoir O Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L: "Pronouns" LOWLANDS-L, 26.JUN.2001 (01) [D/E]

Dear all,

Apologies for the slight lag in reply but I'm now
relocated to Australia.

All of this discussion has proved very interesting,
particularly the discussion of Lancashire variants.
I'm reminded of a Lancashire-speaker in Brendan
Behan's book "Borstal Boy" - Behan goes into quite a
depth to express the lad's vernacular. The only line I
recall off-hand is "(H)adst tha 'ad tha cuckoo [i.e.,
beating]?" - i.e., Hadst thou had thy cuckoo? What is
the reason that archaisms have survived in general
across the belt of northern England? Is it perhaps
becuase they derive from different forms of
Anglo-Saxon - e.g., Mercian, Northumbrian?

In addition to what Richard contributed, I would like
to point out that in the variant I speak, the first
person ("I") often becomes "us" when the agent is the
subject of an action: e.g., Gie yuss tha teer - Give
us that here - Give that to me (verb-subject-object vs
verb-object-subject); Yuh gunna gie yuss tha then? -
You going to give us that then? - Can I/May I have
that please? etc. Confusingly, "us" also means "our":
e.g., We yad tuh mind uss weyz za wokkin - We had to
mind us ways of working/walking - We had to watch
ourselves [and be careful] at work; Ee wo rup agen us
woll - He was up against us wall - He was leaning
against our wall.

Parenthetically, we also use forms such as yorn
(singular) for "yours" which I noticed is paralleled
in Appalachian.

Interestingly, when I was in Ireland I noticed an
occasional duplicate form of yous/y'all (plural): yous
all. E.g. Yous all are no good. (You're all no good).

And so on.

Richard also wrote:

> 2) There are some languages with no familiar vs
> polite pronoun of address:
> (i) Icelandic, (ii) Irish Gaelic, (iii) Low Saxon -
> these are all isolated,
> non-metropolitan, close-knit communities.

I can understand why Richard would make this
assertion, but there is a polite pronoun of address in
Irish - sibh, which is in fact the plural of "you".
I'm not entirelysure whether this is a relatively
modern innovation (e.g., dating from after 1600),
however.

Richard is entirely correct abouyt the close knit
communities remark, however.

Until next time,

Criostoir.

----------

From: Strunk at t-online.de (strunk)
Subject: LL-L: "Pronouns" LOWLANDS-L, 26.JUN.2001 (01) [D/E]

Hello,

Richard Dury wrote:
> 2) There are some languages with no familiar vs polite pronoun of address:
> (i) Icelandic, (ii) Irish Gaelic, (iii) Low Saxon - these are all isolated,
> non-metropolitan, close-knit communities. They are also geographically
> peripheral and look on the map like "relic" dialectal areas - which they
> obviously are, since the older European languages all seem to have been
> without this distinction (Classical Greek and Classical Latin, Old English
> etc.)

I don't think that it's correct to say that Low Saxon doesn't have
polite forms, even if we want to disregard the "German" polite form
"Sei". In Westphalian, at least, the polite forms are still
ji - ju (it - ink). (Of course there's no distinction in the plural then.)

Beste gröten,

Jan
strunk at t-online.de

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