LL-L: "Shared features" LOWLANDS-L, 28.MAY.2001 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Criostoir O Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L: "Help needed" LOWLANDS-L, 27.MAY.2001 (01) [E]

A chairde,

Firstly, I am unsure of what heading to send this out
under; I am internding to stitch yet another thread of
theory into our discussions. There are a number of
linguistic relationships I would like to explore, that
I hope will be of interest to the list.

For a long time now, I have been attempting to come to
terms with the origin of various northern and Midland
variants of English - specifically my mother tongue,
Long Eaton English. With the patient help of
subscribers such as Stefan Israel, Marco, Colin Wilson
and many others, I seem to have uncovered links
between Nottingham English, Zeeuws, and Scots. The
link with Zeeuws was particularly startling, that of
Scots less so (considering that most mother tongues
north of the Wash are decidedly closer to Scots than
they are to "English"). I am also certain that Frisian
must be involved somewhere, from the evidence of
placenames. These links are of great historical
significance to Lowland languages as a group for they
represent links and continua that have been
academically ignored or simply overlooked (presumably
because of nationalisms).

The distinctiveness of Long Eaton English is most
apparent in a number of keywords, such as "senn" for
"self" (which Marco likened to Zeeuws "selven"),
phonology (which seems to contain a number of rare
sounds - some of which seem to be only paralleled in
certain variants of Swedish, including a special [u]
that is impossible for non-speakers to impersonate and
possibly a [q]) and syntax, including excessive
negation e.g., "I ent not nevuh dunn naat" (English,
"I ain't not never done nowt".

Recently I have wondering about one of these
idiosyncracies: "summut" [sum:@?] - English
"something". I have two theories: 1) it is derived
from an early local form of "somewhat"; or 2) it
represents a contraction of a presumably Norse form or
corruption of "something" that would have begun as
*someting [som'etin] or *sumating, progressively
losing the "-ing" suffix.

My question is this: do any other Lowland languages
have a form "summut" for English "something"? Does it
have its genesis in "somewhat" or a contraction of a
"something"? Does it have Anglo-Saxon precedents,
perhaps a Northumbrian form?

Thank you for your time and patience and I wish you
all a blessed and pleasant Spring and Summer.

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Críostóir.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Shared features

Críostóir,

You wrote:

> The distinctiveness of Long Eaton English is most
> apparent in a number of keywords, such as "senn" for
> "self" (which Marco likened to Zeeuws "selven")

It is also _selven_ ~ _sülven_ ~ _sülben_ ~ _sülm_ in the Northern Low
Saxon dialects.  Many of these dialects have a tendency toward changing
preconsonantal /l/ to a vowel or deleting it altogether, thus _sülm_ [zYIm]
or [zY.m].  (This characteristic continues in Missingsch, i.e., German
dialects with Low Saxon substrates; e.g., Hamburg Missingsch _Milch_ [meIC]
'milk', _selber_ ['zE.Iba] ~ _selbst_ [zE.Ibs] 'self'.)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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