LL-L: "Shared features" LOWLANDS-L, 31.MAY.2001 (01) [E]

Lowlands-L sassisch at yahoo.com
Thu May 31 14:32:55 UTC 2001 

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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
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From: Stefan Israel <stefansfeder at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L: "Shared features" LOWLANDS-L, 28.MAY.2001

Criostoir queried:

> Whilst my
> understanding of the historical spread of continental
> Lowland languages is at best derisable and at worst
> blatant fiction, is it fatuous or absurd to postulate
> a link between proto-Low Saxon (I apologise for
> lacking the precise term) and proto-Anglo-Frisian? Did
> they not share a similar locale?

Proto-Low Saxon and proto-Anglo-Frisian would pretty much have
been one and the same:  Old English and Old Saxon were still
very similar past 800 AD; the differences circa 500 AD would
have been less, and probably minor before, say, 300 AD--  I'm
basing that on reconstruction; we don't have direct evidence
going back that far.
Old Dutch was quite similar to those languages, though distinct
enough to be classified separately from the Ingveonic/North Sea
Germanic/Anglo-Frisian-Low Saxon group.  Orrin Robinson's Old
English and its Closest Relatives gives a very handy intro to
the topic.


> What other vocabulary might Low Saxon, Zeeuws and northern
> English/Scots variants share?

In their earliest recorded form, most of their vocabulary, and
gradually less as the languages keep diverging- pick up the
various dictionaries, or just any text, and see how much you
recognize right off the bat.

Stefan Jsrael
 ----------
From: Stefan Israel <stefansfeder at yahoo.com>
Subject: Subject: LL-L: "Language contacts"

Criostoir asked:

> I would also be very interested to discover to what
> extent English dialect divisions are shared by
> Frisian. I realise I may be veering off on a tangent
> somewhat (as I am wont to do), but are there parallel
> divisions? To clarify, were there dialect divisions
> in, say, proto-Anglo-Frisian that created - or
> perpetuated - the divide between any variants within
> English (there is usually a north-south divide
> mentioned in English)?

Old English and Old Frisian hadn't had all that much time to
diverge by their first attestation; trying to distinguish
between dialects is probably more than we can manage with
linguistic reconstruction.
One thing does occur to me- Kentish dialect shares some
Continental features:

1.) /s/ and /f/ (and I suppose /T/) become voiced before vowels,
thus "sing" would come out _zing_, and Kentish has given the
standard language the form _vat_ (cf. German _Fass_) and _vixen_
(cf. German _Füchsin_).

2.) _y_ (u-umlaut) unrounded to _e_ [e] in Kentish and Frisian
(Dutch didn't umlaut, and High German dialects unrounded it to
_i_)

Fri _bregge_
OldEng _brycg_
Eng _bridge_
Ger  _Brücke_ (often pronounced [brIk@]

Those are the two features that I can recall right off- since
Old English didn't unround _y_ until the 900's or so AD, _y_ to
_e_ is a clear example of later language contact.  Since the
earliest Frisian records start around 1200, we don't have
evidence for whether Frisian copied Kentish or vice-versa.

Stefan

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From: Stefan Israel <stefansfeder at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L: "Language contacts"

Georg Deutsch asks:

> >Was Kaiser Karl einst sprach, soll wieder hoffähig werden.
> >Mundartbeitskreis "Os Platt" gegründet.[...]
>
> What allows us to assume that 'Charlesmagne' used this as
> vernacular?

His friend and biographer Einhard tells us that he spoke
"Thiudisca", which applied to any of the Continental Germanic
languages (Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, ch.XXV). Since
Charlemagne came from the Aachen/Aken region, he would have
spoken a variety close to Old Dutch.  Of course, what he spoke
was one of the sources both of standard Dutch and for the
dialects of the area.  It was not Old Saxon, which had
(somewhat) different grammar, vocabulary and phonology.
He spoke (medieval) Latin fluently and "he could understand
Greek better than he could speak it", but he never learned to
read.

> I always believed that we are not able to say anything about
> the parole of Charles the Great,

Einhard does tell us some specifics, but not as specific as we
might like- did he speak Church Latin or Old French or both?
Did he speak Rhine Franconian or Old Dutch or some supraregional
variety of Franconian, given how rulers in those days moved
about constantly?

Actually- I'm not finding anything in Einhard that confirms that
Charlemagne was born in the Aachen region, but I believe that's
correct.

Stefan Israel

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

Stefan wrote (above):

> Fri _bregge_
> OldEng _brycg_
> Eng _bridge_
> Ger  _Brücke_ (often pronounced [brIk@]

Modern Low Saxon (Low German):
_Brügge_ ['brYge] ~ ['brYg@] ~ ['brYC@] ~ ['brYx@]
_Brügg_ (~ _Brüch_) [brYC] (pl. _Brüggen_ ['brYg=N])

Thus very similar to Old English.

In certain Eastern Low Saxon dialects, certainly in the now mostly extinct
fareastern ones, there is unrounding as in Modern English (most likely due to
West Slavic substrates); cf. Mennonite Low Saxon (Plautdietsch):

_Brigj_ (pl. _Brigje_)

About Charlemagne:

> Of course, what he spoke
> was one of the sources both of standard Dutch and for the
> dialects of the area.  It was not Old Saxon, which had
> (somewhat) different grammar, vocabulary and phonology.

Yeah, it wasn't as though he was all chummy with the "heathen Saxons."  Anyone
descended from or sympathizing with Saxons who has half a brain knows that he
wasn't anywhere near the benevolent uniting hero French, German and Dutch
textbooks want to make him out to be (but I suppose the fact that he shoved
Monarchy and Christianity down their throats makes things right), nor was he
interested in Saxon language and culture.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: parsleyij at yahoo.com
Subject: LL-L: "Shared features" (was "Language contacts") LOWLANDS-L,
30.MAY.2001 (02) [E]

Cristoir,

'Geordie' (henceforth 'Northumbrian' as Geordie
strictly speaking applies only to the speech inside
the boundaries of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne) is
derived from the most northerly dialect of Anglo-Saxon
(sometimes known as 'Old English').

Anglo-Saxon is divided into four clearly distinct
dialects. The northern dialect was spoken in the area
north of the Humber ('North Humber-ian') to the Forth
(modern-day Edinburgh), except on the west coast where
a P-Celtic dialect prevailed. As it happened the
Anglo-Scottish border was placed almost directly in
the middle of this zone (Edinburgh is about 50 miles
north of the border and Newcastle 60 miles south). The
variety of Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon spoken north of
this border became Middle and Modern Scots, and the
variety spoken south of it became modern Northumbrian
(often called 'Geordie').

It is obvious to anybody who types 'Northumbrian
dialect' or 'Geordie dialect' into a search engine
that distinct dialect words (ie distinct from Standard
English) in Northumbrian are almost always shared with
Scots (tho' with some semantic differences). In
Newcastle we have 'Two Ball Lonnen', in Ulster you
will have seen roadnames with 'Loanen': there is a
'Redheugh Bridge' ('heuch' is a common Scots
geographical term): roadnames often have an initial
'The' not found elsewhere in England ('The West Road',
'The Scotswood Road'). Phrases such as 'gan(g) canny'
or 'canny lass' and the use of 'div' as a modal are
typical Scots but also very (possibly, in these cases,
more) common in Northumbria. When I studied there my
knowledge of Scots gave me a marked advantage
understanding the locals.

Typical differences include most obviously the
pronounciation of 'town', 'around' etc, with a similar
sound to Scots (except, interestingly, right along the
border where there seems to be an element of
deliberate English differentiation). Some unusual past
forms (not always shared with Modern Scots) include
'tret' (treated), 'forgetten' and 'putten'. There is
also the first person plural objective pronoun form
'wuh' (as in 'You beat wuh fair and square'), with
'us' preferred for the singular. Such forms are often
(tho' not always) shared with Scots (and thus with use
in Ulster), but are seldom if at all found elsewhere
in England.

It is important to get away from the idea of dialects
and languages having a single origin. Northumbrian is
*not* 'Old Norse', but it does contain more typically
Scandinavian elements than most other English
dialects. This is most notable in the glottalization
of medial consonants (the local pronunciation of
'Newcastle', for example), it is notable that 'pepper'
is pronounced almost exactly as it is in modern
Standard Danish. These glottal pronunciations are
indeed sometimes, tho' not always, reminiscent of
pronunciation in Ulster, most probably via the
Scots/Northumbrian link (remember it is not impossible
for a pronunciation to have been shared across the
Scots/Northumbrian area and then lost solely in
Scotland or in some parts of Scotland - making this
link between Ulster and NE England less obvious: Co
Tyrone linguist Loretto Todd often misses this
possibility in her work).

Hope that helps,

=====
------------------
Ian James Parsley
www.geocities.com/parsleyij
+44 (0)77 2095 1736
JOY - "Jesus, Others, You"

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From: fr.andreas at juno.com
Subject: LL-L: "Shared features" (was "Language contacts") LOWLANDS-L,
30.MAY.2001 (02) [E]

Hey.

Ian wrote:
"Allegedly 'summut' is indeed a contraction of 'somewhat' - cf German
'etWAS'.

Well, I've no idea. But there is the word "someaught" in Appalachian,
meaning "something."
     "They was twenty-someaughten 'em"/"There were twenty-something of
them." but also "Gin they was someaught A cuid do fer yuins A'd be mighty
proud." which could be just as easily said "Gin they was aught A cuid do fer
yuins A'd be mighty proud." The first of which means "If there were something
I could do for you it would make me happy." and the second of which "If there
were anything I could do for you, etc."

Yorn/Yours,
+Fr Andreas Richard Turner.

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