LL-L "Language varieties" 2000.10.27 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 27.OCT.2001 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian 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: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Críostóir O Ciardha wrote:

 > I'm to reveal a shocking ignorance and idiocy on my part with regard Low
 > Saxon: I don't entirely know how different the language is from Dutch. So
 > far as I understand it - and my linguistic [in]aptitude has lapsed
greatly
 > since I relocated to Australia - Low Saxon is part of a "sprachbund" or
 > dialect-continuum with Dutch... isn't Dutch "ik" and "maken" also "ik and
 > "maken" in Low Saxon?
 >
 > I would very much appreciate a short core-vocabulary wordlist of
comparisons between Standard Dutch and the Low Saxon variants, if possible.
 >
 > Dank u (and apologies to Low Saxon),

Críostóir, I do not think you need to feel apologetic about this. While
there is plenty of information about Standard Dutch, information about
non-standard Dutch and about Low Saxon (Low German) is far harder to
come by, and much of it is not readily comprehensible to everyone
because it addresses the academic insider and tends to be written in
Dutch or German.

Dutch, along with Zeelandic and West Flemish, on the one hand and Low
Saxon on the other hand are indeed very closely related, as is
Afrikaans, which is derived primarily from Dutch. They belong to the
sub-group of languages commonly labeled "Low German." Dutch and the
others are primarily derived from Old Low Franconian, while Low Saxon is
primarily derived from Old Saxon. However, things are not quite as
simple as that, and there is no such thing as "pure descent." While you
may argue that there are Franconian and Saxon elements and features that
distinguish the two sub-sub-branches, their geographic proximity and
various types of historical power shifts have blurred the distinction.
Standard Dutch owes some features to Low Saxon influences, and the
westernmost Low Saxon dialects have been influenced by Dutch. Farther
east, in most of what is now Northern Germany, "High" German strongly
influenced the Low Saxon dialects once it usurped power there (and there
is some German influence on Dutch also). However, Low Saxon also exerted
some influence on the creation of the German Standard dialect, mostly
indirectly, by way of input from Northern German dialects that have Low
Saxon substrates.

When you ask, "How different are Dutch and Low Saxon from each other,"
you will receive all sorts of replies, depending on the perspective of
the person you ask. If you ask an English or German speaker who knows
the two languages somewhat, he or she will tell you that the two are
very similar. If you ask Low Saxon speakers from Northern Germany, the
replies will range from "very different" to "very similar." For one
thing, most North Germans are unfamiliar with Dutch spelling, which
makes Dutch *look* more different than it is (but in some regards it
also makes it look more similar than it is phonetically). Someone from
Northeastern Germany might find Dutch rather exotic, while someone who
lives near the Netherlands border (e.g., Eastern Friesland, Oldenburg,
Emsland and Western Westphalia) has more familiarity and understands
Dutch fairly easily, partly also because the local dialects *are* more
closely related to Dutch and have been influenced by it. A Low Saxon
speaker from the Netherlands has problem with the German-based spelling
east of the border and will find the eastern dialects of Low Saxon "very
German." At the same time, he or she, knowing both Dutch and Low Saxon,
is more acutely aware of the differences between the two language, even
though a speaker from Northern Germany may at first find it hard to
distinguish Dutch and far-western Low Saxon because the phonology of the
latter is more similar to that of Dutch. I am sure you would get all
sorts of answers from Dutch speakers, depending on familiarity and, with
regard to the dialects in Germany, on whether or not he or she knows
German (which would make the Low Saxon dialects of Germany much more
accessible).

Coming up with a fair and representative comparative Low Saxon and
Standard Dutch word list is difficult. Low Saxon has a great wealth of
dialectal differences, ranging from the Eastern Netherlands to the
German-Polish border, and formerly all the way up into
Kaliningrad/Königsberg, Russia, Mennonite Low Saxon ("Plautdietsch")
being the only survivor of the far eastern varieties. Thus, to be fair,
you would have to represent several dialects of the entire east-west
range, not only of Low Saxon but also of Dutch, and the list would have
to be fairly extensive. Anything short of that would, in my opinion, be
of little value.

Also, as you become rather more familiar with the two languages, you
will find plenty of _faux amis_, cognates that have taken separate roads
semantically. There are plenty of those between Dutch and German,
because of influences from Dutch and German respectively also between
Dutch and North German Low Saxon and between Netherlands Low Saxon and
North German Low Saxon. And then there are words like the following, a
cognate of English _town_ and Scots _toun_ that has taken different
semantic roads, and the difference does not coincide with the border
between Dutch and Low Saxon:

Dutch: tuin
Farwestern Low Saxon: Tuun ~ toen (same pronunciation [t(`)u:n])
'garden'

Other Low Saxon: Tuun ([t(`)u:n])
German: Zaun
'fence'

The borderline is blurry with regard to phonology also. The eastern
dialects of Low Saxon share some features with German, especially
aspiration of voiceless stops (like in most English dialects). Also,
these dialects are "non-rhotic," i.e., syllable-final /r/ is "deleted,"
i.e., is realized as a vowel (as in Australian, New Zealand, New England
and most Southern English dialects, _Karr_ 'car(t)' being pronounced
identically to _car_ in Australian and Cockney English: [k`a:], with a
"light" [a]). However, in some other regards, the phonology is quite
different from that of German dialects, especially with regard to vowels
and diphthongs. The farwestern dialects of Low Saxon share many
phonological features with Dutch dialects, e.g., /g/-fricativization,
non-aspiration of voiceless stops, and consistent pronunciation of /r/
(rhotic). Many people point to the "light" long /a/ in Dutch ([a:])
versus the "dark" (somewhat or fully rounded) long /a/ in Low Saxon
([Q:]) (and the long /a/ in Standard German is somewhere in between)),
which prompts many Low Saxon writers to use devices such as _ao_, _oa_
or _å(å)_ (e.g., (_maken_ ~) _maok(e)n_ ~ _moak(e)n_ ~ _måken_ vs Dutch
_maken_) to orthographically differentiate the Low Saxon sound from that
of Dutch and German, even though in most dialects this morpheme is
simply /aa/, and even though some non-standard Dutch and German dialects
have this phonetic realization also.

There are also syntactic and morphological features that predominate in
one language or the other, but there is no clear dividing line there
either. For instance, most (not all) Low Saxon have dropped the prefix
/ge-/ from past participles, while most (not all) Dutch dialects retain
it; e.g., _maakt_ vs Dutch _gemaakt_ 'made', 'done'.

The only area in which there is fairly reliable differentiation is that
of vowel shift; e.g., ...

Dutch = Low Saxon

/oeü/ = /uu/
tuin tuun 'garden, fence'
huis huus 'house'

/oeü/ = /üü/
duits = düütsch 'German'
lui = lüü(d(e)) 'folks'

/uu/ = /ou/
goed = goud (good) 'good'
bloem = bloum (bloom) 'flower'

/uu/ = /öü/ ~ /öi/ ~ /oi/
groen = gröin (gröön) ~ greun 'green'
zoet = zöit (sööt) ~ seut 'sweet'

/æi/ = /ii/
tijd = tied (Tiet) 'time'
wijzen = wiezen (wiesen) 'show'

/ei/ = /ii/
scheiden = schieden 'divide', 'divorce'
keil = kiel (Kiel) 'wedge'

/ii/ = /ei/
zien = zein (sehn) 'see'
lief = leif (leef) 'dear'

Also, most Low Saxon dialects have umlauting (like German), while most
Dutch and farwestern Low Saxon dialects do not; e.g., ...

Dutch = Low Saxon
kopen = köipen (köpen) ~ kopen 'buy'
bomen = böimen (Bööm) ~ bomen 'trees'
bladen = Blääd(e) ~ Blööd(e) 'leafs'
over = över ~ over 'over', 'above'

Finally (surely not), Dutch has changed the sequence /old/ to /oud/,
while Low Saxon has not; e.g., ...

Dutch = Low Saxon
oud = old 'old'
koud = kold 'cold'
goud = gold 'gold(en)'

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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