LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.04.25 (01) [E/LS]

Thu Apr 25 14:54:37 UTC 2002

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 25.APR.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: "Browne, Kevin at Astronaut" <BrowneK at brevard.k12.fl.us>
Subject: orthography

Hello Lowlanders,

Erek Gass wrote:
Thus, the North American "dialects" and the English
"dialects" of the English language are mutually understandable (yes,
pronunciations can make it difficult, but certainl;y not impossible with
patience).

Although that is true for the most part, any Englishmen or American can
tell you that we don't understand each other all of the time and
sometimes would probably end up sounding like the two on the boat
(Iceland/Faroese).

Sometimes when an Englishmen is speaking very quickly and uses words
like:
fag, jacket potato, pissed, etc. I can "lose" them. It's not only in the
way we spell words like neighbour/neighbor, etc. The idioms quite
frequently are different. So, do I speak American or do I speak an
American dialect of English? Just curious.

Kevin Browne

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From: Edwin Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.04.24 (07) [E/LS]

At 09:13 PM 04/24/02 -0700, Pamela Wnuck wrote:

  I am a new subscriber hoping to find information regarding a portion
of
  the Bible written in a language that is unknown to me. If anyone can
  offer me any clues to which language this is I would greatly
appreciate
  it. Thank You.

  Dee Aunfank fonn daut Evanjeelium fonn Jesus Christus. Em Profeet
Jesaja
  steitet jeschraewe: "Kijkj! ekj woa mien Enjel fer die feropp schekje,
  dee die daen Wajch reed moake woat; ne Stem dee enne Wiltnes schriehe
  woat: 'Moakt daem Herr sien Wajch reed, moakt sien Stich jlikj".
  Jehaun kjeem en deed enne Wiltnes taufe, en praedjd ne Taufe to Buesse
  fa de Sinde fejaewunk.

Obviously Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low Saxon).  It's the opening of
Mark's Gospel, but not J.J. Neufeld's translation,
which starts:
Daut Evangelium dän Gottes Sän funk soo aun:  Em Profeeten Jesaja steit
soo jeschräwen:  "Ekj woa mienen Enjel
feropp schekjen dän Wajch fa die reedtomuoken.  Ne Stem dee enne Wiltnes
lud schriehen woat:  Muokt dän Harn een
Wajch reed!  Muokt am een jlikjen Stich!"  Doaropp kjeem Jehaun enne
Wiltnes en prädjd daut see sikj sullen
bekjearen en deepen loten, daut an die Sinden fejäft worden.

Ed Alexander
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
BRUCE TRAIL 500 KM FUNDRAISER: http://www.deerhurst.com/fundraiser

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From: "Reuben Epp" <repp at silk.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.04.24 (07) [E/LS]

Pamela Wnuck wrote:
Subject: Mystery language
>
> I am a new subscriber hoping to find information regarding a portion of
> the Bible written in a language that is unknown to me. If anyone can
> offer me any clues to which language this is I would greatly appreciate
> it. Thank You.
>
> Dee Aunfank fonn daut Evanjeelium fonn Jesus Christus. Em Profeet Jesaja
> steitet jeschraewe: "Kijkj! ekj woa mien Enjel fer die feropp schekje,
> dee die daen Wajch reed moake woat; ne Stem dee enne Wiltnes schriehe
> woat: 'Moakt daem Herr sien Wajch reed, moakt sien Stich jlikj".
> Jehaun kjeem en deed enne Wiltnes taufe, en praedjd ne Taufe to Buesse
> fa de Sinde fejaewunk.
>
Dear Pamela and Lowlanders,

The Bible portion provided by Pamela is clearly in the
dialect known as Plautdietsch or Mennonite Low
German/Low Saxon. I have not yet identified the
portion quoted, but am certain of its lingual identity.

It is NOT a quote from Daut Niehe Tastament
translated by J.J. Neufeld and published in 1987,
but by some other writer, from a work not yet
identified.

Reuben Epp

----------

From: Ole Stig Andersen <osa at olestig.dk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.04.24 (04) [E]

I don't think it makes much sense to try to decide whether a certain
language form intrinsically constitutes a dialect or not. At least I did
not
intend to have everybody go "Aha, Soenderjysk (Ethnologue's "Jutish")
verily
is only a dialect, not a lg".

I merely wanted to point out the fact that the purpose of a taxonomy
heavily
influences the resulting inventory (Ethnologue 6.800 lgs, Ruhlen 4.774
lgs
in the world), and specifically that the Ethnologuers' lust for a large
list
of lgs lead to at least very questionable designations combined with
unbelievably sloppy detail as far as Denmark is concerned. I also wanted
to
point out that taxonomies are not politically neutral.

Instead of understanding the distinction lg/dialect as an either-or
(obviously with nice / not nice connotations attached) I find it rather
more
useful to see it as a relation, a function of the grouping of lgs.

The marvelous productivity of the structuralist paradigm in the past
century
was due to the fact that it allowed science to study ANY language form
on
its own, in principle without making use of any knowledge one might have
of
other tongues. Thus even the lg of a single individual can - and should
in
principle - be studied as an independent lg system. In the strictest
sense,
each of us speaks a different lg. This is of course practically
untenable
and linguists of course DO use information from other lgs.

The problem arises when we group the lgs. Such a grouping is by
necessity
hierarchical (and probably thereby metaphorically implying some value
ladder, maybe akin to animacy). In this case a lg lower in the hierarchy
can
be considered a dialect of the lg (group) higher up in the hierarchy. So
Bornholmsk is a language that is also a dialect of Danish, and Danish is
a
lg that is also a dialect of Scandinivian, a language that is also a
dialect
of Nordic, a lg that is a dialect of Germanic, etc up the ladder.

(This kind of relativity poor old Plato could never come to grips with.
How
can the number 3 at the same time be *smaller* than 4 and *larger* than
2?
Isn't there a self contradiction here? he wondered.)

So to return to the (always political) question of deciding whether a
speech
form in a given context constitutes a lg or a dialect, I will suggest
yet
another taxonomy which I have found particularly useful in my line of
work
(teaching languages to adults) and which certainly involves the Lowlands
lgs.

(As Ron points out Danish is not a Lowlands language, but a very large
part
of its vocabulary, maybe as much as a third, is of Plattysk origin.)

I consider all the Germanic lgs dialects of one lg, and in fact I
consider
them all to be dialects of Danish. (This is not to satisfy my chauvinist
feelings, but because my students are competent or seek competence in
Danish. I would certainly be just as happy if Danish was for similar
purposes considered a dialect of German or Scots.)

This turn of the taxonomic tables is not just an intellectual game, nor
a
pedagogical startler only, it has drastic practical consequences for
students' acquisition of other Germanic lgs.

Most students that are to learn a "new" lg generally expect to start
from
scratch on an almost impossibly tedious and protracted venture. By
presupposition you start with zero competence. You can expect nothing,
for
"what do I know?"

If otoh the lg you are to learn is presented to you as a dialect, a
variant
of your own lg, you start by presupposition with very high competence.
You
can expect a lot, for the new lg is more or less like your own.

Teaching materials in these two purely ideological settings are
radically
different.

The Scandinavian experience is elucidating here. English and German are
taught in school as if the students didn't already know the core of
these
two lgs simply by virtue of their great similarity to Danish, instead
starting from scratch, more or less. Other West Germanic lgs are not
taught
at all. In fact, except for Dutch it is only known to a few aficionados
that
they exist at all. But with Norwegian and Swedish it is different. They
could easily be construed as different lgs, and indeed often are, but
they
are not taught in school from scratch. If taught at all, they are
subsumed
under Danish and taught as someting so close to Danish, that they are
not
really different lgs. They are also not taught to speak, only to
understand.

This is not only so for "inherent intelligibility"-reasons. It is the
result
of a cultural-political movement, "Scandinavianism", that swept the
countries at the same time as public schools were building national
identity
by trying to eradicate and debase dialects.

And the inherent intelligibilty is not at all so clear-cut as officially
postulated in all three countries. Especially Swedes have difficulties
understanding spoken Danish, and many Swedes laugh if you claim that
they
can understand Danish. (In fact Scandinavian lgs are currently suffering
a
loss of linguistic domain, sinece the proficiency in English is becoming
so
high now that Danes and Swedes to a rising degree choose to communicate
in
English, since they are better at that than at understanding each others
lg.

Inherent intelligibility is not a unproblematic lingusitisc concept. It
also depends on society's ideology and learner's attitude and exposure.

You need basically to learn (whether consciously or unconsciously) two
skills of flexibility to turn words of your own lg into the target lg.

1) some basic rules of pronunciation/spelling, e.g. you turn Danish
words
beginning with [sk-] into German by substituting with [sch-] or into
Dutch
by substituting with [sx-]. Though this procedure sometimes yields
mistakes, it allows one to make a reasonable guess at a German word,
often correctly

2) preparedness for shifts in meaning. e. g the word "queen" which means
"female king" in English, "girl" in Scots ( I hope!) and "woman" in
Scandinavian.

This approach allows the student to get some working knowledge of of any
other Germanic lg fast, and were it not for the practical purposes
people
gennerally have in selecting the lgs the want to or must learn, you
could
learn several (or even them all) at the same time. After all, they are
not
THAT different.

I think I have followed the Lowlands-list right from the start with only
one
longer unsubscribing period. Here I enjoy the opportunity to read texts
about things that interest me, in "rare" lgs like Scots and Dutch, and
now
and then even in other Lowlands lgs, thus steadily reinforcing my firm
conviction that all of them are kinds of Danish, somewhat wrongly
spelled
and pronunced, I agree, and with some funny uses of the words, but after
all
flowers in the very same language garden I was given by birth. And like
Kevin Browne I love the sound of Dutch.

> From: "Browne, Kevin at Astronaut" <BrowneK at brevard.k12.fl.us>

> language, to me, is also
> a beautiful art form and whether one calls a language a language or
> a dialect, I will always enjoy hearing the sounds of those other
> languages/dialects. (in het bijzonder Nederlands)

And I agree wholeheartedly with Edwin Alexander, who wrote

> From: Edwin Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>

> Speaking for myself, but possibly for many others, I would prefer that
> you wrote in "Dutch", perhaps giving an English
> translation after.  While I cannot write fluently in any other Lowlands
> language but English, during my participation in this
> List, I have learned to read fairly fluently "Dutch", Plautdietsch, Low
> Saxon, Scots, and other target languages.

So have I, and I would like to congratulate Ron with his immense seven
years
work for the good of the Lowlands siblings of my mother tongue ;-) Thank
you.

Ole Stig Andersen
http://www.olestig.dk

A dictionary PS:

The distinction lg/dialect lies differently in Scandinavian (and German,
I
think) than in English, like the famous differences in the partition of
the
colour spectrum.
The colonial domain of English makes a distiction between written and
unwritten and between official and local/vernacular lgs. This difference
often spills over into faulty Danish translation. A typical news item
like
"Besides Hindi and a dozen other languages, a large number of dialects
are
spoken in India" makes perfect sense in (my) English, but not in Danish,
though such sentences are normally translated directly, i. e. wrongly.
In
Danish, a dialect has to be linguistically reasonable. You could not
call
Greenlandic or Faroese dialects just because of their political inferior
status.

I guess that our discussion also reveals that we have different
subconscious
associations attached to the words, depending on our mother tongue.

Ole

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Ole,

I find your theoretical framework (as outlined above) very interesting
and thought-provoking.

The "problem" would be where to decide to draw the line.  Would then not
only what in conventional taxonomy are now considered language families
qualify as "languages," such as Indo-European, Altaic, Uralic, Semitic,
Bantu, Na-Dene, Athabascan, Sino-Tibetan and Khoi-San?  In less
conventional, "macro"-models there would be only a handful of
"languages," such as Nostratic (connecting Indo-European, Altaic,
Uralic, Semitic and Bantu), and in Proto-World and other such "radical"
models there would be only one language in the world, the rest being
dialects of it.

> (As Ron points out Danish is not a Lowlands language, but a very large
> part of its vocabulary, maybe as much as a third, is of Plattysk
> origin.)

I have heard far larger percentages mentioned, probably including
calques (loan translations).

Ole, your longstanding membership and participation in Lowlands-L are
certainly appreciated.

And welcome to someone who joined us from Southern California (Laguna
Niguel) this morning, with the same question that Pamela Wnuck asked
(answers to which you can find above).  Might this be a class assignment
they have in common?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.:
Ole:
> 2) preparedness for shifts in meaning. e. g the word "queen" which
> means "female king" in English, "girl" in Scots ( I hope!) and "woman"
> in Scandinavian.

Not to forget 'young, nubile cow' in Low Saxon (Low German)! :)

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