LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.12.30 (01) [E]

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From: rossmay <rossmay at bellsouth.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.12.29 (01) [E]

Madam Gabrielle wrote the following in response to my saying that I am proud
of my ancestors:

"Now, this is a concept I have great difficulties with, since, on the few
occasions where I am truly "proud" of a person or a people on the whole,
this is about their very own general achievements and (peaceful) attitudes.
Even if they happen to be related to me, I don't see how that would make me
feel like I'm a better person by proxy. Everybody is responsible for their
own actions, and if perhaps I had a great-grandfather who was considered a
hero, that would be something for him to be proud of, not me. As a
biologist, I fail to see how glory could be passed on genetically."

          I can understand why this concept would be difficult for some to
understand, and one has my deepest sympathy.  Perhaps it is genetic, but as
a biologist, you would be obligated to say that attitudes cannot be handed
down through generations. As a philosopher, I would say that it can and has.
To look with pride upon one's own personal accomplishments is gross
pretentionsness. But the pride of a people is something greater than self.
However, Robert Frost, the American poet, said it best:

                            " Nothing to look backward with pride, and
nothing to look forward to with hope" (in "Home Burial")

          I would feel empty if I couldn't look backwards to the
accomplishments of others with pride, nor foward to the accomplishments of a
nation with hope.

           Proud I remain, and with pride I look forward.  That is why one
defends his heritage to the last drop of blood.  The Scots had it, and thank
God they did.   They didn't get that pride "by proxy".

            But then, again,  that is why some nations  can never rise above
their own passiveness.  They are satisfied with mediocrity, and lack that
indefinable feeling called, for lack of a better name, "pride".  If you
can't conceive it, you can't really understand it.

           Harlan Ross May
            Gulfport, Mississippi, USA

----------

From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.12.29 (01) [E]

I wrote:

> Germany, for example, is a country which features many local
> language varieties, and people from other areas often think they're
> exposed
> to the local "dialect" (forgive me, Ron, if I simplify here, but that's
> how
> they see it) when all they hear is what the locals consider High German,

Ron replied:

> I don't understand why you needed to apologize to me, since what you said
> applies, quite factually, to "people" (which I understand as implying "in
> general," and which may or may not include you but apparently is meant to
> exclude me).

No, of course not, please don't feel excluded. I merely apologized for the
use of the word "dialect" which got me in serious trouble before. I just
meant that that's the word most people would choose, be it correct or not.

I suppose that one strong influence which helped to label Lower Saxon as
"cute", or "a funny little dialect" is the famous Ohnsorg-Theater in
Hamburg. Their plays are often broadcast on TV, and they are always
comedies. Also, they are performed in "Missingsch", a watered-down version
of Lower Saxon which can easily be understood by any High German speaker,
leading them to believe that this is truly "Platt".

Also, of course, poems written in Platt are often humorous (just think of
Fritz Reuter and Wilhelm Busch), giving a further impression of "cute".

Speaking of Wilhelm Busch - I have translated some of his poems into English
and hope to do more some day. For a sample, have a look at
http://www.rivertext.com/busch.shtml.

Gabriele Kahn

---------

From: Stella en Henno <stellahenno at hetnet.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.12.29 (01) [E]

> From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleemin.fsnet.co.uk>
> Subject: "Frisians"
>
> Lowlanders,
>
> Some time ago a question was raised on the list: Why is the English
> language so like Frisian, when Frisian presence in Britain seems to
> have gone unrecorded?

This has a simple explanation: the Anglo-Saxon tribes came from the
mainland, where they were neighbours of the Frisians. In fact, many
authorities believe some Frisians went along with them when these tribes
migrated from the mainland, as they might have passed through Frisian
territory. And afterwards, the Frisians kept contact with the Germanic
tribes in England due to their extensive trading with Great Brittain (and
Scandinavia).
Even before the migration, the Germanic tribes (Frisians, Saxons and Angles,
mostly) along the North Sea coast (and what is now called "Waadsee" in WF,
or "Wattensee" (I believe) in G.) developed some common traits that
separated them from the other tribes. It is these traits that are known as
"Ingvaeonic" :
well-known ones are palatalisation phenomena, like k > ts, g > j (before or
after front vowels),
a>  e, â > ê; and monophtongisation of old ai and au (in more contexts than
eg in Old Franconian and Old German), loss of n/m before the fricatives th,s
and f, and morhological ones as losing the 3rd/4th case distinction in
pronouns, plus a tendency for so-called h-pronouns (like he/him, Old-Frisian
hia/hiu etc.), plus some typical words or words in typical meanings (like
key(E)/kaai(WF)  vs. sleutel (D))
The mainland tribes took these traits with them, and they were preserved in
their relative isolation, while some of the tribes they still traded with
still had them, so this must have also worked well for keeping these
features. In the time of Old-English, Old-Frisian was probably (together
with "conservative" (i.e. Ingvaeonic, in this case) Old-Saxon) the easiest
Germanic variety to understand. The Frisians are later converted to
Christianity by missionaries speaking Old-English in some variety...

> I was recently thinking about the Venerable Bede, and while I'm
> mostly ignorant about his life, I do remember that there's a certain
> mystery about where his name came from. As I recall, the only
> other known "Beda" was named on a stone column listing members
> of a Frisian regiment that came over to help hold back the Picts
> (or something - like I said, this is not my subject).
>
> Is it possible that Bede himself was of Frisian descent? Bede was
> the first person to translate the Bible into a form of English. Is it
> possible that Bede's translation was strongly influenced by Frisian
> and that subsequent English writings were strongly influenced by
> Bede's translation?
>
Mm, I think names do not say much here. The old Germanic tribes basically
had the same names in small variations in those days. So the fact that it is
found in Frisian sources shows it was a Germanic name, and could have
appeared in other tongues as well. And Beda/Bede has little to show for
being typically Ingvaeonic, unless it derives from *Bada, of course, but
then Old-english would have spelled it "ae" not "e", in most writing
traditions (not Kentish, I believe).  No, Frisian and Saxon varieties were
close from the start, and preserved that (which for Frisian was quite an
achievement; Saxon lost most of its typical Ingvaeonic features, while
preserving some of them, like monophtongisation and words like "fi^f" and
"us" (for "uns", but I believe only in some dialects, not all), and also
some of the morphological features (which are more deeply embedded in
grammar and harder to get rid of, see Town Frisian and other mixed
languages).

> (Actually, a certain member of the family is looking over my shoulder
> and strongly objecting to some of the assertions I'm making here,
> but anyway, though this isn't something I know much about, I thought
> it might be worthwhile to put the subject up for discussion amongst
> the more knowledgeable!)
>
> Sandy
> http://scotstext.org/

Henno Brandsma

----------

From: Colin Wilson <lcwilson at btinternet.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.12.29 (01) [E]

At 22:57 29/12/02, Harlan Ross May wrote:

>Ron asked when the Gaelic tongue was banned or outlawed.  Between 1695 and
>about 1725, after the Jacobite uprising was put down by the English
>Government and the Clans loyal to England, it was outlawed and all schools
>that were erected thereafter sought to erase the tongue, and succeeded in
>most parts of Scotland except the highlands controlled by the MacDonalds,
>who were at times almost a country unto themselves.

It's common knowledge that, for a very long time, Gaelic and its
speakers were oppressed and discriminated against.

However, the words "banned" and "outlawed" imply more than that -
they imply that merely using (speaking or writing) Gaelic was actually
a *criminal act*, for which one could be tried in court and sentenced
if found guilty.

May we please have a reference to the statute that brought about this
situation, and its year?

Colin Wilson.

----------

From: Daniel Prohaska <daniel at ryan-prohaska.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.12.29 (01) [E]

Sandy Fleming wrote:
>>Some time ago a question was raised on the list: Why is the English
language so like Frisian, when Frisian presence in Britain seems to
have gone unrecorded?
I was recently thinking about the Venerable Bede, and while I'm
mostly ignorant about his life, I do remember that there's a certain
mystery about where his name came from. As I recall, the only
other known "Beda" was named on a stone column listing members
of a Frisian regiment that came over to help hold back the Picts
(or something - like I said, this is not my subject).
Is it possible that Bede himself was of Frisian descent? <<

Lowena dhys, Sandy,

Interesting theory. And why would a family member of yours object to
it???
A Professor at Uni years ago asked in a lecture who the Germanic peoples
were who settled in Britain ca.AD 450 and the Angles and Saxons and
Jutes were recalled instantly. But then he asked who knew of another
Germanic tribe most probably involved, but hardly mentioned, and cocky
little me said "The Frisians". So there does seem to be a general
agreement on the fact that the Frisians were involved in the settlement.
Several placenames also point to this, however they are not numerous.
Also judging from place names we can see that it is quite impossible to
locate specific areas certain tribes came from. There is correlation to
a certain extent but looking at the map one can see that place names and
their formatives are found throughout northern and surprisingly enough,
western central Germany, the Netherlands and north western Belgium.
Jutland is not even represented too much, but this can be owing to the
fact that Jutish names may have been replaced by later Danish settlers.

So it is difficult to believe that Frisians were not involved in the
settlement.

My own theory is, (well it`s not my own, but I`ve read similar theories
along the same lines, and sort of picked the best bits out) that the
number three had some sort of significance in
Germanic/Christian/mediaeval history, so three tribes on three ships is
something that sounds great in a mediaeval history account. Many of
these accounts though factual in their base, cannot be taken at face
value. I would say there were many more tribes involved in the
settlement - even Swabians for example, who lived futher north around
400, so some went to Britain and others went to South-Western Germany
and took their respactive place-names with them.

It is quite possible that Bede was of Frisian descent, but was he aware
of it himself? I don`t think ethnicity was so important once settlement
had taken place, and emphasis had changed to controlling, conquering and
intermarrying with the local population, i.e. British/Welsh. Bede is
supposed to have lived from ?673-735 so he was English, the arrival of
his ancestors lying back at least 150 years.

Concerning the language situation: I do not believe in a period of
Anglo-Frisian linguistic unity. The West Germanic dialects along the
North Sea coast formed a continuum, tribal designations and their
political connections loose and fluctuating. I`m sure their languages
were mutually intelligible. I do not believe that the Anglo-Saxon
tribes/kingdoms have direct continental correspondents that can be
pinpointed as easily as: "the utes moved to Kent and the Angles moved
from Angeln to the Humber area". I believe people from all these areas
came to Britain and formed three initially separate areas in which their
dialects were levelled. When these respective settlements expanded and
joined the next settlement there was more levelling until an English
dialect continuum was formed. Hence Bede`s theory of three tribes. It a
simpler explanation for the historical fact of three settlement areas,
and I`m afraid it does not have much to do with tribes.

Large areas of Northern Germany is reported to have bee depopulated,
which means that the old continental dialect continuum had broken apart.
Tribes from further south were now moving northwards to take their
setlements, sometimes habitation continuity broke off for more than a
century. The inhabitants of the North Frisian isles seem to have taken
part in the emigration wave (of course they weren´t Frisians at that
time). There are also reports of areas being resettled by returnees.

The Frisian language is a relic of this old North Sea Germanic dialect
continuum. North Saxon and West Flemish developed closer to the language
of the southern newcomers, but retained a North Sea Germanic substrate.
English in its insular position also retained its North Sea Germanic
character.

Two and a half centuries later the Frisians settled in the North Frisian
isles, and another three centuries later East Frisians were invited by a
Danish king to settle and cultivate the North Frisian mainland.

I believe many of the features inherent to North Sea Germanic caused
both Frisian and Old English to undergo similar developments seperately.

Patrik V.Stiles in his extremely interesting article "Remarks on the
`Anglo-Frisian´ Thesis", establishes a relative chronology for both
Frisian and English (he explains this at length, but I will not go into
that):

"Relative Chronology for English:

(1) Long and short /a/ develop a back timbre and nasalization before
nasals. Before change (2), otherwise we would expect them to be
fronted by it.
(a) Some time thereafter the sequence short vowel + nasal +
homorganic spirant yields long nasalized vowel + homorganic
spirant.
(b) The development of the uniform plural probably follows (a),
and is to be but early for reasons of linguistic geography.
(2) Fronting of long /á/.
(3) Monophthongization of */ai/ to long /á/.
(4) Fronting of short */a/, including the development */au/ to
/aeo/.
(a) Short /a/ (only) was also fronted in unaccented syllables.
This left the way clear for unaccented /o/ to unround to /a/.
(5) Breaking
(6) Palatalization. After fronting of both long and short /a/ to
/ae/, because palatalization takes place before the reflexes. Before
i- mutation (or at least the unrounding of i-mutation products).
(7) Palatal Diphthongisation.
(8) i-mutation.

Relative Chronology for Frisian:

(1) Long and short /a/ develop a back timbre and nasalization before
nasals. Before change (2), otherwise we would expect them to be
fronted by it.
(a) Some time thereafter the sequence short vowel + nasal +
homorganic spirant yields long nasalized vowel + homorganic
spirant.
(b) The development of the uniform plural probably follows (a),
and is to be but early for reasons of linguistic geography.
(2) Fronting of long /á/.
(3) Monophthongization of +/ai/ and */au/.
(4) Fronting of short */a/.
(a) Short /a/ (only) was also fronted in unaccented syllables.
This left the way clear for unaccented /o/ to unround to /a/.
(5) Palatalization. After fronting of both long and short /a/ to
/ae/, because palatalization takes place before the reflexes. Before
i- mutation (or at least the unrounding of i-mutation products).
(6) i-mutation.
(7) Breaking."

He writes further:

"The Invaeonic Model and the Position of Old Saxon:

Above, it has been established that English and Frisian shared relative
chronology of sound-changes cannot be constructed with certainty beyond
change (2). Changes (1), (1a) and (2) hardly suffice to establish an
exclusive Anglo-Frisian sub-proto-language - all the more so, as these
changes also form part of the relative chronology of Old Saxon.
[.....]
Indeed, one could make out a case for a closer genetic relationship
between Frisian and (some varieties of) Old Saxon than between Frisian
and English, in so far as parts of Old saxon can probably share the
relative chronology (Frisian) up to at least point (4). [.......]"

I will also quote his summary of results, as I concur with all of it:

"In this article I have attempted to show that the evidence does not
support the notion of an `original Anglo-Frisian unity´ or
sub-proto-language. This is bcause it is not possible to construct the
exclusive common relative chronology that is necessary in order to be
able to establish a node on a family tree. The term and concept of
´Anglo-Frisian´ should be banished to the hitoriography of the subject.
Rather, English and Frisian descended largely from adjacent dialect
groupings in the Ingvaeonic continuum and thus share a number of
exclusive isoglosses (as do in their turn English and Old saxon, and
Frisian and Old saxon). It does appear to be the case that the
isoglosses that are recoverable from that period justify our regarding
English and Frisian as ´more closely related´ to each other than to Low
German. Because of the circumstances attending the attestation of Old
saxon and Old Dutch - the relatively sparse documentation, possible
orthographic complications, and the progressive retreat, already from
prehistoric times, of ´Ingvaeonic´ features in the favour of
´inland´ones - the state of affairs from the Old periods of the three
languages onward is that English and Frisian show a high degree of
resemblance to each other bcause of theirstatus as Invaeonic relic
areas"

Gans oll ow holon vy,

Dan
----------

From: pieter meester pieter.meester at hetnet.nl
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.12.29 (01) [E]

Beste allemaal
Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleemin.fsnet.co.uk> wrote under more 2002-12-29:
> Subject: "Frisians"
>
> Lowlanders,
>
> Some time ago a question was raised on the list: Why is the English
> language so like Frisian, when Frisian presence in Britain seems to
> have gone unrecorded?
>
Having done some little reseach recently, I would like to add some findings
to Sandy Fleming's most interesting remarks about the influence of Frisian
on English. I am also struck by the impression that there is quite some
similairity
between Frisian and English. Lately I have read a book written by the Dutch
writer Theun de Vries, called "Het zwaard, de zee en het valse hart". He
used historical figures to compose this roman, but I have reason to believe,
it is partly also faction. He describes how a Frisian tribe led by 'dukes'
Hengist and Horsa helped the English king Vortigern to beat the Pict and
Scot in northern England at about 450. These Frisians however liked living
at the other side of the North-Sea and occupied the soutwest of England,
let's say Kent, and made Canterbury their capital city. They happely mixed
with the locals and consequently you might expect there is reason to assume
English is partly based on Frisian (perhaps even a Frisian dialect..., just
kidding). Heaving read this book, I looked for historical information and
found different sources, some stating Hengist and Horsa were Jutten (Danes)
but others stating they are Frisians. (Most convicing was a  comprehensive
old Dutch text at http://home.planet.nl/~palst004/vanderAA/Friezen.html). (I
won't raise the issue of the relation between Jutten and Frisisans, but I
learned they, West Juts and Frisians do understand each other quite well).
Is there someone who can contribute to the theory that Frisian is a major
source for modern English, or just can falsify this?

Also Sandy's question about the origin of Beda Venerabilis is of great
interest to me.
Pieter Meester
pieter.meester at hetnet.nl

----------

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

Thanks to Sandy for revisiting one of my favorite "mystery" topic of why
English and Scots are so closely related to Frisian when Frisians are hardly
ever mentioned in the history of Germanic settlement of Britain.  Thanks
also for the many interesting responses (above).

Henno's account makes a lot of sense: contacts between Frisians and the
Jutish, Anglish and Saxon migrants from what are now Southern Denmark and
Northern Germany, plus sustained trading contacts between Friesland and the
British Isles -- nothing so "spectacular" as to be recorded as notable
historical events.

However, I still wonder if such relatively loose contacts would suffice to
account for the close relationship between Frisian on the one hand and
English and Scots on the other hand.  I remain reluctant to let go of my
"wild hypothesis," or "hunch," that the contacts were closer, more intimate
than that, namely that among the migrants dwelling *among* Frisians en route
to Britain there was a preponderance of males (such as non-first sons in
search of new land to own), and they stayed in Friesland long enough to
develop relationships with Frisian females and took them with them across
the Channel -- namely that Old Frisian influenced the early development of
Old English as a maternal language.  Is there anything that might support
this "guess"?

Gabriele (with one "L") wrote (above):

> I suppose that one strong influence which helped to label Lower Saxon as
> "cute", or "a funny little dialect" is the famous Ohnsorg-Theater in
> Hamburg. Their plays are often broadcast on TV, and they are always
> comedies. Also, they are performed in "Missingsch", a watered-down version
> of Lower Saxon which can easily be understood by any High German speaker,
> leading them to believe that this is truly "Platt".

The use of German with a "Platt" twist was reserved for *national* broadcast
in a series of "folk theater" performances (including Rhenish and Bavarians
plays).  It ought to be stressed that the Ohnsorg Theater usually performs
in genuine Lowlands Saxon (Low German) and had to rewrite/translate the
scripts specifically for those national broadcasts.  This was not the only
thing that angered lots of North Germans (many of whom complained that
Bavarian broadcasts never used watered-down Bavarian).  Much worse was the
fact that there was no disclaimer, no announcement to say that these were
*translated* versions.  In other words, it might be characterized as willful
deception.  (This would be similar to selling Scottish English with a
sprinkling of well-known Scots words and expressions as "Scots" without an
explanation, thus reinforcing the popular myth that Scots is an English
dialect group.)

For most South Germans that was the only exposure to what they thought was
"Platt" (Lowlands Saxon); they had "bought" the deception.  As I related at
least once before, South Germans once told me that they loved listening to
"Platt" and asked me to give them a real-life demonstration; they were quite
indignant when they didn't understand anything I said ("Not like that! Like
Ohnsorg!") and dismissed it as "some sort of Dutch" when I wrote it down ...

Yes, the predominance of humorous and old-time romance in Lowlands Saxon
literature certainly contributes to the perception of the language as "cute"
and "funny" in a "folksy" and "country" way.  In my opinion, another reason
for this "cute" perception of "Platt" even among North Germans (who more or
less understand it but cannot speak or write it themselves) has something to
do with the attitude that LS is not a separate language and that using the
language is tantamount to getting away with "talkin' rough" in public,
relating LS words with their German cognates because of insufficient
understanding of the language in its own right.  Sometime ago a friend wrote
telling me that he loved to listen to the LS news and weather reports on his
way to work, because it helps him "start the day with a good laugh or too,"
such as _Tja, Lüüd’, vunwegen dat Smuddelwedder na’n Snee is dat hüüt morgen
man bloots Modder un Schiet up de Straten_ ("Well, folks, due to this
morning's drizzle after a period of snow it's nothing but mud and dirt on
the roads.").  From a "High" German point of view, this sounds very
"earthy": the seemingly informal tone together with the use of _Schiet_ (=
German _Scheiße_ 'shit') which in LS can be used to denote 'dirt', 'mess' or
'bad situation' without sounding coarse and offensive.  This perception of
"cutely naughty" is thus totally German-centered.

> Speaking of Wilhelm Busch - I have translated some of his poems into
English
> and hope to do more some day. For a sample, have a look at
> http://www.rivertext.com/busch.shtml.

Nice translations!

But I have always thought of Wilhelm Busch as a German writer, albeit a
Northerner, rather than a LS writer.  What works of his are in LS?  The only
one I am aware of is _Ut ôler Welt_ (Munich: Lothar  Joachim, 1910), and
that appears to be a collection of (handed-down, recorded?) tales.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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