LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.06.28 (01) [E]
Lowlands-L
sassisch at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 28 15:18:29 UTC 2002
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L O W L A N D S - L * 28.JUN.2002 (01) * 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: Criostoir O Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.06.27 (01) [E]
A chairde,
Gary and Ron discuss the use of [v] and [f]
overpowering original /th/. This is something in
England that has spread exponentially, largely because
of the London-based media. It is now very common to
hear younger Nottingham English speakers (of which I
am one) saying "wotch yuh maaf" for "wotch yuh maath"
(watch your mouth). "th" rather than "dh" seems to be
more easily affected.
The same goes for the shift from terminal [l] to a [w]
sound, although Nottingham in particular received a
large wave of Polish migration after the war and I
have often wondered if this change was brought about
as a result.
I haven't seen much evidence of Australians confusing
/th/ with [v] or [f], Ron. My fiancee doesn't do it,
and she's moved between New South Wales, Tasmania and
latterly Western Australia her whole life. I never
seen any examples of it in Kalgoorlie where I live,
although the town is considered quite "ocker Aussie"
(i.e., retaining unaffected pronunciations) in its
dialect. I haven't heard it in Perth when I visit that
city once every couple of months either. There is a
huge dialect difference between Western Australia and
the eastern states (which is now being diluted due to
television).
Having said all that, my fiancee's cousin's husband is
a Sydney man of Lebanese birth, and he does regularly
substitute [v] and [f] for /th/ phonemes. Apparently
this has formed a whole new dialect in the Sydney area
since the late 1970s. He is immensely proud of this as
it marks him out as a "Leb" and Sydneysider. More
power to him!
Go raibh maith agaibh,
Chris.
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From: Criostoir O Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.06.27 (01) [E]
A chairde,
You're right, Marco, I did entirely leave Frisian off
my "relatives of Nottingham English" list - West
Frisian at least. I didn't want to be mocked in case I
had made a huge assuming mistake. One of my best
friends is Frisian and I was surprised at first how
much Frisian I could understand, and how a lot of the
grammar made a lot of sense to me, even if it was
archaic-sounding (mind you, the same could be said of
Norwegian when I first heard it). Most northern
English variants used to have (and some still do) a
markedly different grammar to standard English,
precisely because it's Ingvaeonic in origin. The best
example I can think of immediately is "Do I not like
that!" for "I don't like that!" To a northerner this
makes complete sense; to a southerner it is of course
a completely different language, or at least sounds
like a rhetorical question.
Unfortunately for northern English, most of this
grammar is giving way to "standard English" forms.
As for "rigg" - it isn't in Nottingham English. The
word for back is "bakk" (with /kk/ representing, I
think, a [q] sound). I'm not too sure about parts of
the body in Nottingham English. I have spent a lot of
my life away from Nottingham and a lot of the terms I
heard my stepfather's father and other elderly people
using I would have considered "quaint" and not used.
About the only ones I still use are "tab" (ear) and
"gob" (mouth; probably a loan from Irish anyway).
That's precisely the problem with Nottingham English.
It is being "quainted" out of existence. It is bizarre
to see children talking in true Nottingham English
(grammar, vocabulary and all) only when they're
messing around with each other (and particularly to
younger children) - as if it's a mood language. Most
of the rest of the time they speak standard English
with minimal Nottingham English grammatical
interference but with strong Nottingham English
phonology.
By the way, Marco - does Frisian or Zeelandic have the
grammatical possibility "I ain't not never done nowt"
(I didn't do it [HEAVILY EMPHATIC]) that we do in
Nottingham English? (Although I should write it as "A
yenn not nevuh dunn noewt" to be faithful to the
phonology.)
Go raibh maith agaibh,
Chris.
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From: "Marco Evenhuis" <evenhuis at zeelandnet.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.06.27 (05) [E]
Ron wrote:
> Given what Leonard and Sandy tell us about the purpose of the list and
> the calculations it is supposed to allow, it seems to me that we really
> have to weigh each choice extremely carefully. I for my part will have
> to go through my own data (Northern Lowlands Saxon) again.
I did the same for Zeelandic. For West-Flemish, I took the
list posted by Luc and had a second look at that as well. I
did that with the help of two informants of the 'Woorden-
boek van de Vlaamse dialecten', the Dictionary of Flemish
dialects, a project of the university of Ghent.
BTW: I happened to run into these two informants last
night in a pub in Middelburg. They are touring the 'Flemish
periphery' (as they called it) this summer, concentrating on
linguistic similarities between West-Flanders, Zeeland,
French Flanders and some coastal towns of the provinces
of North and South Holland. A very 'ingvaeonic' vacation
for those two, I would say.
I posted the two lists privately to Ron. I am looking forward
for some (especially West-Flemish) feedback on them.
Regards,
Marco
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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language Varieties
Dear All
Marco wrote:
>When I was on the Shetlands, I was surprised to
>hear the same word for 'back' being used as in
>Zeelandic: _rik_ (I believe it is spelled _rigg_ in
>Shetlandic). This _rigg_ in Shetlandic is said to be
>of Norse descent, but if the same word was to be
>known in Nottingham English as well, would it
>be a Norse or Northern Germanic loan or an Ing-
>vaeonic ('Zeelandic') one?
There is however also the word 'ridge' in English with
the meaning of the back of a hill etc., cognate with
'rigg'. I thought the Shetlandic 'rigg' was the
natural development of the word in Scots, rather than
a Norse loan - I could be wrong! I think Scots uses
something like 'brigg' (sorry Sandy and other Scots
speakers if that's horribly misspelt!) cognate with
'bridge', in a similar development. If Nottingham
English has 'rigg' and not 'ridge' I would be
surprised, and this would probably point to a loan
word.
Gary
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From: Glenn Simpson <westwylam at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: language varieties
Language Varieties
Gary wrote -
Dear all
Glenn wrote:
>097: good - gurd
Glenn - quick question - I thought Northumbrian
English was rhotic (pronounced the 'r's in all
positions with a uvular r unique in England to to the
North East). From your spelling of good as gurd and
also you wrote feather as -er or -ah does this mean
this 'r' is disappearing in the region or are my
sources incorrect?
Gary
Thanks for the question. As I said to Sandy, the
'rolled' 'r' is sadly dying out, virtually no one
under 50-ish uses it any more. When the 'r' is used
the language has a very rhythmic, 'Germanic' feel to
it. What is happening now is that the Tyneside version
of Northumbrian is becoming the main variant of the
language, although this doesn't explain the
disappearance of the 'r' because it was used on
Tyneside as well. I think it has just gone out of
fashion, probably because of education and media
influences. It's too guttural sounding.
My use of the 'ur' sound (i.e. 'gurd'), which I'm
afraid has confused some Lowlanders (sorry), is modern
Northumbrian. I suspect that it is the result of
Northumbrian's trying to say the Standard English word
but without much success because of the strong
regional accent.
The problem is there are still several different
spoken versions of the language (despite what I said
before), which makes it difficult to standardise
spelling. I use the West Tyne / Tyne Valley version
but even here there are subtle differences between
towns only a few miles away. It's even more
complicated when talking about the Durham area!
On a wider note - preserving the older Northumbrian is
fine (that's what our language society does!) - BUT I
think it's important to highlight to people how the
language is spoken now! I don't want to give a false
impression. I will in the future use older and new
forms.
Keep-ahaad,
Glenn
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties
Chris,
I lived in Perth and Fremantle (Western Australia) for long time
(1970s-early 1980s). Yes, there was a lot of influx from the Eastern
States at the time, and, yes, some of the young people that then used
[v] and [f] for [D] and [T] where Sydneysiders. However, some of them
were locals. Perhaps it was a case of spread from more "with-it"
Sydneysiders, and maybe it was short-lived, but it *was* noticeable.
Lowlanders,
As for the Swadesh list, here is another case of a cognate with a strong
semantic shift: English "small" and Lowlands Saxon _small_ [sma.l]
'narrow' (vs _lütt_ 'small', 'little'). So, how do you handle this?
Also, Mennonite Lowlands Saxon (Plautdietsch) has _wäa_ and some other
dialects (mostly of younger people) also use _wer_ for 'who' now,
apparently borrowed from German _wer_ (vs native _wokeen_). How does
that influence the results? How do you distingish between digergence
and convergence if German were on this list?
Gary,
> There is however also the word 'ridge' in English with
> the meaning of the back of a hill etc., cognate with
> 'rigg'. I thought the Shetlandic 'rigg' was the
> natural development of the word in Scots, rather than
> a Norse loan - I could be wrong! I think Scots uses
> something like 'brigg' (sorry Sandy and other Scots
> speakers if that's horribly misspelt!) cognate with
> 'bridge', in a similar development. If Nottingham
> English has 'rigg' and not 'ridge' I would be
> surprised, and this would probably point to a loan
> word.
Lowlands Saxon has _Rügg_ [rYC] 'back' (usually misspelled as _Rüch_, vs
plural _Rüggen_ ['rYgN=]) and _Brügg_ [brYC] (usually misspelled as
_Brüch_, vs plural _Brüggen_ ['brYgN=] -- Hello! Can you say "final
fricativization"?).
Marco,
I have added your lists. Thanks.
http://www.sassisch.net/rhahn/lowlands/swadesh.htm
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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