LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.04.30 (03) [E/Jutish]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 30.APR.2003 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth at gnu.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.04.29 (03) [E/S]

Daw,

A tøt li' a måtte kommentere lidt å den her skotske tekst. Så det ve a
no gør'

I just read this article and I have some comments about the following
piece

<quote>
Since heteronomy and autonomy are the result of political and cultural
rather than purely linguistic factors they are subject to change. For
example, until 1650 part of what is now southern Sweden was part of
Denmark. The dialects spoken here were then considered to be dialects of
Danish. As a result of war and conquest this area became part of Sweden.
Forty or fifty years later these dialects were considered dialects of
Swedish although no linguistic change had taken place. These dialects
had become heteronomous with respect to standard Swedish rather than
Danish.
</quote>

Denmark used to consist or three huge dialects/languages: Jutish,
Sealandic and Scanian. (Jysk, Sjællandsk og Skånsk)

In the middle-ages people called these for dialects but treaded them
like different languages. The people in Sealand were very scared that
Scanian influented Sealandic too much and took measures. For instance
some very not happy that the bible was translated by two Scanians (and a
Jute)

Later Standard Danish was defined after Sealandic.

The situation today is that the Jutish dialect/language is vanishing,
and being replaced by Standard Danish, with a bit different
pronouncation and a few Jutish loanwords.

The best living Jutish dialect is Southern Jutish.

The situation for Scanian is almost the same. The Scanian history
(Scania gave the name to Scandinavia and was a very important place in
the middle-age) and the language was forbidden in education, etc. and
even though people have plied the Swedish government to acknowledge the
language, nothing has happened, and the language is quickly dying out,
being substituted with Swedish with Scanian loan words and different
pronouncation.

Scanian is best living on the Danish island Bornholm.

<quote>
Until the beginning of the 19th century the official language used in
Norway was Danish. It was only with the reemergence of Norway as an
independent nation that a distinct, autonomous standard Norwegian was
developed - with two orthographies - Bokmål and Nynorsk.
</quote>

At the point a lot of Norwegians didn't speak Danish, though Norwegian
had been influented a lot. Nynorsk was build on the still living
dialects of Norwegian and Bokmål (book language) was build on a modified
Danish orthography. Bokmål is pretty close to Danish and Nynorsk is not.
The dialects closest to Bokmål are situated in areas where the upper
class lived.

Most Danish people have problems understanding Nynorsk. Bokmål also
contains a lot of words today that we dont have in Danish.

So far I haven't met anyone from Norway or Sweden who could understand
me well when speaking Jutish, though the Norwegian and Swedish people
seem to understand me better than the Sealandic (Denmark) people.

Ha't, Kenneth

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From: "Daniel Ryan Prohaska" <daniel at ryan-prohaska.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.04.29 (03) [E/S]

Dear Uilleam Sti bhart

You wrote:
<Apologizes for being unclear. I understand Scots quite well I think,
but
<my problem lies in the fact that I don't know how
<to say historically that Scots is a separate language. I know that they
<are different, but how did these differences
<develope? When were they the same language?

Well, very strictly speaking, they were never the same language, at
least if we don't trace them back to some common Northsee-Germanic
dialect on the continent. In the question of terminology both English
and Scots were Old English from the time of colonising Britain to,
roughly, the year 1100. However I believe that the various Old English
dialects, distinguishable from a very early stage onwards, go back to
differing waves of immigration and origine. There must have been quite a
mixed bunch of Northsee-Germanic people binging their various dialects
to Britain with them. There must have been some levelling of dialect in
the various colonies and when their respective dialects spread the aread
joined and began to form a dialect continuum. This is my view of thing
anyway, but maybe I'm wrong.

Back to the point, From the earliest stages of settlement there were
differences between the dialects that developed into Scots and the
dialects tat were involved in forming the English standard language.

Through political independence and differing influences the linguistic
gap grew wider - just as the two languages are moving closer again, at
least in Scotland, since Scots influence on English English seems
marginal, at best.

Dan

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