LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.11.27 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 27.November.2003 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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Ron wrote (answering a posting by Jenny Kool about "Low Dutch" of the former colony
of New Holland):

> I find the use of the name "Low Dutch" very intriguing, too.  Perhaps it
> comes from a time when "German" and "Dutch" were considered synonymous in
> North America and "Low Dutch" was therefore the same as "Low German," a term
> then frequently applied to Dutch also.  Alternatively, "Low" might be the
> same as "non-standard"here, much as Dutch _plat ..._ and German _Platt..._
> are used in such contexts, German _Platt..._ (often connoting
> "sub-standard," versus _Hoch..._ for "standard" and "good") being used not
> only for varieties of the Lowlands but of other areas as well
> (_Plattdänisch_, _Hochchinesisch_, etc.).

In the answer lies in this beautiful quote from the early 1900s from an
'old-stock' New-Yorker of colonial-Dutch descent who still spoke what
speakers of English generally refer to as 'Jersey Dutch'. He explains that
his language ('lex däuts' or 'leeg duits') is different from the Dutch
(dialects) of newcomers from the Netherlands:
"Onze tal äz lex däuts en hoelliz äs Holläns; kwait dääfrent"
So he refers to his archaic creolized and anglified Dutch as 'Leeg Duits'.
In modern Standard Dutch that would be 'Laag Duits', literally Low German in
English. 'Laag Duits' or 'Nederduits' were quite normal names for Dutch
before the 18th century. In 'New Holland' (roughly the northern half of New
Jersey and a large part of the state of New York) the name for the language
never changed to Nederlands or Hollands (Dutch).

Ron again:

> What I find particularly fascinating is the language sample at the site (...)
> This seems to me to be non-standard Dutch (perhaps Zeelandic?).  I wonder if
> <oo> is an English device denoting [u] here, thus the same as Dutch <oe>,
> and <aw> appears to stand for [ɔ] or [ɒ] for which <oa> or <ao> are
used in
> today's non-standard variety writing in the Netherlands.  Interesting also
> is the use of <aui> for what in Standard Dutch is written <ui>.  All of this
> seems to point toward someone (a certain Walter Hill) without formal Dutch
> education having recorded a Dutch language sample by writing it mostly on
> the basis of English spelling, "mostly" because use of devices such as <y>
> seem to indicate some familiarity with Dutch orthography of the time (i.e.,
> mid-19th century).

They got you, Ron! I suggest you read the article again
(http://taalschrift.org/reportage/000303.html). The language sample is from
a notebook by Walter Hill is actually written by Lawrence van Loon and is
fake:
"Als Van Marle ontdekt dat het Notebook aan het museum geschonken is door
Lawrence G. van Loon, weet de taalkundige genoeg. Dezelfde Van Loon, een
arts met belangstelling voor lokale geschiedenis, is eerder al door een
historicus ontmaskerd als vervalser van de zogenaamde Dela Croix Letter en
van een historisch contract met indianen op hertenhuid. Ook zijn publicaties over
het Hudson Valley Dutch Dialect, zoals een boek uitgegeven bij Martinus Nijhoff in
1938 en een artikel in Onze Taaltuin in 1939, zijn handig geschreven, maar
uiteindelijk ongeloofwaardig. "Het is grotendeels duimzuigerij", aldus Van Marle.
"Van Loon speelde handig in op sentimenten van Amerikanen, die elk tastbaar bewijs
van hun eigen geschiedenis koesteren."

Nevertheless, Jersey Dutch is mostly written on the basis of English
spelling since about 1900, because Jersey Dutch lost its written tradition
somewhere in the 19th century. As with all varieties of Dutch overseas,
there is a significant Zeelandic influence.

The article Jenny Kool told us about (again: see
http://taalschrift.org/reportage/000303.html) is nice, but superficial in my
opinion. The mentioned professor Van Marle accuses Walter Hill alias
Lawrence van Loon of making things up and faking documents. But one can
blame Van Marle about the same thing: he comes up with the Ramapo Mountain
People (or Jackson Whites) and there are some nice pictures of these people
on the site, said to be made by a Ben Salemans. But those same pictures
appear on a (http://www.netstrider.com/documents/whites/index.html) and
appear to be taken as early as 1974. There from a book by David S. Cohen
called The Ramapo Maountain People (NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1974).

The Ramapo Mountain People seem to have lost their 'Black Dutch' language
(called ''nêxer däuts" or 'negerduits' or Negro Dutch locally - which seems
to have been more creolized and more influenced by indian languages -Minsi,
Lenape, Mohawk- than 'white' Jersey Dutch) about two or three generations
ago. But upto this day there are said to be (white) descendants of the first
Dutch colonists in upstate New York, who still can speak (a bit of) Jersey
Dutch or Low Dutch as you like. A lot of people sent me e-mails stating that
they knew people who spoke colonial Dutch as late as the 1970s and 1980s. I
suspect that their children at least know some general household words or
phrases.


regards,


Marco Evenhuis

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