LL-L "Orthography" 2003.09.22 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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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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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.09.21 (02) [E]

> From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
> Subject: "Orthography"
> I've heard people on this list saying that they don't see spelling
mistakes
> in French. This mystifies me ...

I regularely do projects in Southern Belgium and Northern France and I must
confirm that many French speakers make many spelling errors.
I guess because they are not very much aware of the grammatical structure of
the language; so they mix up "parler" with "parlez" and "parlé" etc.

I have the impression that, while Belgian French speakers obviously speak
their French much more fluently and correctly than Flemish speakers do when
talking French, Flemish people rarely make such "capital" grammatical
mistakes against written French, as French speakers often do.

Regards,
Roger

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From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Orthography

Ron writes:

"What about <u> -- based on older southern (extinct?) dialects -- now
being pronounced [i]?  Does it not overlap with <i> ...?"

You are essentially right. Old Welsh had a close central rounded /u/ which
later lost its lip-rounding and by the eighteenth century had become
identical to the close central /i/. (In IPA transcription this /u/ and /i/
are represented with a line through them).There is, however, some
justification for retaining the <u> in the orthography, as <y>, which
represents the original close central /i/ behaves differently than <u> in
combination with other elements. In the South of Wales close central /i/
deriving from original close central /i/ and from original lip-rounded close
central /u/ has fallen together with long /i:/.

The letter <y> can also represent two sounds, either close central /i/ (or
S. Welsh non-central /i/ ) and schwa.In Davies' orthography of 1621 two
symbols were used to indicate these two sounds.The two sounds are also
represented by two symbols in the book 'Teach Yourself Welsh' .Modern
orthography, however, essentially follows the guidelines suggested by the
University of Wales in 1928, and published in a manual.

Regards,

John
Preston, UK.

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From: Friedrich-Wilhelm Neumann <Fieteding at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.09.22 (01) [E]

Ron,

You wrote:


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

> What is
> interesting about this is that due to orthographic omission this phoneme
> is
> in the process of fading away, which illustrates the power of orthography
> on
> the development of a language in a highly literate society.  This can also
> be said about Lowlands Saxon "superlength"/"dragging tone," which is
> ignored
> in most orthographies and is consequently moribund.

Very interesting, all Your discussions.

But- regarding Your last (concerning "superlength"/"dragging tone")
statement: could You perhaps be so kind and try to give some examples,
please? To make it visible even for laymen like me?

Thanks, and best Regards

Fiete.
(Friedrich W. Neumann)
Not Lucifer I fear
but those almighty Gods

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

John (above):

> The letter <y> can also represent two sounds, ...

Thanks for "reading my mind," John.  After I sent off the previous question
I kicked myself for not having asked about the two phonemes represented by
<y> in ordinary Welsh orthography (as opposed to <y> vs <ŷ> in some
textbooks).

Fiete (above):

> But- regarding Your last (concerning "superlength"/"dragging tone")
statement: could
> You perhaps be so kind and try to give some examples, please? To make it
visible
> even for laymen like me?

I didn't include a description because I have given one many times on this
list, at least three times during your tenure, and the last one just a few
weeks ago.  I didn't want to bore people with yet another description.
However, since you specifically requested it, let me quote myself:

> L O W L A N D S - L * 23.NOV.1999 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
> (4) Many, mostly North Saxon, dialects have dropped (or are still actively
> dropping) final, unstressed _-e_ ([e] ~ [@]).  In such cases, an
underlyingly
> voiced consonant does not undergo the usual final devoicing, i.e., remains
> voiced, and the preceding vowel is lengthened. (in other words, the final
> devoicing rule applies before the -e deletion rule.)  This results in a
long
> monophthong becoming extra long (e.g., _Huus_ [hu:s] 'house' > umlauted
_Hüse_ >
> _Hüüs'_ [hy:.z] 'houses') and the first segment of a diphthong becoming
somewhat
> lengthened (e.g., _Keese_ > _Kees'_ [khE.Iz] 'cheese') , all resulting in
2.5
> length.  This feature is known as _Schleifton_ ('drawl tone') or
_Überlänge_
> ('superlength') among German linguists.

> L O W L A N D S - L * 19.NOV.2000 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
> And the next step seems to be deletion.  Evidence of this is found in both
> Low Saxon/Low German and Dutch.  In the former it happens in certain
> dialects intervocalically or where there is superlength before /d/; e.g.,
> 'poeple', 'folks': Old Saxon _liudi_ > Modern Low Saxon _Lüde_ ['ly:de]  ~
> _Lüe_ ['ly:(j)e]  ~ _löe_ [l{oe}(j)@] ~ _Lüüd'_ [ly:.d] ~ _Lü_ [ly:.]; cf.
> Standard Dutch _lui_.

> L O W L A N D S - L * 07.AUG.2003 (06) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
> Now, 'row' (_rîğ_ = _reyg'_) ought to be seen as lengthened by the
deletion
> of /-e/.  By itself, the word (_reyge_ >) _reyg'_ is pronounced with a
long
> diphthong (3 beats, _reyge_ /reige/ > _reyg'_ /reeig/), because the
deleted
> short /-e/ left behind one beat, and this beat goes to the remaining
vowel,
> in this case to the main vowel of the diphthong.  If there were a
> monophthong long vowel (which comes with 2 beats), then this vowel would
> also get an extra beat, e.g., _brüyde_ /brüüde/ > _brüyd'_ /brüüüd/
> [bry:.(d)] 'brides' (singular _bruud_ [bru:t]).  If you spell the latter
> <Brüüd> instead of <Brüüd'> -- which unfortunately now happens more often
> than not -- then the learner would logically but wrongly pronounce it
> [bry:t], thus with a long vowel and with final devoicing, as though it
were
> phonemically */brüüd/.
>
> This extra-length in vowels and diphthongs is referred to as _Schleifton_
in
> German terminology, thus cognate of Dutch _sleeptoon_, "dragging tone."
Why
> "tone" in Northern Saxon?  I'm not sure.  But clearly there appears to be
a
> connection between it and tonality in Limburgish.
>
> While it is clear the extra-length is the output of a phonological rule, I
> am not sure if one ought to see it as a still productive rule or as a
> historical rule.  I tend to lean toward the former.
>
> However, it is very important to distinguish phonemic length from
> phonological lengthening.  In LS, pretty much in all dialects, vowels are
> lengthened before liquids (/r/, /l/, /n/, /m/, /N/).  English has this
too,
> before /l/, as in "ball" and "cold".)  This is a case of secondary length,
> of lengthing, not phonemic length; e.g., /bal/ _bal_ [ba.l] 'ball', /hart/
> _hart_ [ha:t] (= [ha..t]) 'heart', /arm/ [?a:m] (= [?a..m]) 'arm',  /man/
> _man_ [ma.n] 'man', /dam/ _kam_ [k_ha.m] 'comb', /draN/ _drang_ [dra.N]
> 'tight', /kold/ _kold_ [k_ho.lt] 'cold'.  Compare this with non-lengthened
> short vowels; e.g., /blad/ _blad_ [blat] 'blade', 'leaf', /kat/ _kat_
> [k_hat] 'cat', /gras/ _gras_ [gras] 'grass'.  Also, compare it with
> phonemically long vowels; e.g., /aal/ _aal_ [?Q:l] 'eel', /baart/ _baart/
> [bQ:3`t] 'beard', /maand/ _maand_ [mQ:nt] (~ [mQ:.nt]) 'moon', 'month',
and
> with extra-length (/daame/ >) /daaam/ [dQ:.m] 'lady', (/neeze/ >) /neeez/
> _nees'_ [ne:.z] (not *[ne:s]) 'nose'.

Another commonly occurring Lowlands Saxon orthographic flaw (in ordinary,
non-scientific orthography) is non-distinction of long monophthongs (/ee/,
/öö/, /oo/) from diphthongs (/ei/, /öü/, /ou/ respectively), all written as
<ee>, <öö> and <oo> (or, even worse, with German _Dehnungs-H_: <eh>, <öh>,
<oh>).  This happens because most German-based orthographies for this
language ignore diphthongs that are unknown to Standard German and write
them as though they were monophthongs, hence for example <beden> ['be:d=n]
'to request', 'to pray' vs <beden> ['beId=n] (with an English <ay> sound in
most dialects) 'to offer', <drö(h)nen> [drø:n:] 'to roar' vs <drömen>
[drø.Im:] 'to dream', and <Doom> [do:m] 'cathedral', 'market' vs <Doon>
[do.Un] 'doing', 'deed'.   The distinctions are made only in dialects in
which /ei/ is pronounced [aI] (i.e., <beden> vs <beiden>), /öü/ is
pronounced [OI] (i.e., <drö(h)nen> vs <dreumen> ~ <dräumen>), and /ou/ is
pronounced [aU] (i.e., <Doom> [do:m] vs <Daun> [da.Un]).  In the
"scientific" version of the Fehrs/Sass system people add an _okonek_ (a
Polish-style small hook) underneath the monophthongs, but this is
typographically inconvenient and is ignored by most due to it looking too
"exotic" ("un-German").  Others (like myself when forced to use one of those
wretched German-based systems) use <ä(ä)> for /ee/ and <œ> for /öö/, but
still ignore the distinction /oo/ vs /ou/.

As a result of orthographic non-distinction, the phonemic distinctions
mentioned here are under threat of extinction.  Orthography does influence
pronunciation, certainly among non-native speakers.  Besides, orthographic
non-distinction is highly inconvenient when it comes to teaching the
language, and there is now more demand than ever for instructional material.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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