LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.14 (02) [E]

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Sat Aug 14 16:36:16 UTC 2004 

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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: Pat Reynolds <pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.13 (01) [E]

In message <009501c48155$3e69c960$33b78e8c at D5SYLB51>, Lowlands-L
<lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net> writes
>I can only guess
>what "Thisen" means.  Has it possibly got something to do with "Thy son"
>instead of "thy self".
This is the version I know (my father was born in Doncaster, and grew up
in the Dukeries (north Nottinghamshire).  I had always thought it was
comparable to 'hissen' (himself). Upton et al'' 'Word Maps' (1987, p.
100 / Map 83) Shows 'HISSEN' as the form for an area covering the
southern North Riding and the rest of Yorkshire, Humberside, Lincs, east
Leics, and Derbyshire.  'HIMSELF' is found in a few isolated places (eg.
Norfolk/Suffolk border, London, West Midlands.  'HISSEL' is found to the
north and west of the 'hissen' area, and  in a few areas in the south
(e.g. east Kent, parts of Devon) 'HISSELF' is found to the rest of the
south.

Best wishes to all,

Pat
--
Pat Reynolds
pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk
   "It might look a bit messy now,
                    but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Pratchett)

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From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language varietie" 2004.08.13 (08) [E]

> From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: Language Varieties
>
> Greetings Lowlanders, one and all!
>
> Bill Wigham said:
>
> "  I can only guess what "Thisen" means.  Has it possibly got
> something to
> do with "Thy son" instead of "thy self"."
>
> _Thisen_ quite simply means 'thyself / yourself'.
>
> John Duckworth
> Preston, Lancashire

Hi Bill and John,
In Flemish we use the word "deze(n)".
It can mean "this one" or "myself" used in different sentences.
-Kijk naor den dezen (E: Look at him)
-Kijk naor de dee (deze) (E: Look at her)
-Den dezen gaot da ne keê doen zè (E: I will do that know)

groetjes
luc vanbrabant
oekene

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From: Ben J. Bloomgren <godsquad at cox.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varietie" 2004.08.13 (08) [E]

I had heard that Gullah was a simple mutation of c to g and the loss of the
past tense suffix from "colored" referring to blacks.

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From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Language varieties

I wrote "Anglo-Saxon or Old English is not Low German". Mark replied:

"I beg to differ. 'Old Saxon' is manifestly ancestral to modern Saxon
dialects, whose 'Low German' status is not open to challenge. ... By the
way, Isn't 'The Fall of the Angels' representative of Continental
Old Saxon? If so, then I for one see it as a close, indeed, intimate,
relation to Insular Anglo-Saxon."

Old Saxon is Low German but it is not the same thing as Anglo-Saxon.
According to the note in Sweet's "Anglo-Saxon Reader" (1967 edition) "The
Fall of the Angels" is a translation of an Old Saxon original (a verse
rendering based loosely on Genesis) of which only part has been preserved.
Some OS words and usages are retained in the OE/AS text and the OS may have
AS influences so "Fall" is not necessarily a good basis for judging the
similarity of the two languages. I believe that "Heliand" ("The Saviour")
which was written by an unknown poet at the instigation of Ludwig der Fromme
(Louis the Pious) in about 800 CE is the longest and most typical piece of
writing in OS.

Mark also wrote: "The Northern English dialects have so much, grammatically
& terminologically, in common
with Continental Low German dialects (it seems to me) & Afrikaans
(definitely), that I fail to see where, or how, you would draw the
demarcation line, without cutting out North English dialects."

I don't really get this. Isn't the characteristic feature of Northern
English dialects the admixture of Scandinavian terms? I can't see that this
would be shared by Afrikaans.

Old English is the language (or group of languages) which developed in
England and what is now Southern Scotland after the Anglo-Saxon invasions
and persisted until around 1100 CE. Old Saxon is a language which was used
by the Saxon people of the Continent and developed ultimately into Modern
Low Saxon. They plausibly had a common ancestor around 500 CE (?) but we
don't know anything about it. Given our ignorance on this point it seems
reasonable to me to use the historical criteria to define them.

John Feather
johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: Glenn Simpson <westwylam at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: language varieties

Dear Bill

GEORDIE GRAMMER -
I am not whether is a grammer guide to 'geordie'
available. I've been meaning to put togther a
bibliography on the lowlands website on Northumbrian
and its dialects. Bill Griffiths of Northumbria
University has done a grammer guide on
'Durham/Tyneside Northumbrian', which may meet your
requirements. If you're keen I get further info. Bar
that, the Northumbrian Language Society is working on
a Northumbrian dictionary which hopefully will be
produced in the nxt year or so. I will try and do the
bib for lowlands in the nxt couple of weeks, which you
may find useful. By the way, why not join the language
society?

Old Saxon links with lowlands languages  - there has
been a lot of discussion about old saxon/old english
links to modern lowlands languages. Where does the
'Anglo' bit of Anglo-Saxon fit into things?
Northumbrian, Scots etc supposedly evolved mainly from
the Anglian branch of old anglo-saxon/English,
although I suspect that changes during the Middle
English period are just as important. Of course the
term 'english' itself comes 'ang-lish'.

Be interested in your thoughts.

Gan canny,

Glenn Simpson
Northumbrian Language Society


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From: Montgomery Michael <ullans at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varietie" 2004.08.13 (08) [E]

Dear All

Having lived in South Carolina for more than twenty
years and having taught in the English Department at
the University of South Carolina, I must say that the
claim that the Gullah people and language are derived
from Somalia is new to me.  It is also unknown in the
literature on Gullah language, the best source for
basic information on which remains Lorenzo Dow
Turner's _Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect_ (1949,
reprinted with a new introduction by the U of South
Carolina Press in 2002).  The etymology of "Gullah" is
not altogether certain -- it is most likely a clipping
from "Angola," but there was also a small tribe of
"Gola" in the region of present-day Liberia whose name
could be the source.  It is not so unlikely that it
has a multiple etymology, that these two sources have
fallen together.

Slavers sometimes did bring Africans captured far in
the anterior, but it is unlikely that the captives (or
very many) would have been from so far from the slave
ports of the western coast as Somalia.  I am not aware
of any suggestion of this kind on the historical
literature on the subject that I have read, which is a
good deal.

Gullah, an English-based creole language, has been
extensively studied (half a dozen PhD dissertations at
least, etc.) and is very closely related to Sierra
Leone Krio.  In 1988 the Prime Minister of Sierra
Leone (Joseph Momoh) came to St. Helena Island, the de
facto center of Gullah culture in South Carolina, and
spoke in Krio.  To the astonishment of many in the
audience, he was easily comprehended.  Most scholars
trace this similarity to the fact that enslaved
Africans from that part of Africa were frequently
sought after in the 18th century for their
rice-growing skills.  At least two researchers,
however, have claimed that Krio had its genesis in the
speech brought to Freetown by African Americas
settling in Sierra Leone in the 1790s (not as
far-fetched a scenario as might initially seem).  The
debate on this issue has been lively.

What is less in dispute is that Momoh's visit and
other events in the mid to late 1980s sparked a
revival movement that has continued down to the
present.  The advent of the internet and of cultural
tourism in the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands
has brought extensive commodification, particularly
with regard to song, food, storytelling, and the like,
and much more cultural consciousness and pride to the
members of its community.

Some colleagues and I are in early stages of
organizing a project to prepare a historical
dictionary of Gullah.  If all went well, it would be
finished in 2008 or 2009.  Stay tuned.

Regards

Michael

> From: Bill Wigham <redbilly2 at earthlink.net>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.11 (07)
> [E]
>
> Mr. Hahn.
> Gullah is a language/dialect from Somalia.  The
> slavers used to prefer to
> buy these folks from their chieftains
> because they were docile and did not rock the boat.
> This tribe had,
> according to my Southern associates, hereditary blue
> spots on their gums and
> tongue.  Because of this they were called "blue gum
> Gullahs", which got
> changed, in time, to just plain "Bluggums".   Many
> of those entry level
> agricultural folks took, as a last name, that of
> their masters...which was
> often Keltic.  This is the only connection with
> Gaelic that I can see.
> Gullahs were not necessarily paired with their own
> kind  by their masters,
> so a recognizable Gullah-English, per se, does not
> seem probable.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Bill Wigham

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