LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.15 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 15.DEC.2004 (01) * 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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From: Yevgeny Ustinovich <yevgeny at cac.edu>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.10 (08) [E/F/LS]

Thanks, Mark.
That explain a lot of things I am trying to figure out.
It's funny, but in the Soviet Union, it was actually forbidden to study
Afrikaans -- for ideological reasons. So now I am trying to catch up with
what three generations of Ukrainian/Russian lingiuists before me missed.
Thanks a lot!

> Mark Dreyer:
>
> >     The subject has been raised before in L-Lowlands, and it is said
that
> > the closing 'nie' in negative sentences does occasionally appear in some
> > dialects such as Zeelandic. Reinhard Hahn will be more help there. But
in
> > Afrikaans it has been established since the late 1600s. Some assert it
was
> > learned from the French Hugenots, but it's unlikely. It does not conform
> to
> > the French ne - pas or  - rian.
>
> I don't really know a lot about the Zeelandic dialects as they were spoken
> in the 1600s or earlier, but I do know that to this day double negative
> forms are indeed quite frequent in Zeelandic. Not in Afrikaans way
> (nie...nie), but in the same way as the closely related West-Flemish
> dialects (nie...en) and like Mark pointed out with a closing 'nie' in
> negative sentences. The 'nie/en' construction is dying out now, but
> used to be used very commonly throughout Zeeland. A few examples (Z=
> Zeelandic (isle of Walcheren), D=Dutch, E=English):
>
> Z: 'k è 't nie en gedae (nie...en)
> D: ik heb het niet gedaan
> E: I haven't done it
>
> Z: ik è d'r glad niks nie van gezien ook nie (niks...nie)
> D: ik heb er niets van gezien
> E: I haven't seen anything of it
>
> I hope this is of some help. Regards,

----------

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

Vstrastvuj, Yevgenyj!

Actually, the person you quoted above was Marco Evenhuis, our honorary
Zeelandic representative, and Marco quoted Mark Dreyer.

Yevgeny and Mark, when it comes to topics related to Zeelandic and Western
Flemish as well as so-called "Dutch-based" language varieties outside
Europe, it's our Marco who is the expert, certainly not I, keenly interested
though I may be.  Marco has a thing or two to teach us about this stuff.

It seems to me that double negatives are quite old in the Low German group
and are especially pronounced features in Low Franconian.  If this is due to
French ("Frankish") influence remains to be proven.

These constructions were preserved in various non-standard varieties,
especially in Flemish (and Zeelandic?) dialects, such as the well-know
_...en ... nie(t) ..._ which was pretty much mandatory in numerous Middle
Low Franconian varieties.  Or is it that the more southern varieties
developed it due to French proximity?

It may well be that the _en_ part may not serve as a negative marker alone.
Nevertheless we are dealing with a two-part negative construction here (much
like French _ ... ne ... pas ..._).  Once you have such a structure in
place, it seems to me no stretch of the imagination that the _en_ part came
to be replaced by another _nie(t)_, and that finally, as a matter of
regularization, the final _nie(t)_ came to mark all types of negative
expressions, namely also those that use other negative words, such as
_nooit_ 'never' or _geen_~_keen_ 'no(ne)'.  And this is precisely how
Afrikaans syntax operates.

Approaching it from the Lowlands Saxon branch with a fair amount of prior
expose to Dutch, I did not perceive this sort of Afrikaans structure as
alien or novel when I first encountered it.  I did perceive it as
regularization of something inherent, being aware that it would sound
"childish" and/or "uneducated" to many people that know related languages,
much like double negatives, besides person morphology regularization, in
English (e.g., "He don't have no business coming round here"), and much like
in Lowlands Saxon where this does occur, though less frequently.  However,
it struck me as a very useful and natural inherent structural tendency that
is suppressed in standardization.  The final _... nie_ reminds the listener
that this is a negation phrase, which is particularly useful where a phrase
between the two negative markers is long.

In many Lowlands Saxon dialects of Germany, double negatives may be used,
such as _... ny ~ noit (...) nich ~ neyt ..._ ("... never (...) not ..."),
rarely with _nich_ ~ _neyt_ ("not") twice.  This tends to be done either for
emphasis (e.g., _Ny nich!_ 'Never (in my life)!') or where the phrase
following a negative marker is rather long and requires final reenforcement.

Yevgenyj, I suppose that this sort of structure does not seem all that
strange to you, given that it is commonplace and even mandatory in Eastern
Slavonic, actually Slavonic as a whole.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Language varieties" [E]

> From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.14 (08) [E]
>
> In "Ons Erfdeel", vol 47; nr 4 Sept 2004, p. 569-575 an overview (in
Dutch)
> for the situation in Northern Belgium and the Netherlands is given:
>
> Trude Schermer (born in Rijswijk, Nl, director of the "Nederlands
> Gebarencentrum")
> and
> Myriam Vermeerbergen (born in Geel, B, voorzitter "Vlaams
> Gebarentaalcentrum"):
> "Nederlandse Gebarentaal en Vlaamse Gebarentaal: zussen of verre
nichtjes?"
> (Dutch Sign Language and Flemish Sign Language: sisters of remote nieces?)
> For "Flemish" always read "Northern Belgium" (Flemish + Brabantish +
> Limburgish areas).
>
> I try to pick up headlines.
>
> Abbreviations:
> VGT: Vlaamse Gebarentaal
> NGT: Nederlandse Gebarentaal.
>
> Combination of iconic and arbitrary signs.
>
> Grammar framework:
> - Use of space (whole body)
> - Multichannel use of the body (v. single channel voice stream)

Sign languages don't use the whole body, just the space in front of the head
and torso.

> VGT and NGT are different and not fully compared.
> Basics for both come from the French system of Charles-Michel de l"Epe
> (1760)
> [One of his pupils, Laurent Clerc, introduced the system to French
speaking
> Americans in 1816]
> At the end of the 18th century Belgian and Dutch educational people went
to
> Paris for learning the system.
> This should explain some similarities between VGT, NGT, the French and the
> American systems.

This depends - there's the whole idea that hearing people "invented" sign
languages in order to educate the deaf. The truth is that hearing people
tried to suppress sign languages and then took the credit for inventing them
when they began to be seen in education again. l'Ep e's innovation was
probably fingerspelling, that as we have seen, did go from France to many
other countries. In the above passage, the use of the word "system" suggests
this - fignerspelling is a system, sign languages are languages.

> Influence of spoken "Dutch" is limited, to some mound patterns, as used
when
> speaking (as e.g; for auto, car, in both VGT and NGT). Apparently mound
> patterns explain the relative ease for VGT-speakers and NGT speakers to
> understand each other. (So clearly some impact of the spoken Dutch
language
> here).

On the SignWriting mailing list recently a Dutch woman complained that it's
almost impossble to sign NGT without using Dutch mouth patterns. Her example
was that the sign for "brother" and "sister" were the same in NGT, so you
need the mouth pattern to distinguish them. There are two points here.

One is that not all languages are so fussy about gender, and saying you
can't speak NGT without Dutch because they only have one sign for "brother"
and "sister" is like saying you can't speak English without French because
it only has one word for saying "cousin" and "cousine".

The other is that sign language research is still young and sometimes native
signers use indicators that researchers or learners don't notice - for
example, people often think that BSL has no tense structure, but in fact
looking slightly to the left as if looking back over the left shoulder can
indicate the past tense and looking diagonally upwards as if looking ahead
indicates the future tense. Many learners and teachers miss these and bad
habits such as local oral-language mouthings develop.

> Regiolects in VGT.
> - 5 regiolects, rougly conciding with the provinces (West-Flanders,
> East-Flanders, Antwerp, Vlaams Brabant and Limburg)
> Variants in the lexicon (e.g. Sign for "sugar" in Bruges different from
the
> sign in Antwerp).
> Grammar though similar, and after all lexically more signs shared than
> different)

If only it were like this in the UK! Every region in the UK has its own
number signs and grammar and its own colour signs. This is another thing
that many signers overcome by mouthing the local oral language, while more
concientious signers just learn to recognise all the variants.

It's important not to overgeneralise these things. The disparity in
educational standards for the deaf is reflected in variety of signing
habits. Some are more heavily schooled in the oral language and will mouth
habitually whether it's necessary or not. Some will sign with one hand while
sitting on the other (just a bad habit) and use English mouth patterns to
supplement their lack of clarity, and so on. Some signers use mouthing when
signing to learners but not when signing with native signers. All this often
gives the wrong impression and leads some people to conclude that you need
the oral language in order to sign.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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