LL-L "False friends" 2004.06.07 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 07.JUN.2004 (03) * 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: Holger Weigelt <platt at holger-weigelt.de>
Subject: "False friends"

> From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: False Friends
>
> Dear Lowlanders,
>
> I was writing something the other day about 'False Friends' (Faux Amis)
> between different languages; you must all be aware of so many of them,
like
> 'gift' in English, meaning 'a present', and 'Gift' in German, meaning
> 'poison' -a totally false friend, while others are partially false - thus,
> French 'voyage' is any journey, while the English 'voyage' is only a
journey
> by sea.
>
> Now, I began to wonder about something, and I need to phrase this
carefully:
> do False Friends also commonly occur between contiguous speech forms? What
I
> mean are there False Friends, for instance, between Standard German and
Low
> Saxon - two speech forms that will be spoken in the same place by the same
> person in different social contexts? The curious thing is that after some
> thought about this, I have not been able to come up with many examples,
and
> I have thought of none in the Germanic languages.
>
> John Duckworth
> Preston, UK
>
Hello John !
Yes, there are some between German and Low Saxon. One of them is the same as
is between English and German: gift (gift)/ Gift (poison). An other that
comes into mind at once is fleddern (eldertree which would be Holunder in
G.) / Flieder (bot. Syringa which would be flöören in LS).
There will be other more striking examples, too.
Recently I read a report in LS about a journey where in one passage the
writer wanted to explain that he entered a hotel and wrote: "wi betrukken 'n
hotel". In German this would sound: Wir bezogen ein Hotel. "bezogen" is past
tense of "beziehen" (to move into, to enter into a house) - G. "beziehen" is
derived from "ziehen" which in LS is "trekken" to which past tense is
"trukken". What the writer obviously didn't know is that LS "betrekken" or
"bītrekken"  means "to beat, to knock, to hit, to belabour.
Greetings
Holger

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

Greetings to one and all!

Mike Winzer said: "Hi,Isn´t this a quite common thing? E.g. "buck" can mean
two different things depending on the socio-linguistic context. Or is this
not what you mean,John?"

No, Mike it isn't what I mean. The example of 'buck' or 'jack' or 'spring'
is one of homonyms (and homophones) in the same language. By 'False Friends'
I mean words in one language (or dialect - though for politically correct
reasons I was trying to avoid the use of this word) which sound / are spelt
the same (or very similarly) in another language (or dialect), but which
mean something different. Thus the word _Erik_ in German is a man's name,
but in Turkish _erik_ is the word for 'a plum'; the word _book_ in English
does mean the same as the word _boek_ (pronounced almost th same) in Dutch,
but does not mean the same as the Russian 'False Friend' _buk_ , which means
'beech tree'. Similarly, the Danish _bog_ is not synonymous with the English
word _bog_, meaning 'marsh', but rather means 'book'.

There are many instances of False Friends between one language and another,
but what suddenly began to interest me was whether they existed between
literary languages and the forms of speech that are often considered to be
dialects of those languages; in other words between two forms of speech
spoken in different social contexts by the same person. What I think is that
the literary language will exert such a powerful influence that False
Friends would disappear after a time, but that is just a theory and it may
be different in practice.

Sandy said: "Also, sometimes a word is not only the false friend of a word
in another language, but because of the closeness and historical contacts
between the languages, the words falsely befriended also exist with the same
meanings in the other language. For example Scots "fit" (foot) is a false
friend to the English "fit" (eg "the shoe fit" or even in the sense of
"seizure"), but the English meanings of the word exist in Scots too. "

This is a very good point, and it seems that we must split false friends
into a number of categories. Am I not right in saying though, Sandy, that
there is a slight difference of pronunciation between Scots _fit_ in the
sense of 'foot', and _fit_ in the other senses? Whatever the case though, we
have a homonym here, and the sense could be misunderstood if taken out of
context.

The other words that Sandy gives, do however seem to be true False Friends,
as do the others given by Ron and Gabriele and others. This gives food for
thought as it appears to show that False Friends can be tolerated between
Scots and English, or between Low Saxon and Standard German, and are not
eradicated by the strength of the more dominant speech-form.

John Duckworth
Preston, UK.

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

Of course, I agree with your observations and conclusions, John

I wonder if we could go a step farther by perhaps saying that false friends
can be seen as some sort of test of language familiarity or proficiency.
Surely, false friends are striking only to those who are not or are only
superficially acquainted with one or both of the languages involved, while
those who are very familiar with and proficient in both do not normally
think about false friends, not even about the "gems" among them.

Incidentally, all this is reminiscent of the fine art and science of
"shoecabbaging" a friend of mine has developed:
http://www.ucomics.com/shoecabbage/
http://www.ucomics.com/shoecabbage/bio.phtml
http://home.epix.net/~hce/shoecabbage.html
http://thewvsr.com/shoecabbage.htm
http://www.amuniversal.com/ups/newsrelease/?view=82

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Peter Snepvangers <snepvangers at optushome.com.au>
Subject: False friends

Mike <botas at club-internet.fr> wrote:
Hi,
Isn´t this a quite common thing? E.g. "buck" can mean two different things
depending on the socio-linguistic context. Or is this not what you mean,
John?
Greetings to all, Mike Wintzer

Hello Mike,
I was reading your posting and was reminded of a joke so I thought I would
share it with you.
SMOKE RINGS

A Dutch immigrant travelling through the prairies of the USA stopped at a
small town and went to a bar. He stood at the end of the bar, ordered a
drink, and lit up a cigar. As he sipped his drink, he stood there quietly
blowing smoke rings.

After he blew nine or ten smoke rings into the air, an angry American Indian
stomped up to him and said,

"One more remark like that and I'll smash your face in!"
The meaning of words (or in this case actions) is not always clear. I am not
a linguist and have made many fox paws when I have tried to write in Dutch
and Limburgs because I have assumed the correct meanings of words. What
annoys me most is when people do not correct you and let you continue with
the poor grammatical useage.
Cheers
Peter Snepvangers
snepvangers at optushome.com.au

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From: Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth at gnu.org>
Subject: LL-L "False friends" 2004.06.05 (07) [E]

> From: John Nelson <onlinelearning2 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: LL-L "False friends" 2004.06.05 (01) [E]
>
> "And then there is the widespread use of 'learn'
> meaning 'to teach'.  I would say this is more of a
> working class usage than a particular dialect (it has
> a nice history, too)."
>
> Would venture a guess this is more prominent in the
> former Danelaw region.  The root "lære" in Danish
> means "to teach."

or 'to teach' = 'at lære (fra sig)'

> By the way, the word _gift_ (<Gift>) for 'poison' is now taking over in
> Lowlands Saxon (Low German) of Germany, probably due to German influence.
> However, _gift_ (<Gift>) also has the same meaning as English "gift."

It is more funny in Danish:

gift = poison
gift = being married :)

Kenneth

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