LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.06.08 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 08.JUN.2004 (06) * 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: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2004.06.08 (05) [E]

Dear Luc, Troy & All,

Subject: LL-L "Orthography"

    I, personally, find Vondelen easier to manage than Modern Hollands, at
any rate. I won't presume to guess why, it just flows better. Also the terms
& names as such are easier to follow in the earlier language than in the
later.

    As far as English goes, a bilingual S.African, & even more, a native
Afrikaans speaker has a serious advantage with the older forms of English.
Even in A. Conan Doyle you find English usages more amiable to Afrikaans
practice than modern English e.g. a merchant quoting the cost of an article
at "five-and-twenty Shillings!". There are many other examples.
    In Shakespeare the advantage is more marked. In High School we studied
two to four plays of Shakespeare every year, & we country-boys used the
annotations to the text a lot less than the British immigrant kids studying
with us. One cute example is from 'Macbeth' where a witch uses the word
'paddock' for frog. The Pommies (pardon, fellows) didn't have a clue, but we
still use the word 'padda'.
    Getting to Chaucer, the advantage is serious. I never studied it in
University (which is probably why I still enjoy it), but friends who did say
their English speaking fellow students were all at sea. A few of the local
'Dutchmen' planted some serious obligations with the occasional tutoring.
    Coming to Caxton's 'Reynarde' it is manifest how much more carries over
into the English from the 'Flemish' of his time than any continental
language does with the English of today. I wont pretend they were closely
related at that time, or even dialectically related, but there were many
parallels.

    Yrs Sincerely,
Mark

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

Mark, Folks,

Sorry I'm crossing this thread over to "Language varieties," even though
there is an orthographic component to it.  I think what we are starting to
talk about here now is degrees of mutual comprehension among Lowlands
language varieties (albeit only in writing so far).

Let me add that I, too, had relatively few problems with Chaucer's and other
folks' Middle English writings, approaching them from a German and Lowlands
Saxon background with then added smatterings of Modern English, Danish,
Dutch and Afrikaans, well before I started on the path down into the murky
depths of linguistics and acquired analytical skills that come with it.
Already then did I seem to have far fewer problems understanding Middle
English than did or do monlingual native English speakers or English
speakers with non-Germanic foreign language background.  Nowadays I read
Middle English (mostly poetry) with relative ease, referring to glossaries
and notes only rarely.

I used to have serious beginners' problems reading Old English but gradually
acquired fair reading skills, mostly by just reading and reading, looking up
vocabulary (less and less) and occasionally referring to grammar notes.  The
other day I read a short Old English story "cold," about one third into a
textbook I picked up at a store, and I understood the entire thing without
having to look up anything.  My reading skills in Old English and Old Saxon
are on similar levels.  All in all, I would say that I started off with a
distinct advantage over native English speakers who have no knowledge of
other Germanic languages and are not familiar with Germanic alternatives of
what in Modern English are Latinate words, and who are thrown off by the
relatively complex Old English morphology (which is a piece of cake to
speakers of German and Icelandic for example).

I cannot stress enough the importance of exposure to languages that are
closely related to one's own.  Not only does it train one in understanding
other language varieties but it also enhances one's understanding of one's
own language variety and its ancestors.  Here on Lowlands-L we have
opportunities to practise this.  Particularly those bi- or trilingual
postings are no doubt very useful and are lapped up by many on this list.
So keep them coming, folks!

(Of course, I cannot stress enough the importance of learning languages that
are "unrelated" or are distantly related to one's own, for that teaches one
even more about one's own.  But that's a second step, another trip and
another story ...)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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