LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.05.16 (02) [E]

Sun May 16 20:36:04 UTC 2004

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From: Heiko Evermann <Heiko.Evermann at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.05.15 (02) [E]

Hi Ron,

>The eastern part of the Saxon- (and German-) speaking area has a more or
>less strong Slavonic substrate, due to that area (eastward from Hamburg,
>Lunenburg and Brunswick, including also much of Holstein and thus Luebeck)
>having been largely Slavonic-speaking (Polabian, Pomoranian and Sorbian),
in
>part Baltic- (Prussian-) speaking, before Germanic speakers colonized and
>Christianized it.  Some areas remained Slavonic-speaking for centuries
>thereafter, and Sorbian-speaking Lusatia is the only remaining enclave.
>However, throughout the area, Lowlands Saxon (and German) language and
>culture still bears more or less noticeable Slavonic character.
>
There may be some influence on the language, but the language to me it
does not have a "noticeable Slavonic character".

> Much of it
>is in the area of folklore, dress and food.
>
Maybe. I would be interested in some examples.

>Clearly Slavonic features of
>the phonology are _j-_ (_y-_) for _g-_
>
Well, a change from g to j is not Slavonic. It is a feature that you can
also find in Turkish in comparison to other Turcic languages further
east. The character "g" with an accent (inverted "hat") is called
"yumushak g" (weak g" and is pronounced "j" before "bright" vowels.

Apart from that it is also a general feature of Lowlands Saxon. "g" is
pronounced "ch" in the middle of a word. The preceding vowel decides
between "ch" as in "ich" and "ch" as in "ach". In western Lowlands Saxon
this is not done at the beginning of a word. But interestingly it is
done in Dutch. Have a look at the town "Gent". Netherlands Dutch has
"ch" like in "ach", Flemish has "ch" as in "ich". I thought that a
transition from "g-" to "j-" in eastern lowlands saxon was caused by a
Dutch influence?
How about slavic influences here? Did the slavonic languages in those
areas have words starting with "g-"? I am not so familiar with them, but
I know that Russian replaces "h-" with "g-", like in "Gamburg" for
"Hamburg" and "Geroj" for "hero".

For this change to be caused by a Slavonic substrate, I would expect a
language that does not retain "g-" at the beginning of a word.

>and various permutations of palatals
>before front vowels, and unrounding of front rounded vowels.  The latter
>feature (ü > i, ö > e, also German oi (<eu>) > ai (<ei>)) is an
>"easternization" feature shared with Yiddish; hence Saxon _düytsch_ >
>_dietsch_ 'German', German _deutsch_ > _deitsch_ (cf. Yiddish _daytsh_)
>'German', _Gemüse_ > _Jemiese_ 'vegetables', Saxon _dööns_ (<Döns>) >
>_deens_ (<De(e)ns>) 'parlor' (< Polabian *_dörnice_ < *_dwornica_).  In
>addition, the number of Slavonic and Baltic lexical loans gets larger the
>farther east you go.
>
A change from "ü" > "i" and from "ö" > "e" is slavonic influence indeed.
But from my knowledge of Mecklenborger Platt (which is limited), this is
not the case there. For that change one would have to go further east.
But You were talking about an area that includes all of eastern Lowlands
Saxon in its current boundaries with the easternmost dialects being extinct.

Can You give us more information?

Kind Regards,

Heiko Evermann

----------

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

Heiko,

For lack of time, I am responding only briefly for now.  It would take
several dissertations to go into more detail.

> There may be some influence on the language, but the language to me it
> does not have a "noticeable Slavonic character".

Germanic- and Slavonic-speaking people clearly mixed in those areas (which
you can also tell by the presence of Slavonic-based surnames), and the
latter took on Germanic language varieties.  So there may be more than just
influences but in some pockets even substrates.  Much depends on the early
population concentrations, whether they were predominantly Slavonic
settlements, mixed settlements or newly founded Germanic settlements.
Included under "Germanic" are also Flemish and other Low Franconian
speakers, by the way.

> Well, a change from g to j is not Slavonic. It is a feature that you can
> also find in Turkish in comparison to other Turcic languages further
> east. The character "g" with an accent (inverted "hat") is called
> "yumushak g" (weak g" and is pronounced "j" before "bright" vowels.

I did not say that a change from g to j is by definition Slavonic, or
uniquely Slavonic.  Besides, Turkic intervocalic g-fricativization (which is
not confined to Turkish but is found all the way to China and Eastern
Siberia) is a different type of process, and so is fricativization in
Western LS dialects and in Low Franconian.  This is not velarization, which
we are talking about here (g > gj > j before front vowels) and which in some
dialects, such as West Prussian, including Plautdietsch, is a part of a more
general process (also k > kj > tj).  In the west, this occurred only in a
handful of "small" words, like _gi_ > _ji_ 'you'.  In the east it is
regular.  Velarization is a well-known and widespread Slavonic feature, and
it only occurs in *eastern* dialects of German and Lowlands Saxon.

> A change from "ü" > "i" and from "ö" > "e" is slavonic influence indeed.
> But from my knowledge of Mecklenborger Platt (which is limited), this is
> not the case there. For that change one would have to go further east.
> But You were talking about an area that includes all of eastern Lowlands
> Saxon in its current boundaries with the easternmost dialects being
extinct.

This is true.  Neither does it apply in Holstein, nor in the Lunenburg area,
the area in which Draveno-Polabian was last spoken.  However, there was not
only one form of Slavonic spoken in the east.  In Mecklenburg and farther
west it was mostly Polabian, which had become Germanicized in developing /ü/
and /ö/.  (I could give you some examples of this if you wish.)
Germanic-Slavonic contacts were much earlier in the west than in the east.

Germanic infiltration was clearly stronger farther west and weaker farther
east, which explains differences in prominence of Slavonic features,
including lexical loans.  All this also coincides with the concentration of
Slavonic-based placenames.

> > Much of it
> >is in the area of folklore, dress and food.
> >
> Maybe. I would be interested in some examples.

For lack of time I am only mentioning that folk costumes and folktales in
that region (more the farther east you go) are anywhere between partly and
fully Slavonic-based, and apparently there are archeological features, too,
though the Saxon house type is found in the east as well.  The stories my
maternal grandmother told me (in German) were clearly Sorbian-based, pretty
much unknown in the west where we lived.

I understand that in some quarters in Germany this is still a difficult
topic to deal with, but I hear that more people are becoming aware and
accepting of mixed Germanic-Slavonic heritage (just as people in Alpine
region accept their mixed Celtic-Germanic heritage), perhaps in part because
it was more regularly taught about in the former East Germany.  Only a few
decades earlier it had been outright dangerous to talk about it and to admit
that one had Slavonic, and thus "inferior," blood.  Hopefully we will soon
be beyond that for good, especially now that Slavonic-speaking countries
have been included in the European Union and it is even more urgent that
prejudices of all kinds disappear.  The presence and acceptance of mixed,
overlapping heritage can only be benefitial in my opinion.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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