LL-L "Phonology" 2004.05.17 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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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: Frédéric Baert <baert_frederic at CARAMAIL.COM>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2004.05.14 (02) [E]

Hi everybody

Marco wrote :

>Speaking of the more obvious: note that Zeelandic, one of the
main 'sources'
>of Afrikaans, has very strong nasalation as wel. The same goes for quite a
>few West-Flemish dialects. Speakers notice this phenomenon very well and
>sometimes try to capture in their spelling: standard Dutch 'n' in certain
>positions is then spelled 'ng' or even 'ñ'.
>Standard works like 'Dialect op Walcheren' (E. J. van den Broecke-de Man,
>Vlissingen 1987) use the spelling 'ng' and describe the Zeelandic 'n' as
the
>same as in French _bonjour_.

Such strong nasalisation also occured in all french west flemish dialects
(as far as I know) but without any "g" except in one case (see farther).
I'm very doubtful it comes from a french influence since french west
flemish possesses more nasal vowels than french (i.e. the nasal "oe" is
impossible to pronunce for a french speaker : I tried with friends of mine).

Ron wrote :

>Nasalization does not apply (or is much weaker) if there is an intervening
>non-nasal consonant; e.g.,
>
>hebben (<hebben>) [hɛbm] 'to have' (but alternative [hɛ˜ːm])
>lesen (<lesen>, <läsen>) [leːzn] ~ [lɛːzn] 'to read'
>drükken (<drücken>) [drʏkŋ] 'to press', 'to squeeze'
>dregen (<dregen>, <drägen>) [dreːgŋ] ~ [drɛːgŋ] 'to carry'

In french west flemish, "n" is the only consonant that can nasalize a
vowel. Nevertheless, nasalization can occur if there is an intervening non
nasal consonant and if this consonant is a "g" (I mentioned this phenomenon
in a mail a few weeks ago). This makes for example the first e of "zeggen"
a nasal one.
But an hypothesis is possible about the particular case of the verb "to
have" in french west flemish : the word is "hebben" in dutch but "hen" in
west flemish. Could the disappearance of the "bb" be due to nasalisation of
the first e like the "gg" of "zeggen" is tending nowadays to disappear?

Another interesting point:
I said french west flemish has more nasal vowel than french and pronunce
nasal vowels the way they are in french ( I mean the same kind of
nasalisation).
However, pronunciation of mostly all french loaded words ending with a
nasal vowel in french is deformed in french west flemish : we pronunce the
nasal vowel followed with a hard "g" or a "k". i.e. :

een kamiong (a truck)
een pong (a bridge)

I don't know the meaning of this phenomenon since these nasal vowels does
exist in french west flemish and thus could be pronuncewithout any accent !

Regards

Frederic Baert

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

Salut, Frédéric!

Thanks for the information on French West Flemish.  I find it very
interesting (though I find nearly all contributions of all vocal Lowlanders
interesting) and am always very pleased to get information about these
language varieties, which otherwise I would have a hard time coming by.  So,
thanks for representing French West Flemish so diligently!  This sort of
sharing is what it's all about.  (Hear, hear, other representatives of
"rare" varieties!)

> In french west flemish, "n" is the only consonant that can nasalize a
> vowel.

Now that's very interesting, for two reasons, as far as I am concerned:

(1) It may support your hunch that nasalization in those Flemish varieties
is not due to French influence, unless it could be shown that the
surrounding indigenous French varieties (not considering those of the
(previously) Flemish-speaking area itself, because we would have to consider
Flemish substrates then).

(2) As far as I can tell, Afrikaans nasalization, too, is pretty much
limited to following /n/ (though I hear nasalization to a lesser degree
before /m/ and /N/).

> I'm very doubtful it comes from a french influence since french west
> flemish possesses more nasal vowels than french (i.e. the nasal "oe" is
> impossible to pronunce for a french speaker : I tried with friends of
mine).

Well, that in itself could be refuted by considering the possibility of
French influence having been the trigger and French West Flemish having
developed it further.

However, you may very well be right.  We have to consider the possibility of
this being an areal feature.  An areal feature is one that is shared by all
or most language varieties of a given area, irrespective of their genealogy
and their relationship with each other.  Such a feature may be the result of
mere spread, or it may be due to a substrate of a language that used to be
spoken in that area.  In the case of French and West Flemish this could be
due to Celtic (Gaulish) substrates.  After all, we also have to ask the
question why French varieties (and to a somewhat lesser degree Occitan ones)
have developed such strong nasalization trends.  Of course, Portuguese has
strong nasalization too, to a somewhat lesser degree Galician and Southern
Castilian as well as some American Castilian varieties derived from Southern
Spain.  Furthermore, pretty strong nasalization can be noted in the
Bayuvarian German varieties of Germany's and Austria's Alpine regions, also
previously Celtic-speaking areas.   All of the above are areas in which
Western varieties of Continental Celtic used to be spoken, extinct Celtic
varieties about which we know next to nothing, unfortunately.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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