LL-L "Language contacts" 2004.11.07 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 07.NOV.2004 (05) * 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: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language contacts

Lowlanders,

For some strange reason email messages sometimes sneak to the bottom of the
pile in my private account.  Today I found one our friend Kenneth Rohde
Christiansen sent me a long time ago.  It had evaded my attention until now.
Oops!  Undskyld, Kenneth!

Kenneth pointed out a website at which the dialects of Denmark are listed
(with a map), and there are sound recordings of Jutish dialects: Western
Jutish (vestjysk), Eastern Jutish (østjysk) and Southern Jutish
(sønderjysk/synnejysk).  Dialects of Southern Jutish are spoken in
Schleswig, south of today's Danish-German border, as well.

We have mentioned before that the Jutish varieties, although genealogically
North Germanic, i.e., Scandinavian, have a bunch of "un-Scandinavian"
features, especially morphological ones (such as non-suffixing of definite
articles), that are rather West Germanic.  These make these varieties
something of a link between North and West Germanic, thus somewhat relevant
to our list.  Furthermore, the Lowlands Saxon (Low German) and North Frisian
varieties of the northern extremes seem to have features, besides lexical
loans, that seem rather "Danish," probably due to contacts with Southern
Jutish for ages, and also with Standard Danish during periods of Danish rule
of the northernmost area of what is now part of Germany.  So we might speak
about a type of "north-west bridge" in that region.  I assume that the
Lowlands Saxon dialects in areas north of the border are by now all but
extinct, and only ("High") German survived in Denmark's German minority
community (due to educational policies that Germanized the Saxon citizens of
Germany).  I imagine those now extinct dialects had even stronger Jutish
features.

I haven't listened to Southern Jutish (sønderjysk/synnejysk) and to
Jutish-accented Danish (sønderjysk regionalsprog, Southern Jutish regional
language) since my teen years, at which time, though language-curious, I
wasn't educated enough to analyze linguistic features in detail.  So I went
to the site Kenneth recommended.  I listened to Western and Eastern Jutish
first, then to what I would term "Southern Jutish Danish" (sønderjysk
regionalsprog).  Southern Jutish Danish brought back memories.  Yes, I used
to hear it a lot, and it definitely sounds like Danish, albeit with a heavy
southern "accent," with no or few occurrences of the glottal stop tone relic
(stød).

When I listened to what is called _sønderjysk dialekt_ (Southern Jutish
dialect) I immediately knew that this was "real" Jutish, not Danish with a
Jutish accent.  What really, really struck me right away were the many
phonological features shared with the North Saxon dialects of Lowlands
Saxon.  In fact, they are so numerous and so clearly present that to me it
sounds like a speaker of Lowlands Saxon is trying to approximate Danish.  It
is very striking indeed, also as far as intonation is concerned.

I had just gotten off the phone with Clara Kramer-Freudenthal, a native
Olland/Altländer "Platt" speaker (online.sh/platt).  The voice of the lady
whose Southern Jutish was recorded sounded so similar that it almost seemed
as though Tant Clara was now trying to speak Danish.  (By the way, I have
asked Tant Clar to contribute a recording of the wren story, but I'm not
sure she can do it.)

Please find the relevant URLs below if you are interested.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

***

http://www.elkan.dk/sprog/dialekter.asp
Click on "Se kort over dialekter i Danmark her" to see the map.

Sounds:
Western Jutish Danish:
http://www.elkan.dk/filer_lyd/dialekter/vestjysk_regionalsprog.mp3
Western Jutish dialect: http://www.elkan.dk/filer_lyd/dialekter/vestjysk.mp3
Eastern Jutish Danish:
http://www.elkan.dk/filer_lyd/dialekter/ostjysk_regionalsprog.mp3
Eastern Jutish dialect: http://www.elkan.dk/filer_lyd/dialekter/ostjysk.mp3
Southern Jutish Danish:
http://www.elkan.dk/filer_lyd/dialekter/sonderjysk_regionalsprog.mp3
Southern Jutish dialect:
http://www.elkan.dk/filer_lyd/dialekter/sonderjysk.mp3

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