LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.11.19 (02) [E]

Fri Nov 19 17:36:56 UTC 2004

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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
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From: Montgomery Michael <ullans at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.11.18 (07) [E]

About two hundred years ago Jacob Poole compiled a
rather extensive glossary of Forth and Bargy terms,
which Terence Dolan and Diarmaid O'Muirithe edited and
introduced in about 1995.  It was published by Four
Courts Press, Dublin -- not cheap, but a definitive
piece of work.

Michael Montogmery
South Carolina

> From: Tom Carty <cartyweb at hotmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.11.17 (03)
> [E]
>
> Id be grateful for any info on forth and bargy, and
> the response about other
> distinct dialests such as the Fingalian English and
> Yola, both of which I'd
> never heard of before, is fantastic.
>
> If you have any written material could you post same
> to me at Tom Carty, 13
> Church St, Tullamore, Offaly, Ireland?
>
> The current Dublin dialect may be an extention of
> Filgalian, but noting the
> similarity of accent and words to some working class
> areas of Waterford
> City, it may go back indeed to Viking Times.
>
> Tom Carty
> www.teanganua.pro.ie

----------

From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language Varieties

Hi All

Sandy wrote:

"It's not often noted but the fact is that is South-Western dialects the
/z-/ is used in the Germanic vocabulary while /s-/ is used in the Romance
vocabulary. I don't know whether this means that the /z-/ precedes the
Norman invasion or whether there was a time when people just didn't use
Romance words and these were learned at school with more stndard
pronunciation, but I guess they precede the Normal invasion."

I didn't know that - but have since found it written in another book - (An
Atlas of English Dialects by Upton and Widdowson).  Presumably we can only
guess what the pronunciation was in Old English times as we didn't have the
phoneme /v/, which was only introduced as different from f with the large
amounts of French loan-words and so f- was always written.

I've had a look in the Linguistic Atlas of English by Orton et al at the
extent of voicing in the South
West. Their studies were done amongst older (mainly rural) people in the
sixties - so is not
representative of the situation today, or of the situation in the middle
ages, however some conclusions can still be made. There are a number of maps
to show the extent of voicing of pre-vocalic fricatives, but looking at two
of them (for 'finger' and 'furrow') is quite interesting.

Finger shows the typical situation. the pronunciation with v- is confined to
the South West and includes areas from Gloucester, Wiltshire and Hampshire
(down to Portsmouth) and all the way down to Cornwall (but not the tip -
which is due to their relatively late adoption of English as a mother
tongue). This area is directly above the Isle of Wight - however the Isle of
Wight is not included (is this because it was Jutish and not Saxon, although
neighbouring mainland Britain
Jutish settlements do have voicing?)

The map for furrow has a much larger area where v- is pronounced. As for
finger but also including parts of Berkshire, Surrey and Sussex - and also
the Isle of Wight. This area stops at Kent, though - where the Jutes
settled. The other 'saxon' area not included is Essex - but this area was
always a more mixed dialect featuring both (Northern) Anglian and (Southern)
Saxon
influences.

These maps possibly go a way to confirming what Ron said :

"though I am not sure exactly where the British settlements of early Jutes
were, if they did not tend to congregate with Angles. At any rate, we can
fairly safely assume that Jutes were not given to that type of voicing."

Ron you also wrote :

"The diphthongs /ou/ and /ei/ are pronounced pretty much alike (including
the [eU] variant of /ou/, e.g., SE _toe_ & NS _tou_ 'to' [t_heU]).
Northern English dialects (and many American dialects), on the other hand,
tend to
have monophthongs instead, as does Scots."

It's always nice to know that the Southerners do have some features in
common with the continent that the Northerners don't have ;o) - it's usually
the other way round. However, I'm inclined to think that these diphthongs
are innovations and that the monophthongs
are more archaic. The diphthongs have possibly just developed in the same
way due to close contact through the ages. I could well be wrong though.

You also wrote, Ron:

"The sequence /ar/ is pronounced alike in North Saxon, Cockney and the
dialects of Australia and New Zealand (e,g, E _car_ & NS _kar_ [k_ha:], E
_part_ & NS _part_ [p_ha:t]), and long /a/ in
Southeastern English and North Saxon is a very low [Q:] (e.g., E _father_
['fQ:D@`] & NS _vader_
['fQ:d3`])."

Again these are independant innovations in both regions, although not
unrelated. The Germanic dialects all have a tendency towards 'weakening' of
syllable final consonants (as do all dialects in the world - although the
tendencies seem to be quite strong in the Germanic area due to features such
as the fixing of accent on the first syllable, prevalence of syllable final
consonant clusters and the presence of long vowels - although too complex to
go into how these all contribute).

Then you said, Ron:

"Most of North Saxon (certainly its northern and central range) is
"non-rhotic" like the dialects of Southern England and those that developed
from them elsewhere.  ("Non-rhotic" means that a
syllable-final /r/ is "deleted," more precise, assimilates to the preceding
vowel.)"

Is this the case in North Saxon after all vowels or only certain ones, such
as the low ones? Also can you be any more precise as to what areas of Low
Saxon are non-rhotic? Possibly point me to a map... Any information here
would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Gary

----------

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

Cheers, Gary!

That's an interesting set of facts, thoughts and questions above.  I really
appreciate your interest in these possible links or coincidents, whichever
the case may be.

You wrote:

> It's always nice to know that the Southerners do have some features in
common
> with the continent that the Northerners don't have ;o)

Well, it is those phonological features that I found very striking when I
first visited Southern England (mostly the London area) and immersed myself
in the language as a teen.  They have made me wonder ever since, the main
question being "If these features were not developed independently, would
the post-migration contacts we know of have been sufficient to account for
the similarities, or could the roots or seeds of these features have existed
at the time of migration and have developed in a less encumbered manner in
the original Saxon regions of Britain?"  English of Southern England was the
sort of English I was first familiar with.  When later I encountered
Northern English dialects and their monophthongs and unaspirated stops,
their sound was far less familiar to me, sounded "southern," "farwestern" or
"peripheral" to me in terms of Lowlands Saxon (Low German).

I wrote:

> The diphthongs /ou/ and /ei/ are pronounced pretty much alike (including
> the [eU] variant of /ou/, e.g., SE _toe_ & NS _tou_ 'to' [t_heU]).

I should add that another, more often encountered variant of this is [6U]
(with an upsidedown "a" in IPA).  This one seems to be more widely spread,
while I associate [eU] primarily with the Lower Elbe region, a much smaller
area.  [6U] is used in Eastern Friesland dialects as well, and you will be
able to hear it when our anniversary presentation comes out and you listen
to Holger Weigelt's version of the "Wren" story.  The unrounding of the
first vowel in this diphthong is what particularly Southern England,
Australian and New Zealand English shares with the North Saxon dialect
group.  This is a case of "roughly speaking."  It may be more accurate to
talk about the northernmost, coastal dialects of North Saxon -- which, of
course, might cause some eyebrows to be raised, considering the sort of
possible connection we are talking about.

By the way, there is another phonological feature especially Lower Elbe
North Saxon shares with Southeast English dialects, as well as with
Australian and New Zealand English, including standard varieties.  This is a
tendency toward raising long /a/, which in the said English varieties and in
practically all Lowlands Saxon varieties tends toward rounding.  This
results in a type of [o:] sound.  In the varieties of English we are talking
about, this occurs in sequence usually written <al>, as in "talk" [t_ho:k]
and "all" [?o:L\], vs lower rounded [t_hQ:k] and [?Q:L\] in other varieties
and unrounded [t_hA:k] and [?A:L\] in most American varieties (with
diphthongized [t_hA.wk] and [?A.wL\] in certain Southern dialects).

> "Most of North Saxon (certainly its northern and central range) is
"non-rhotic"
> like the dialects of Southern England and those that developed from them
> elsewhere.  ("Non-rhotic" means that a syllable-final /r/ is "deleted,"
more
> precise, assimilates to the preceding vowel.)"
>
> Is this the case in North Saxon after all vowels or only certain ones,
such as the low ones? Also > can you be any more precise as to what areas of
Low Saxon are non-rhotic? Possibly point me > to a map... Any information
here would be greatly appreciated.

Gary, I can think of no maps that show this, which is why I am still rather
tentative about it with regard to "peripheral" varieties.  I go as far as
saying that, if there are rhotic varieties, they are a tiny minority, are
indeed peripheral, due to an overlap with a neighboring rhotic group.  Where
I suspect this to be a possibility is at the farwestern edge of the language
area, where Lowlands Saxon has direct contacts with Dutch and the two
languages influence each other.  I am very curious about this myself and
would love to hear about it from our friends in or from the Netherlands.
However, I am under the impression that even many or most varieties in that
region are basically non-rhotic.  By and large, Low Franconian is rhotic,
though there may be Dutch dialects on Saxon substrates that are not.  I
don't know and would love to find out.

So, what sorts of contacts between Continental Lowlands Saxon and Southern
England do we know of?  Hanseatic trade with Southern England began to
flourished in the 12th century and began to dwindle in the late Middle Ages
but never ceased.  There was a Hanseatic _kantor_ (office, burea) in London,
and Hanseatic merchants founded the London _Staalhov_
(_Stahlhoff_/_Stahlhof_ 'Steelyard') in 1151.  The founders were from
Cologne, just southwest of the Saxon-speaking area, but the establishment
came to be frequented by people from all over the Hanseatic area, the vast
majority of which was Saxon-speaking.  Ever since those times, London and
Hamburg entertained mutual commercial representation.  Hamburg merchants
were sometimes made fun off because of their stereotypical "English" styles
and values.  North German longshoremen and sailors had contacts with their
Southern English counterparts (as no doubt had the people and establishments
that catered to sailors' needs and desires in English and German ports).
Saxon- and English-speaking sailors rubbed shoulders with each other on
merchant vessels throughout the world, and many nautical terms entered
Lowlands Saxon, while Saxon terms entered English in medieval times.  North
German sailors adopted sea shanties they learned from their English mates,
later also from their American mates, oftentimes making them macaronic.
(See below.)

However, even though this may sound impressive, there have been no such
contacts on a massive scale that, in my opinion, could account for fairly
dramatic phonological shifts.  Could commercial and maritime contacts really
cause such phonological developments?

Lots of things to think about.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

***

Macaronic Sea Shanties:

"De Hamborger Veermaster"  [The Four-Masted Ship from Hamburg]
http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/Lieder/ickheffm.html
http://ingeb.org/Lieder/ickheffm.html

"De Hoffnung" [The "Hope"]
http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/Lieder/dehoffnu.html

De Runner von Hamborg [The Hamburg Runner]
http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/Lieder/deseegei.html
(Based on the American shanty "Roll the Cotton Down")

This type of shanty was very common among German sailors.  The solo was sung
in Low Saxon, the chorus in English.  I assume that many of these shanties
were derived from or inspired by English language ones.  It would be
interesting to find out if some of them were new creations in which singing
the chorus in English had become standard form.

The shanty "Flying P-Line"
(http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/Lieder/wifohrt.html), by the way, starts
off in Low Saxon and then goes on in German, and it seems to refer to a
British or American shipping line.

"De blaue Flagge weiht" ["The Blue Flag is Flying"] is a pirates' song that
appears to be rather old, showing signs of Middle Low Saxon, though it also
appears to be somewhat Germanized:

   1.
   |: De blaue Flagge weiht, :|
   Wi arndt dort, wo de Koopmann sieht.
     Refrain:
     Mord unde Brand!
     Den leewen Gott to Fründe
     Un aller Welt Fiand!

   2.
   |: Un bring en Koopmannsschipp :|
   Von Ost un Westen War' uns mit,
     Refrain

   3.
   |: Wi drinkt, wi drinkt sin' Win, :|
   Sin Schipp un Last mutt unse sin!
     Refrain

   4.
   |: Un heet' up't letzt: God Nacht! :|
   Up't letzt gelacht is best gelacht!
     Refrain

   My translation:

   1.
   |: The blue flag is flying, :|
   We profit where the merchant goes [?].
     Chorus:
     Murder and arson!
     Friend to the dear Lord
     And fiend to all the world!

   2.
   |: And should a merchant's ship :|
   Bring us goods from east and west,
     Chorus

   3.
   |: We'd drink, we'd drink his wine! :|
   His ship and freight, they must be ours!
     Chorus

   4.
   |: In the end we'd say farewell! :|
   He who laughs last does laugh best!
     Chorus

If this shanties thread developes further we'll need to make it a "Songs"
thread.

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