LL-L "Phonology" 2004.10.05 (07) [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
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From: Stella en Henno <stellahenno at hetnet.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2004.10.02 (01) [E]

> From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
> Subject: Phonology
>
> Henno, Mark, Ron:
>
> Thanks for your comments on Frisian (etc) pronunciation. A few immediate
> points which occur to me:
>
> 1. Why is the pronunciation Henno suggests so different from the one used
in
> my language course? It was published under the auspices of the Fryske
> Akademy in 1969 so presumably it represented some consensus at that time.
It
> illustrates 'ea' with the words: gean/stean/brea/dea/hea/ea/nea. Henno, do
> you say all these are pronounced like "brea", as if spelt 'ie'?

I don't think I said that they would be pronounced as if spelt "ie".
The sound is like the vowel of "pit" (slightly longer lenghtened) followed
by a schwa (analogous to "ie" which is pronounced like the vowel of "beet"
followed by schwa (sort of slackening, I suppose, the schwa is coloured (as
it were) by the preceding vowel). So [I.@] (and "ie" = [i.@], "oe" = [u.@]
etc.).

> 2. Henno wrote: "Also both varieties have had a similar fronting of the
> monophthongisation of Germanic "au" (as in "bread", and Frisian "brea" (<
> bra:(d)), but this is more the result of a common tendency to front and
> diphthongise." But we have OE "bread" which began moving towards a
> monophthong around 1600 but didn't standardise on it till about 1750. In
> OFris (about 1250?) we find "brad", already with a monophthong, which
> eventually becomes a diphthong again - "brea". So the evolutionary paths
> from 'au' seem very different.
True, and I'm aware of the history. But in both cases there was a fronting
involved to get from *au to the vowel we have now. And both languages "like"
to "break" vowels into falling diphthongs and have done that several times
in their history...

> 3. BTW people who want to see similarities between Eng and Fris (and
> differences from other langs) like to cite E "boat" Fris "boat" Du "boot"
G
> "Boot". What they don't grasp is that the similarities are orthographic
and
> the phonetics are completely the reverse: Fris 'oa' is a diphthong and the
> other words are as similar as they can be given the differences in vowel
> quality between these langs. They also fail to notice that all the other
> words are in fact late borrowings (direct or indirect) from Eng.
True, of course West Frisian should have been *"beat" or *"beet". We
probably got it from Dutch and as long o: before -t is almost impossible,
this was substituted (by analogy, or by force of the phonological system) by
the diphthong [o.@], written "oa".
I believe North Frisian dialects preserve a form based on Old Frisian *ba:t.

> 4. Mark said: "Ron has raised the point already that the orthography is
more
> different than the pronunciation in the Teutonic tongues". "Teutonic"
isn't
> quite the right word but it will do. I don't recall that this was ever
more
> than a dogmatic statement, ie I don't remember that Ron has ever been
> prepared to define its limits, but I may be mistaken. Considering the
> Frisian words above, the authors of my text clearly thought the vowel was
> the same in each. But if we compare them with Dutch we get
> gaan/staan/brood/dood/hooi/ooit/nooit - three different sounds. In
English,
> using the contracted forms of "ever" and "never", we get 5 sounds
> (go//stand//bread/dead//hay//e'er/ne'er). How could any orthographic
> convention smooth over these differences?

go/gaan/gean is complicated of course (I already said something about that
in a previous post).
And add hoanne/haan/(rooster, cock), moanne/maan/moon etc..
(I think never/ever have a slightly different etymology, but I haven't
checked)
The -ooi / -ea is quite systematic, but there are funny exceptions, like
"haaie"/"hooien" (the get the hay in) vs "hea"/"hooi".  (haaie used to be
spelt "haeije", and probably is in your course).

> 5. The "good butter" version surely leaves too few similarities - or did
it
> arise after people realised that "brea" and "bread" are really rather
> different? Maybe some sailors who had heard the saying tried to buy some
> "brea" in England?
"brea" is used for "bread" (instead of the usual meaning "rye bread" (really
dark and yummy)) when it means more generally "food": as in the paternoster
"jou ús hjoed ús deistich brea" (give us today our daily bread) or in "wat
docht er foar syn brea?" (what does he do for a living).

> John Feather CS johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk
>
Regards

Henno Brandsma

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