LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.04 (06) [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: Elsie Zinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.04 (03) [E]

Hi all,

Ingmar, I don't believe any language is truly 'pure'!
Regards,
Elsie Zinsser
>I think you're right Sandy; that's also because English isn't really a
>"pure" Germanic language compared to the others but a mixture of

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From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Language varieties

It seems to me that two seemingly contradictory attitudes emerge in postings
to this list. On the one hand all the languages are very similar. On the
other they're very different and we must strive to observe and maintain the
differences.

Ron recently said something like "if we could use a common orthography with
standardised representations of phonemes the languages would have a high
degree of mutual intelligibility". Sorry, original message lost.

I believe the "similarity" view often exaggerates the degree of mutual
intelligibility: we can be too easily impressed by a few similarities found
in pairs of languages. For mutual intelligibility both basic vocabularies
and grammatical forms have to be very close. As regards vocabulary there are
broadly three levels or layers. At the top is the "international" vocabulary
which contains a lot of words borrowed from English and/or Latin- or
Greek-based. At the bottom are the very simple words - pronouns, names of
everyday objects, prepositions, basic verbs such as "go", "be", "have" -
which tend to differ greatly between languages. In between are all the rest.
Even if you can find lots of similarities as regards words in the top two
layers making sense of them when they are put into sentences is made
difficult because of the frequency with which the bottom-layer words occur.
(Difference between lexical frequency and frequency of occurrence.) It may
be possible to understand what someone is talking _about_ but not what
s/he's saying about it! Of course you also have to be able to recognise
parts of speech and  grammatical forms - singular and plural, past and
present - and not be confused by idioms, irrelevant differences, etc, and to
understand the differences in use between parallel forms (eg the three
present tenses in E).

The following sets of words in three different languages form part of the
lowest of my three levels. Is anyone prepared to claim that someone familiar
with the first language ought to be able to understand the second or that
knowing the second provides access to the first? Is it conceivable that a
consistent orthography could bring this about?

jimme/jullie/you (pl)
hja/zij/they, she
dou bist/jij bent/you are (sing)
ik wie/ik was/I was
jimme wiene/jullie waren/you were
hwa?/wie?/who?
hawwe/hebben/to have
ik hie/ik had/I had
ik haw west/ik ben geweest/I have been, I was
giestou?/ga jij?/are you going? (sing)
ik stie/ik stond/I stood
ik gie/ik ging/I went
dwaen/doen/to do
ik doch/ik doe/I do
wy dogge/wij doen/we do
ik die/ik deed/I did
jaen/geven/to give
ik jow/ik geef/I give
ik joech/ik gaf/I gave

I've got a list of adjectives, nouns and adverbs but the lack of formatting
means it occupies a lot of lines and I'll hold it back for the present.
Please accept for now that in these languages there are large numbers of
basic words for family relationships, days of the week, numbers, and common
objects and products which look and sound completely different. In addition
there's the problem of false friends. Accepting a broad definition of
similarity when you are looking for matches implies allowing an equally
loose definition for false friends.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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

John,

Of course I never meant to even as much as imply that a standardized
orthography would bring about excellent mutual comprehension.  It would
simply improve it, perhaps to the level at understanding another variety
pronounced slowly and carefully.

In my experience, differences in orthographically presenting the same or
similar sound are much greater obstacles to the average person "out there"
than to the average person on this list.  Spelling the sound [u:] <u>, <uu>,
<uh>, <oe>, <oo>, <ou> etc. leads to much greater diversity on the written
level than on the spoken level.  This is a problem even among dialects of
the same language without a standard orthography (e.g., Lowlands Saxon,
especially across the German-Netherlands border), while on the spoken level
these problems do not exist, at least not to the same degree.

Lexical differences and semantic shifts are another matter.  But even those
could be coped with more easily if one understood the general gist.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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