LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.06 (04) [E]

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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: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Language varieties" [E]

> From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.05 (01) [E]
>
> What was the point? Having fun, of course! You're thinking way too
practical
> here, Sandy... it's just WAY COOOOL! :-)

Gabriele, the only difference between me and Data is that Data tries to find
ways of becoming more human, I don't. My name reflects the silicon in my
circuits.

I'd be interested in learning your method for computing the temperature of a
language, however.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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

Thanks to Henno for his comments and Luc for his replies.

The first language in my list was Frisian as used in the language course
"buter brea en griene tsiis" published in 1969. Its identity is of course
irrelevant to my argument. The key point is still that changing the
_orthography_ of List 1 does not make the words accessible to
speakers/readers of the second language.

Regarding Luc's points on mutual intelligibility I honestly believe that his
Dutch/Flemish will get him nowhere with people who speak the High German
dialects (eg Bavarian), as opposed to standardised (High) German. I am
highly doubtful that St Augustine (non hippopotamus) spoke Langobardic. The
Lombards didn't hold Rome in his time and in any case there were never many
of them in the Italian peninsula so their linguistic influence was probably
small. But weren't they actually Goths who had been living in what is now
Hungary and were pushed out by the Slavs? If so their language was East
Germanic. It seems rational to me to apply Occam's razor. For the last two
millennia at least travellers of all kinds have either learned the language
of the destination country before going or have employed interpreters. In
foreign parts a native guide has often been essential and such people,
acquiring the language of their employers, can perform the interpreter's
role as well. (Latin was a lingua franca in some places and for some people
but I doubt that it would have been very useful for preaching or even for
extended conversation, given the grammatical and sound changes by 600 CE.)
So rather than imagine anything more improbable, why not just assume that
the missionaries were bilingual or, more probably, used lay interpreters?

I said and Ron replied:
>>First, changing the orthography has _no_ impact on the comprehension of
speech.<

>I did not say that, and if it sounded like I did, it must have been poor
phrasing on my part. I did not mean to say that orthography would solve all
problems, just that it has the potential of *improving* mutual comprehension
in writing.  This implies "relatively.">

What Ron had actually said was:
>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. <

I hope the reason for my misinterpretation becomes clear. But even with the
interpretation "a standardised orthography might improve comprehension so
that it would approach the level achievable in speech when a language is
pronounced slowly and carefully" (which I hope is correct) this still misses
the point of my argument. A Dutch speaker cannot understand the Frisian
words in my list and Frisian cannot understand the Dutch. The precise
orthography has nothing to do with the problem. (Equally, of course,
pronouncing the words slowly and carefully would not produce any transfer of
information.) OK, there's "ik", but without lots more information neither
test subject can be sure that it doesn't mean something else. To labour the
point, because I've said it before, they may in addition _misidentify_ a
word and try to make sense of the rest on the basis of that
misunderstanding.

*****Parenthesis: If you don't want to wade through the rest of this just
bear in mind the (UK English) jokey translation of "sic transit gloria
mundi" as "Gloria was sick in the van on Monday", "Transit" being a Ford
trade-name for a sort of delivery vehicle. *****

This is so obvious to me that I can't understand the opposition to it, but
in case it helps here is an example from my own experience. A leak developed
in the outlet from my toilet. I went to a plumber's shop to get something to
fix it. I told the assistant that there was a small leak from my "loo" but
only when I flushed it. Point 1: if I had said "loo" to his father 20 years
ago he would not have understood me. The assistant thought I meant that the
leak was of water flowing from the cistern and explained the problem to his
boss in those terms. Point 2: the message is heard but misinterpreted. The
boss looked blankly at me as I tried to explain the problem to him because
with "cistern" in his mind he was convinced that the problem lay with the
seal between the cistern pipe and the loo. (I saw that he didn't understand
but the precise reason only occurred to me later.) Point 3: people don't
understand that they don't understand. Point 4: if you try to explain
something in a different way to many people (especially in my experience
older people and the less well-educated) they often think you're talking
about something completely different. Before someone accuses me of class
prejudice or ageism ... who cares, they will anyway if they really want to.
At some point it was suggested that I use the sealing compound "Plumber's
Mait". I said that I had tried it but it didn't adhere. More bafflement.
Point 4: pseudo false-friends get in the way. Plumbers don't have "adhere"
in their normal vocabulary. I hypothesise that they hear "here". I have
other evidence to support this. So you can know what someone is talking
about (a leaking loo) and even understand what he wants (to fix it) but you
still may not understand what he's saying (the precise problem and why he
says your solution doesn't work). PS: In the end I just bought a bag of
quick-setting cement mix, which even if it didn't work was cheap and
couldn't make things worse.

I should like someone who believes in the similarity hypothesis to post a
language sample which has not been specially written for the purpose so that
we can judge the validity of their views. Two translations will be required.
The orthographies may be modified as long as the modifications are stated.
Similarity between dialects of the same language will not be enough. Texts
containing the names of peoples and languages should be avoided as should
high-flown academic writing and a high content of "international" terms.
None of the versions must be capable of significant misinterpretation by a
speaker of the language of one of the others. Any takers?

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

----------

From: burgdal32admin <burgdal32 at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.05 (01) [E]

> From: Stella en Henno <stellahenno at hetnet.nl>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.04 (06) [E]
>> jimme/jullie/you (pl) = from John
> In fact this is more similar than it might seem, as "jimme" < ji + men
> where men = people, so the pronoun ji (which is I believe related to
> "gij"
> in Southern Dutch, and of course jij/jou (Northern Dutch) and even
> u/uw in
> Dutch (both types) plus indication of plural.
Flemish has  je /gij (pronounced" hie")/ joe (pronounced like the
English "you")
> The same has happened in Dutch "jullie" < ji + lie(den) (jelui also
> exists
> and many variants based on the same principle).
Flemish: gydre/juldre
>  The form *ji (Ingvaeonic)
> also occurs (in other forms) in Low Saxon (ie,i'j, jie and many
> variants)
> and also English (ye, only the object form "you" survives and the
> meaning
> was extended to singular as well, as happened with Dutch "jij" as
> well).
Flemish "ie" is Dutch "hij"
> Even in English this was felt as awkward sometimes, so forms like "you
> all"
> (y'all) etc occur in many varieties.
> The onject case of "ji" (ji is now no longer used, except in
> Saterfrisian
> (Jie), I believe), which is "jo" (no longer "jou") has become the
> polite
> singular (and plural, sometimes) form....
> So basically, these are all forms of *ji with additions/flexion (as in
> "you") added...
>
>> hja/zij/they, she
> I believe "hja and she both derive from *heo/*hio or some such form.
> I believe there are dialects of English that use "shoo" or "hoo"
> (instead of
> they), and
> of course "they" is a North Germanic loan...
> And in Frisian the form "sij/se" is much more common than "hja", which
> is
> only really used in dialy language in the South East of the province..
Flemish zydre/ zij (pron. "zie") / dedie
>
>> dou bist/jij bent/you are (sing)
> "are" is again North Germanic, the difference between jij/you and do
> used to
> be
> less (English also has "thou bist" if one goes back long enough, and
> "thou"
> still occurs in dialects.
Flemish gij/je zijt (pronounced "zit")
>
>> ik wie/ik was/I was
> (the even older spelling of "ik wie" was "ik wier", which looks more
> like
> German "ich war";
> a consequence of older z-r alternation in this verb....
Flemish ik wa(s) / ik ware
>
>> jimme wiene/jullie waren/you were
> (even older spelling "jimme wierne" < "wierene" (< werene), with
> regular
> ie-a alternation between Frisian and Dutch forms (like jier - jaar -
> year,
> skiep - schaap - sheep)
Flemish gydre/juldre waart
>
>> hwa?/wie?/who?
> (modern spelling "wa", but the older shows the old "hw" sound, which
> was
> reversed in spelling in English, while the h- won in pronounciation...)
Flemish wie(ne)?
>
>> hawwe/hebben/to have
> (Minority dialects do have "habbe" and "hebbe" in Frisian, so the
> spelling
> of Modern West Frisian
> made the most "purist" choice (away from Dutch) ....)
Flemish "èn"
>
>> ik hie/ik had/I had
> (but in inversion "hied er?" - had he - had hij..., where the -d
> resurfaces...)
Flemish "ik ao / aot ie" (also "ik ad'n")
>
>> ik haw west/ik ben geweest/I have been, I was
>> giestou?/ga jij?/are you going? (sing)
> (modern spelling "giesto?" )
Flemish "'k ben gewist/ 'k zijn gewist / 'k è gewist
Gao je gie / Gao j' gie?
>
>> ik stie/ik stond/I stood
> (but other dialects in Frisian have "stoe" [stu] (< *sto:d), closer to
> the
> English. The n dropped out, probably for "Ingvaeonic reasons" (?).
> "stie" is
> by analogy to "wie" and "hie"; as also is "gie" below)
Flemish " 'k stonne"
>
>> ik gie/ik ging/I went
> (also "ik gyng", and "ik gong", both quite common)
Flemish " 'k ginge/ 'k gonk"
>
>> dwaen/doen/to do
> Modern spelling = dwaan. (from Old Frisian dua, with n added later on,
> with
> a stress shift to -a, which was lengthened to give the modern form)
Flemish "doen(e)"
>
>> ik doch/ik doe/I do
> (the -ch in Frisian is a relic from *duhan, as older German also wrote
> "tuhn" (I believe)
Flemish " ik doe"
>
>> wy dogge/wij doen/we do
> (ditto)
Flemish "me/wydre/wuldre doen"
>
>> ik die/ik deed/I did
> (-d resurfaces again in "died er" ; die(d) < de:de, with e: which
> English
> probably shortened to i)
Flemish "ik dee"
>
>> jaen/geven/to give
> (modern spelling jaan; originally another verb than "ik jou" below,
> from Old
> Frisian ia: (to concede)
> with later added -n (like dwaan, and a few other verbs)) Indeed a
> strange
> form...
> Wasn't "give" North Germanic again?
Flemish "gev'n" (Reminding g is pronounced like h)
>
>> ik jow/ik geef/I give
> (modern "ik jou" < *jewe, the regular form coresponding to "geve" (eg
> Middle
> Dutch), with
> Late Old West Frisian ewe-breaking.
Flemish "ik geve" or "ik gave"
>
>> 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.
>
> I agree that mutual comprehension is often impeded by these kind of
> common
> words, but having a "story" (mostly etymological) to explain them
> might help
> people see more commonalities then they normally would have, maybe.
> Nice
> contribution.
>
> Henno Brandsma
groetjes
luc vanbrabant
oekene

----------

From: Grietje MENGER <grietje at menger.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.03 (03) [E/Middelsprake]

Hello all,

I tested Ingmar's introduction to Lowland-L on my partner Martin, who's
monolingual but has a fine appreciation of other language. Even though I
gave him forewarning he started reading without giving much pause to the
language the introduction was written in.

Here's what he said:
The difficult sentences seem to be those with a series of little 'bit' words
like "so good for wat on for we dis etc.," and "on se wat etc."  .

The sentence that gave most problems was:
"Ig wete ennoch nik so good for wat on for we dis liist is eksakt doch ig
tenke dat det kan wese interessant for mi."
Which he took to mean something different than it said, namely "I know this
is not what the list is for exactly, but I think that the exercise has been
interesting for me." with a few question marks attached.

Most other people in my acquaintance are also polyglots, so I can't test
things out on him, but I think the jist (as somebody else wrote before) that
bitty words (and prepositions are some of those) are the hardest. When
writing English (and I write a lot of formal / official reports) I still use
wrong preps, but fortunately there's always somebody to correct me ;-).

Grietje Menger
Scotland

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