LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.19 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 19.SEP.2004 (03) * 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: Grietje MENGER <grietje at menger.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.18 (05) [E]

> From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.18 (03) [E]
>
> John Feather wrote:
> "The lowest figure found for these three languages was 23 for Swedes'
> understanding of Danish. Other experiments involving just asking people if
> they can understand another language "well" have produced results in the
> range 40-70% with Swedish..."
>
> I have a Norwegian friend (from Tromso) who tells me that a lot of
> Norwegians understand Swedish and Danish fairly well (I have witnessed him
> talking to a Swede in Norwegian and the Swede replying in Swedish - the
> conversation was a lengthy one). However, it is rare that a Norwegian
would
> try to speak Swedish (or vice versa).

When at uni we had to choose 1 of 3 (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) as main
language of communication. In our final year, we would also have to do a
"passive" exam in the two others. (I don't know whether that is still the
case, I'm talking about the first half of the 1980s).

In 1998 I went for a work's exchange to Sweden (I worked in Customs then).
They were dead chuffed that they could just speak Swedish to me (instead of
English as with most exchangers) and I would understand, and they would be
able to understand me, speaking Norwegian, but with jargon in Swedish - talk
about funny peculiar!

Anyway, personally I have always found that there was no problem whatsoever
with Swedes, as long as both realised you were actually speaking a different
language and wouldn't use too many colloquialisms. However, Danes always
seemed to pull a "what's that that's deigning to speak to me" face
(exceptions noted, of course).

Our professor (the renowned Amy van Marken) was known to speak all three
languages equally well, but when she had to speak formally, she would "brush
up" on the obvious traps first.

Grietje Menger
Scotland
PS My Dutch friend who visited last weekend, commented upon the fact that my
English now sounded very Scots to him. Scots would beg to disagree. But it
is undoubtedly true that I'm developing an accent (as I have had a Welsh
accent for a long time, because I visited Wales and learned Welsh a number
of years). Fortunately nobody is yet thinking I'm taking the mickey,
although I had the jocular comment "your accent's all over the place".

----------

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

Criostoir wrote:

"However, it is rare that a Norwegian would try to speak Swedish (or vice
versa)."

According to the paper I got my previous info from it is fairly common for
Danes, Norwegians and Swedes to adapt the way they speak their own language
to help comprehension. They speak more slowly, use words from the other
person's language, avoid colloquialisms and sometimes modify their
pronunciation. Norwegians have the option of switching towards Bokmaal from
Nynorsk.

Regarding the Manx cat, etc, it seems I read too much into Ron's stipulation
that the Sassenach was "Cornish, Welsh or Manx". My question was stimulated
by the thought that Manx is generally said to be a dead language. Manx cats,
of course, have no tails.

I thought Criostoir might like to get his teeth into (or grind them about)
the Abominable Bryson's statement that Cornish "survives only in two or
three dialect words, most notably _emmets_ ('ants'), the word locals use to
describe the tourists who come crawling over their gorgeous landscape each
summer." Even allowing that (as in the case of Pennsylvania Dutch) he is
confusing the language with the English dialect influenced by it, 'emmet' is
a good old OE word.

BTW Van Dale Ned/Eng Dictionary lists 692 Spreekwoorden but none under the
headword "tand".

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: Henry Pijffers <henry.pijffers at saxnot.com>
Subject: LL-L "Pronomina" 2004.09.17 (02) [E]

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
Subject: Dou (you) dying out in Dutch Lower Saxon
>
> I would like to tell you a personal story.
> My grandmother is 85 years old, she was born in Winterswijk (a town
> surrounded in the east, north and south by Westphalian (German) terretory,
> in the eastern part of the Region Achterhoek,Province Guelders in the
> Netherlands) and lived there almost all her live, except for a period in
> Ontario, Canada.
> Her mothertongue is the old local Lower Saxon "Wenters" dialect, which is
> quite archaic, in fact the most Low German dialect of Holland.
>
That last part is what a lot of dialects claim to be. I don't think
there's one single dialect that's the "most" Low German.

Henry

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