LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.25 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 25.SEP.2004 (05) * 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: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Language varieties

Gary wrote about finding that his English was possibly becoming distorted
because he was tending to follow German usages. I'm sure this sort of thing
is in principle relevant to what happened to the Continental
languages/dialects which became OE but it still seems unclear what language
pairs were involved. On the specific point of word endings, some could have
been eroded not because of interactions between Germanic and Brythonic but
because of interactions among the Germanic languages themselves. Frictional
effects between OE and Danish/Scandinavian are, after all, commonly cited as
the major reason for the erosion of grammatical endings in the spoken
language towards the end of the OE period.

I was thinking recently about "also" with a negative in English. We tend to
say "I didn't do it either" rather than "I also didn't do it". Similarly
"Neither of us did it" rather than "Both of us didn't do it." I had some
trouble translating a Swedish text a while ago because I found that a
negation would only appear when I was well into the sentence. I don't know
whether this is technical style or a general Sw construction. Since I have
the very bad habit of not reading (technical) material before I translate it
I would often have to recast the sentence when I realised it was going in a
different direction. There is then a choice to be made between using the
more and less formal Eng constructions and I suspect the formal sometimes
wins (at least in the first draft) just because it involves less effort.

"Both" causes problems for both Germans and Swedes because of the tendency
to say "as well" inappropriately, presumably influenced by "sowohl" and
"saavael".

Gary, if you start saying "If I would go" instead of "If I went" come home
straight away.

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

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