LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.13 (04) [E]

Wed Apr 13 15:10:54 UTC 2005

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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From: Gavin Falconer <Gavin.Falconer at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2005.04.12 (04) [E]

Isaac Davis wrote:

"Could you provide any links or anything with information about Yola and
Fingalian? You mentioned them once before, and I
googled for them, but I didn't manage to find anything. Sounds really
interesting. I do recall reading some mention, in
an old book about Irish dialects, of some English dialect spoken in
southeast Ireland (can't recall where, offhand) that
had diverged quite widely from the standard, and had taken on some
interesting characteristics of Irish, including the
diminutive -een. Could that be Yola or Fingalian?"

As far as I know, Yola, spoken in the baronies of Forth and Bargy in
Wexford, and Fingalian, spoken in Fingal in north Dublin, were unique
because they were a fossil form of Middle English with dialect elements
found in south-western England.  The name "Yola" is from "A Yola Zong" ('An
Old Song'), one of the few attested remnants of the speech variety.  The
voicing of the initial [s] is similar to that found in the English county of
Somerset ("Zomerzet" in the local dialect); it's also present in pastiche
form in part of 'King Lear', and there's also an Irvine Welsh story about a
Somerset necrophile, though that won't be everyone's cup of tea.  It is
difficult to understand much at all on the page (more difficult than actual
Middle English), although it might be easier with another orthography.  I
think that "I am" was something like "'Ch am".  I seem to remember that the
past participle retained the older English y-prefix and dispensed with the
flexion at the end, which might make it similar to Afrkaans in that respect.

The use of diminutive -een would be common to many Irish dialects of English
and unremarkable in this case.

--
Best,

Gavin

Gavin Falconer

"Tharfor wordly happe es ay in dout
Whilles dam fortune turnes hir whele about."

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2005.04.12 (04) [E]

Scriobh Iosac Mac Dáibhéid:
"Could you provide any links or anything with information about Yola and
Fingalian? You mentioned them once before, and I googled for them, but I
didn't manage to find anything. Sounds really interesting. I do recall
reading some mention, in an old book about Irish dialects, of some English
dialect spoken in southeast Ireland (can't recall where, offhand) that had
diverged quite widely from the standard, and had taken on some interesting
characteristics of Irish, including the diminutive -een. Could that be Yola
or Fingalian?"

That's them. There should be a handful of fairly detailed messages in the
Lowlands-L archive relating to both varieties, as well as a couple of
pitiful references from myself and the odd sample text. What follows is
entirely from memory, and thus of dubious accuracy.

Yola (Yola for 'old') is better documented, and was spoken in the parishes
of Forth and Bargy in extreme south eastern Wexford until the late
nineteenth century. I understand lexical traces of it still survive in the
Hiberno-English of the area (i.e., _neape_ for 'turnip'). Isolation from the
surrounding Irish-speaking districts seems to have been culturally important
to Yola speakers, although as you point out, they nevertheless imported a
number of lexical items from Irish, including the -in dimunitive which was
liberally put to use, and words like _capall_ 'horse', apparently for a
particular kind of horse. Yola seems to have been strongly influenced by if
not derived from Gower and Westcountry English, evident in its use of [v]
and [z] for standard [f] and [s] - i.e._vaadher_ 'father', _zummer_
'summer'. I believe Yola also used a Devonian sort of pronoun base, with
_cham_ [xam] , earlier < ich am being used for 'I am'.

Fingalian was always derided, and so less well recorded. Its users were said
to be unable to speak either Irish or English, but only the worst of the
latter. While Fingalian seems to have had a long life span in the Pale, it
appears to have been submerged by Hiberno-English in the nineteenth century
expansion of Dublin and none of it remains today, even lexically.

I hope this helps.

Go raibh maith agat,

Criostóir.

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From: speegled at SLU.EDU <speegled at SLU.EDU>
Subject: resources

I notice that the ``Universal Survey of Languages" link listed on the
lowlands-l page is broken.  Does anyone know the status of this page?

This gives me an excuse to ask the following (as I am sure that the answer
would have been on that page): How analytic is Low Saxon in comparison to
Dutch and German?  Is it possible to provide me with some juicy examples?
For that matter, how does it compare to English?  (I think I know the
answer to the last one, but I don't want to assume.)

Thanks in anticipation,
Darrin Speegle

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

Dag, Derrin, en dankie vir die interessante navraag hierbo.

I'm a tad too busy for a long explanation and examples (juicy or otherwise).
(Did I hear a sigh of relief there somewhere?)  However, I can say that, by
and large, Low Saxon is as alalytic as Standard Dutch and can be more so.
There's a great deal of dialectical variation, hence the disclaimer "by and
large."

The genders are still being distinguished, though not always
morphologically, as in the definite articles (e.g., _de(y) man_ 'the man',
_de(y) vrou_ 'the woman', _dat huus_ 'the house').

Depending on dialect and even idiolect, suffixes may be present of absent;
e.g.,

de Afrikaansch(e) man -> hey
de Afrikaansch(e) vrou -> sey
dat Afrikaansch(e) huus -> et ~ it ~ dat

'n Afrikaansch(en) man -> hey
'n(e) Afrikaansch(e) vrou -> sey
'n Afrikaansch(et) huus -> et ~ it ~ dat

de Afrikaansch(en) mans-luyd' -> sey
de Afrikaansch(en) vrou(e)ns-luyd' -> sey
de Afrikaansch(en) huys' -> sey

Afrikaansch(e) mans-luys' -> sey
Afrikaansch(e) vrou(e)ns-luys' -> sey
Afrikaansch(e) huys' -> sey

N.B.: Here <uu> stands for [u:], and [uy] stands for [y:] (i.e., Afrikaans
<oe> and <uu> respectively).  LS umlauts, though the pattern does not
totally match the German one. Furthermore, many LS dialects have
"superlength" or "drawl tone," i.e., an extra-long vowel or diphthong where
a final /-e/ has been elided between it and a preceding voiced consonant;
hence _huus_ [hu:s] 'house', vs. (_huyse_ ['hy:ze] >) _huys'_ [hy:.z]
'houses'.

You might like to visit my introductory site (badly in need of updating
though): http://www.sassisch.net/rhahn/low-saxon/

Hopefully, others will have things to add.

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron

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