LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.30 (02) [E]

Sat Apr 30 20:36:45 UTC 2005

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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: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.29 (04) [E]

In rspawnts t'dh'yusj v'daillektl spelling n'emails, ai'd'laik
t'emfasaiz dht't'siems a'bbit "overly dialectal-seperatist" wn'y'blr
wrd bawnddriz... plz lts nt do this kthxbye.

Mark

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.29 (04) [E]

Doont ave many "special wods" in Leicester - ..

East Midlands in general tends to have less "dialect" than much of England;
I believe that this is because Mediaeval East Midlands was the main source
of Standard English.

As to being the front line of Northern speech, it is very much defined in
the south by the old boundary between Alfred's Wessex and Guthrum's Danelaw.
Though I see it as a north-south link; I tend to think of Northern starting
in the northerly parts of Derbyshire and Nottingham as you note;
particularly the clipped definite article (trouble at t'mill) which seems to
appear around Mansfield.

Paul

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From: Montgomery Michael <ullans at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.29 (09) [E]

What specific pronunciations distinguished the two
places?

Michael Montgomery

> From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.28 (10)
>
> When my mother was growing up in the village of
> Aylestone (now a Leicester
> inner suburb), people from Blaby 5 miles away could
> be identified by their
> accent!
>
> Paul

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.29 (09) [E]

Paul Finlow-Bates wrote:
"When my mother was growing up in the village of Aylestone (now a Leicester
inner suburb), people from Blaby 5 miles away could be identified by their
accent!"

It's the same with me. Those of my family who live in the East Midlands
prickle at my reference to speaking "Nottingham English" - they live in Long
Eaton, and strictly speaking Nottingham English is a fairly divergent accent
and dialect from "a long way away". There is even sufficient difference
between the speech of Long Eaton and Beeston (no more than three miles
apart) for it to be noticeable.

I should properly refer to my language as "East Midlands English" (which
would be broad enough a term to include your own variant), but I'm too stuck
in my ways and, in any case, most people know where Nottingham is, but very
few have any notion of what or where the East Midlands are.

Go raibh maith agat,

Criostóir.

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.04.29 (04) [E]

Yes, you made clearer how the people in the city of exploding toads speak.
So you think it's possible that Juttish/Danish intervocalic voicing of
stops came from or at was influenced by neighboring Lower Saxony and
Hamburg LS? Or the other way around maybe?

But the North American similar tendency must be originally from Celtic
mutations, don't you think, i.e Irish English/Scottish/Western English.
Like in French, Occitan, in Iberian Romance (Spanish, Gal./Portuguese,
Catalan), Rhaetoromance, Northern Italian e.a. where Gaulish played a role.

In Dutch, we don't aspirate at all, it is the only Germanic language
without it. Only Northern Low Saxon dialects in Groningen and Northern
Drenthe do have it word initially, so that is the same system as in
Hamburg etc.

I think the Dutch lack of aspiration may be French influenced, starting in
the South - Brabant, Flandria, Zeeland - where <h> isn't pronounced at
all, so maybe the aspiration puff <h> disappeared too because of that.

Long ago (10 years or so) I had a girlfriend from Vienna - originating in
Burgenland, Austria - who lived in the Netherlands for a while. I remember
she had trouble differenciating <t> from <d> in Dutch, saying things like
<dee> [de:] for <thee> [te:i] = tea, etc. Probably because she heared our
unaspirated <t> as a <d>, or because she couldn't pronounce <t> without
puff, and <d> was the nearest sound to it in her repertoire.

Even our very talented Danish friend from Groningen -who is now staying at
the border of Germany and Austria in his own tropical paradize- says he
has trouble in Dutch and (Dutch) Low Saxon to discriminate <t> and <d>.
Or don't you, Kenneth ;-?

Ingmar

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

Ingmar,

> Yes, you made clearer how the people in the city of exploding toads speak.
> in the city of exploding toads

Or "in the state (_Land_) of exploding toads."  I'm not sure which part this
is, in or outside the actual city.  All I have heard about so far is that
its "a better part" ...

> So you think it's possible that Juttish/Danish intervocalic voicing of
> stops came from or at was influenced by neighboring Lower Saxony and
> Hamburg LS? Or the other way around maybe?

I'm not sure.  My educated guess is that it is an areal feature that spread
south to north, because this phonological feature is quite atypical within a
North Germanic context (as are several other features, especiall Jutish
ones).  I'm not sure if and how the North Frisian varieties fit in to that.

> I think the Dutch lack of aspiration may be French influenced, starting in
> the South - Brabant, Flandria, Zeeland - where <h> isn't pronounced at
> all, so maybe the aspiration puff <h> disappeared too because of that.

But it is interesting to note that non-aspiration is found virtually
throughout Low Franconian and throughout various Rhenish German groups.
Sure it could have spread throughout the entire area from a more strongly
French-influenced group, though I suspect that in the case Flemish and
Zeelandic h-deletion you're dealing with perhaps another area feature,
possibly a later one.

Also note that aspiration is lacking in numerous German dialect groups
elsewhere, far away from French-, Low-Franconian- and Rhenish-speaking
areas.  Well, there's a remote possibility that those of the east (like my
maternal grandmother's Lower Silesian one, now at the German-Polish border,
and like most dialects of the state with the ill-gotten name Saxony) lack
aspiration because of Slavonic substrates and/or because of Low Franconian
influences due to medieval colonization.

> Long ago (10 years or so) I had a girlfriend from Vienna - originating in
> Burgenland, Austria - who lived in the Netherlands for a while. I remember
> she had trouble differenciating <t> from <d> in Dutch, saying things like
> <dee> [de:] for <thee> [te:i] = tea, etc. Probably because she heared our
> unaspirated <t> as a <d>, or because she couldn't pronounce <t> without
> puff, and <d> was the nearest sound to it in her repertoire.

This is very typical among people that natively speak languages with
aspiration, as probably also speakers of Romance languages have noticed.  It
took me personally quite a lot of effort to learn to hear and imitate the
differences.  (It was even harder in Mandarin which has no voiced stops,
only pairs of voiceless stops distinguished by presence and absence of
aspiration.)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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