LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.14 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 14.JUL.2005 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From:  Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.13 (05) [E]


Three years in Papua New Guinea, and I never knew about Rabaul German!  I 
knew some people from islands off the PNG north coast who apparently still 
spoke some German; this was in the early 1980s, so few if any would have 
been alive during German admistration.  I also knew a girl of partly Samoan 
extraction who acquired some German from her parents, and she would have 
been born at least 45 years after the Germans left Samoa.

Interestingly, it was in fact the Germans who were largely responsible for 
exporting Tok Pisin ("pidgin English") from its cradle in New Britain to the 
rest of their New Guinea territory, and its ultimate spread to be the main 
Lingua Franca of the modern country.  They obviously saw it as a more viable 
language than the German-based language.

Paul

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From:  Jan Strunk <strunkjan at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.13 (06) [E]

Hello Lowlanders,

Ron wrote:
> I vaguely remember my father telling me (when I was very young) about a
> working-class "jargon" (which he was able to demonstrate) of
> Willemsborg/Wilhelmsburg and neighboring areas in Hamburg (Germany),
> apparently a type of Missingsch (i.e., German on Low Saxon substrate) with
> Polish influences, especially with Polish vocabulary (of which I remember
> _Kapuster_ < _kapusta_ 'cabbage', _Koschu_ < _kościół_ '(Roman Catholic)
> church', _Sabawa_ < _zabawa_ 'dance', 'fun', 'shindig' and _Babka_ <
> _babka_ 'grandma', 'old lady').  Apparently, it was in use for a
> relatively short while in the early 20th century, after large numbers of
> Polish workers were imported to Hamburg, the Ruhr Area and some other
> places.
>
> Does anyone know more about this "jargon"?

As you perhaps know, I am from the Ruhr Area and my family has a working
class / miners background.
In our area, we speak a kind of High German on a heavy Low Saxon 
(Westphalian) substratum, i.e. many phonological phenomena, grammatical 
devices, and function words
are of Low Saxon origin as are numerous lexical items, but most of the 
vocabulary has a High German form.
Lay people from the area believe in the legend that their is a big influence 
of Polish on this dialect because of the huge number of Polish immigrants in 
the wake of industrialization at the end of the 19th and the beginning of 
the 20th century. They call it "Polnisch Platt
mit Zungenschlag" (something like "Polish Low Saxon with a tongue twist").
But actually some research shows that there are surprisingly few Polish 
influences in our dialect.
And that most of it's properties go back to the mixture of Low Saxon and 
High German.

However, there are some Polish lexical items:

Motek --> hammer (miner's jargon)
Matka --> old woman
dobsche --> very good (as in "dobsche, dobsche, tralala")
rabotti --> work! (mostly used as "getz abba rabotti, rabotti" --> "let's 
get to work now")
Paselacken (?) --> untrustworthy people (derogatory)

And we have got an interesting kind of Slavic looking diminutive suffix -ek
(which only occurs in certain words, i.e. it is not really productive):

Tonnek (from Tornister or Tonne + ek) --> Schultornister (the bag for your 
school books) Fussek (from Fußball, with a voiced s but short u, another 
peculiarity of Ruhr German) --> football Pinnorek (from Pinn) --> small pin 
protruding from somewhere Oschek (cf. Oschi) --> something big ("Dat wa son 
Oschek." --> "It was so big.") (not always diminutive then...)

There may be some more...

Actually, while speaking about miner's jargon. I have heard stories that 
some "Steiger" (i.e. overmen in the pits) actually used to speak pure 
Westphalian Low Saxon with their workers (even immigrant workers like Poles 
or Turks) even though this was only used by a small minority of elderly 
people aboveground.

Gued gaon!

Jan Strunk
strunk at linguistics.rub.de

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

Hi, Paul!

> Three years in Papua New Guinea, and I never knew about Rabaul German!
> I knew some people from islands off the PNG north coast who apparently 
> still
> spoke some German; this was in the early 1980s, so few if any would have
> been alive during German admistration.

I heard the same story.  Not having been to the north coast I have never met 
any such a person.

Also, rumor has it that in the north some people still say _mark_ or _mak_ 
instead of _dola_ for 'dollar' in Tok Pisin.

Unserdeutsch is said to have originated in the Gazelle Peninsula of New 
Britain, starting with Vunapope people who are of partly German ancestry and 
are mostly Roman Catholics.  There is now only a handful of elderly speakers 
left, most of whom also speak Tok Pisin and English, some of them Standard 
German and/or Kuanua (which is the predominant Meso-Melanesian language of 
Eastern New Britain). Unserdeutsch is still listed among Papua-New Guinea's 
820 surviving languages.

Another interesting fact is that there are some speakers of Unserdeutsch in 
Southeastern Queensland, Australia (because of sugarcane plantations?).

Hi, Jan!

Thanks for the info about Polish language influences in your region.

> Motek --> hammer (miner's jargon)
< młotek ["mwOtEk]

> Matka --> old woman
< matka 'mother'
Yep, I know this one also.

> dobsche --> very good (as in "dobsche, dobsche, tralala")
< dobrze ["dOpSE]
Yep, I know this one also.

> rabotti --> work! (mostly used as "getz abba rabotti, rabotti" --> "let's 
> get to work now")
< raboty ('works?')?

> Paselacken (?) --> untrustworthy people (derogatory)
< ?
Might it be one of those words that seem Polish but aren't?

> Oschek (cf. Oschi) --> something big ("Dat wa son Oschek." -->
>  "It was so big.") (not always diminutive then...)
< ?
Might it be one of those words that seem Polish but aren't?

By the way, I've heard of _Öschi_ with the same meaning.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

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