LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.25 (13) [E]
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Thu Jul 28 05:23:06 UTC 2005
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L O W L A N D S - L * 25.JUL.2005 (13) * 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: Þjóðríkr Þjóðreksson <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.27 (08) [E]
Dutch (and our dialects) only have the [S] as a more recent borrowing but
not through development from Germanic.
Oldest French loans (through north French (Picardish?)) still have k before
a -> kasteel.
I have no idea from when [S] loans made their way to here.
Diederik Didi Masure
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties
Beste Þjóðríkr,
Or Diederik...or maybe even Didi? ;-)
Btw...you may happen to know that one of our finest Belgian poets, "Didi
de Paris", is a namesake of yours? Novelist as well...and actually one
of our best performing artists on stage, if you're asking me...and
Brabantish afaik ;-) .
You wrote:
> From: Þjóðríkr Þjóðreksson <didimasure at hotmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.07.27 (06) [E]
>
> Does west brabant really have this sjl- etc?
Yep. When I first heard it, I thought it was some kind of speech
impediment, but I know better now. You don't get to hear it very often
(it seems to have some social connotation these days), but it's
definitely authentic (and old). Moreover, it sure doesn't occur in every
word starting with s + consonant, and it happens much more frequently in
words that can express some emotionality like "schtoem", "schlüm" and
"schterk". I grew up in Merchtem (which is northwest of Brussels...and
adjacent to Londerzeel...not entirely unfamiliar to you, I think ;-) ),
and over there the phenomenon exists, but is not as popular as in the so
called Pajottenland, which is southwest of Brussels. I tend to think it
could have something to do with either very strong final palatalization
("wintj" and "kintj" for example for Dutch "wind" and "kind") or initial
"sch" that always sounds like "sk" ("skerp", "skoeñ", "skool"...).
> I don't know if the other Brabanders here have seen the series but if
> so, how understandable was it? (hiphiphurray they didn't subtitle it
> so everyone was forced to do his best to understand =) )
Unfortunately missed it.
Ron wrote:
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language varieties
>
> Diederik (above):
>
>> Zandvliet tends to it, but in general the s and z here sound already
>> close to sh and zh, I call it "suizend" but dunno in English. So sl
>> and st etc don't differ from other s's.
>
> German friends of mine simply call it _nuscheln_.* ;-) The tip of
> the tongue is place onto the alveolar ridge farther back than for /s/
> but not as far back as for /S/ ("sh"). This pronunciation is common
> and usually limited to language varieties that do not have the /S/
> ("sh") sound, thus have more room for the /s/ to move since there is
> no danger of mistaking it for /S/ ("sh"). While not all speakers have
> it, it is a fairly striking feature for instance in Finnish, Estonian,
> Greek, European Spanish (Castilian) and Dutch.
>
> * A friend who learned Spanish of Spain agreed with my own choice of
> Latin American Spanish, saying about Spaniards, _Die nuscheln immer
> so!_. ;-)
I've heard such a lax (Spanish) /s/ also in English. Sometimes American
singer Dolly Parton and British actress Gilian Anderson (Scully in "The
X-Files) talk/sing this way.
Kind greetings,
Luc Hellinckx
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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L Language Varieties
Hi All
Speaking about how much Missingsch non-native speakers
can understand. I just had a look at the Missingsch
varieties of the Wren written by our Ron on the
anniversary site and was surprised by how High German
it actually was - I understood it all (although I had
to read it out loud to myself) - but it didn't seem
too 'foreign' somehow. I get the feeling that Berlin
dialect has more Low Saxon features than Hamburg
Missingsch. For example your (Ron's) words for alleine
/ Bein and such like had the 'ei' pronounciation -
these would be alleene and Beene in Berlin, and your
'was' would be 'wat'. Even your 'büschen' would not be
too out of place (sometimes even rendered as 'büßken'
by older Berliners).
I don't mean to demote your Missingnsch, but to me it
looks more like High German with an accent, than a
mixture of High and Low elements. In this respect it's
probably much the same as Estuary English being 'High'
English with an accent and a couple of quirky
unpredictable features... Berlinerisch seems to me to
be much more of a proper mixture between the two (even
though it's still fairly High German with an
accent...)
What are your feelings about this?
Gary
http://hometown.aol.com/taylor16471/myhomepage/index.html
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties
Luc, you wrote above:
> I've heard such a lax (Spanish) /s/ also in English. Sometimes American
> singer Dolly Parton and British actress Gilian Anderson (Scully in "The
> X-Files) talk/sing this way.
You're right. Another one whose trademark it is is Liza Minelli. Also, you
hear it more often in old American movies.
Hi, Gary!
With a few minor reservations, I agree with your comparison between Berlin
Missingsch and Hamburg Missingsch (the latter standing for pretty much all
other North-Saxon-based ones).
While, strictly speaking, Berlin dialects are Missingsch varieties, they are
in a league of their own and are quite unrelated to the others (which may
also be why they are not officially recognized as Missingsch).
First of all, the Low Saxon dialects once spoken in today's area of Berlin
were Brandenburgish and were quite different from the North Saxon ones in
the areas of Hamburg, Bremen, Flensburg and so forth. For one thing, they
had much stronger Slavonic influences (possibly accounting for those "weird"
Berlinisms like _Stulle_ for "sandwich"). In my book, those dialects are
the easternmost extension of Eastphalian (of which our Gabriele's secret
dialect is a westernmost representative). The reason why they are classed
as Eastern is mostly because of noticeable Slavonic influences, most notably
the shift g > j before front vowels (e.g., _Jejend_ for _Gegend_ 'area'),
possibly also the scarcity of diphthongs in comparison with North Saxon;
e.g., _Been_ 'leg' = Berl/Br [be:n] vs NS [bE%In] (like "bane" in English).
Further about your examples _Been_ 'leg' and _alleen_ (Brl/Br [?a"le:n], NS
[?a"lE%In]) 'alone'. It is my theory that in the North Saxon region
adoption of German /ai/ (spelled <ei>) was easier because the sound already
existed in those Low Saxon dialects and was absent or rare in the
Brandenburg dialects. For instance, in Brandenburg and Berlin you say
_Krähe_ or _Kreje_ ["kre:@] ~ ["kre:j@] for 'crow', while in North Saxon you
say _kray_ (<Kreih> [kra%I], pronounced like Dutch _kraai_ and English
"cry"). In Brandenburg and Berlin you say _ik jeh(e)_ [... je:(@)] 'I go'
and 'er/he jeht_ [... je:t] 'he goes', while in North Saxon you say _ik ga_
(<ik gah> [... gQ:] ~ [... go:]) and _hey gayt_ (<he geiht> [... ga%It],
from historical _ga-et_) respectively. Furthermore, many North Saxon
dialects pronounce _ey_ as [a%I], hence _beyn_ [ba%In], _alleyn_ [?a"la%In].
Obviously, it was then easier for North Saxon speakers to cope with German
_ei_ [aI], except that in Missingsch they lengthen it to [a%I] as in Low
Saxon (which is similar to Dutch <aai>).
So, if you take away palatalization (_Jejend_) and monophthongs (_jeht_)
there isn't really all that much that Berlin Missingsch has over it's
cousins. Yes, it has retained the Low Saxon forms of some "small" words;
e.g., _det_ versus _das_ (NS _dat_), _wat_ versus _was_ (NS _wat_).
Let me take a wild stab at making sense of it. Berlin Missingsch came into
being much earlier than its cousins in the west, and it did so in relative
isolation. The city came to be a Germanized island early, but "proper"
German made real inroads only among the upper echelon. At that time, few
ordinary people had any schooling at all, and their adoption of German was
very slow, relying mostly by hearing "fine" people talk. They ended up with
hybrid varieties that flourished and came to be their widely accepted
language, the language of the masses, carried on with a measure of pride and
defiance. When German eventually made real inroads in the cities of the
west, access to school education had improved, and Low-Saxon-speaking
children came to be "converted." But even those that had little or no
education worked for or catered to German speaking city slickers. (Among
them, "converted" German speakers retained their "accent," but there were
large numbers of newcomers from German-speaking areas, including large
Ashkenazi Jewish immigration from Southern Germany beginning in earnest in
the 18th century.) All this happened relatively quickly. Furthermore, the
Low Saxon base shrunk rapidly, in Hamburg in large part because of the
enormous influx of emigrants from all over Germany as well as Central and
Eastern Europe, and many of them never managed to catch a passage to
overseas, thus settled in Hamburg. In a word, the linguistic landscape
change rapidly and dramatically, while in Berlin it seems to have been a
slower, more "organic" development.
I'm not sure you can compare it with Estuary English, since in this case
there's no substrate of a different language.
What do others think about this?
Oh, and Gary, Hamburg Missingsch and Berlin dialects sound very different
indeed. Hopefully I'll get a sound file together sometime soon now that
I've invested in an electronic sound recorder. :-)
Cheers, mate!
Reinhard/Ron
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