LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.05.03 (09) [E]

Fri Jun 3 22:14:12 UTC 2005

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 03.JUN.2005 (09) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
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)
=======================================================================

From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.05.03 (03) [E]

Hi, Ed:

Subject: LL-L "Language varieties"

Thanks for the story of the Quaker & the Mule.

I have difficulty with the suggestion that 'Plain Speech'. originated with
the Quakers. For one thing they are for doctrinal reasons very well read in
the King James Bible, which declines Thee + verb consistantly & accurately.
If they had taken the Bible for a model, they would not use 'Plain Speech'.
I read that King James's scholars deliberately selected a slightly more
archaic English than was general, not the least out of respect for the
ancientry that they shared with the laity of their day. Much the same rule
held on the wild colonial frontiers, even as late as 1920. My
great-grandfather used the form in an address to a congregation in America,
& if they found it odd or beyond their understanding, they certainly didn't
tell him. I know that over here, up until the 1920's 'King James' English
was appropriate for certain formal contexts, like sermons or political
debate. This was not a Quaker thing, it was an English thing.

'Plain Speech' such as I have heard it spoken is simply modern English in
whichever dialect, but the 'you' is replaced with the 'thee'.

My great aunt Cato married into a Quaker family & uncle Bancroft Clark knew
very well & showed us kids how to use the older form, as in "I have, thou
hast, he, she & it hath, we have, you have, they have." But, as he said,
explaining as it were to us Dutchmen, "English is not spoken in that way
anymore."
That "you" is important. The plural was used as a deferential form, & some
time before 'Plain Speech' can have come into being, drove out the familiar
form, but that is by the way.

He shocked the kids our side of the family rigid one day when in an intimate
context asking a child of his own family, but about our age, "Does thee want
to pish or do dirt?"

Now we knew, because our grandfather brought that dialect from Leicester
University, where he studied, if he were speaking 'egte ouderwetse Engels',
that he would have asked, "Doest thou need to piss or skyte?" actually,
"Dusta neede pissr skyte?"

Not that is was any of our business, or his!

Perhaps it is germain that the Clarks come from Street in Somerset. I don't
think they'd speak 'Northern'.

>  The Quakers were the only group, however,
> to make a religion of the thee and thou forms, calling it "plain",

With you there.

> ---that all Biblical languages have some allowance for "familiar" and
> "polite"
> forms.  Is this true, Ron?  I am now studying Hebrew more intensely under
> a
> local Rabbi, and this does not appear to be true of this language.

True. Pardon me Ron, for Mixing In, you can speak very formally, or very
informally, but there is no standard deferential term of address. One could
say, "Adoni, ki evedeycha motse hen be eynykha---" (My Lord, should Your
Servant ((meaning yourself)) find favour in your eyes.---) or
"Haver, sh'ani ose lekha tova---" (Fellow, if I were to do you a favour---)

Now King James's scholars would put it in deferential English; (My Lord,
should Thy Servant ---) knowing that it is deferential address, even if the
Hebrew doesn't have a deferential form. Strange, it does though have a
gender-specific for as to & by woman, or to & by man, hey?

All yrs,
Mark

----------

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

Mark (above):

> Pardon me Ron, for Mixing In ...

Bevakasha.  Mi pregunta es tu pregunta.

Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: embryomystic at cogeco.ca <embryomystic at cogeco.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.05.03 (03) [E]

Ed Alexander wrote:

> There are still communities of Quakers in Pennsylvania
> and Ohio that use "plain speech", i.e. the pronouns thee
> and thou.  I cannot tell you whether they are "correct"
> or not, but they would say, "Thee has" (polite form) and
> "Thou hast," (familiar form) and always "thee" in the
> objective case.

According to a Quaker fellow (from Massachusetts, I believe, but he was a
convert anyway) that I was talking to a couple
of weeks ago, 'thee' is used as both subject and object, and the verb is
that of the third person singular: thee is,
thee has, thee goes, etc. Like nails on a chalkboard to me, but there's no
accounting for taste.

This same fellow said that he'd gotten nasty looks for not observing the
polite/familiar distinction in German (on
principle, for the same reason that he uses Plain Speech in English).

Isaac M. Davis

----------

From: Travis Bemann <tabemann at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.05.03 (07) [E]

> From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.05.03 (03) [E]
[snip]
> Also:
> "How did we go from rolled r's in ME to the half tap and the retroflex r
> in
> modern English?"
>
> There's a variant of English with retroflex consonants? I have only heard
> these features in speakers of English who have Indic or Dravidian
> languages
> as their mother tongue.

If I recall correctly, various North American English dialects use a
retroflex /r/, as opposed to an alveolar one.

> Glenn Simpson wrote:
> "Can't use IPA I'm afraid - just an amateur, will have to learn (or 'lorn'
> (pronounced 'lawn') as we say) I suppose. I try to keep things simple."
>
> That's a shame. I would write your "learn" as /lorn/. Perhaps you could
> create your own orthography?

The main thing though is that creating a new orthography, if it is to
be truly phonemic, is easier said than done; for starters, one needs
to have a good knowledge of phonology both in general and of the
specific set of dialects that one is going to be targeting.  In the
end, one would probably need knowledge of IPA or X-SAMPA or like when
designing such in the first place.  Of course, then there is the
factor that a truly phonemic orthography does not actually bring about
a clear impression of how something "sounds" to a reader, because the
focus is on phonemes rather than phones, but that's another story.

Of course, it's easily to create a half-baked phonetic orthography,
but such things are of little use in practice, and tend to be hard to
use when writing, and highly misleading when reading, in practice.
Anyways, it'd probably be easier to just learn how to use X-SAMPA than
to bother with creating a whole new orthography for a particular
dialect from scratch, if one has purposes like these, especially
because readers would have to learn how to usefully read said
orthography that one has created (as simply trying to eyeball such is
not enough).

> Our erudite Heather Rendall wrote:
> "People half remember having been taught never to say ' you and me' or '
> me
> and you' but always ' you and I' - so only half understanding grammar and
> not at all understanding the difference between a subject and a
> prepositional phrase, over-generalise and say both..."
>
> Yep. That's me. I grew up always saying "you and me" or "person x and me"
> but over the past five years have deliberately changed to write (but not
> say) "you and I" and "person x and I". It's not a case of being made to
> feel
> I was saying anything incorrect, it's just as I wrote "you and me" it
> began
> to sound 'wrong'. So I switched.

Of course, such things are hypercorrections, and are often taught by
teachers who have little understanding of actual English syntax and
like.  Anyways, such hypercorrections, such as "you and I", can catch
on amongst various groups of individuals, who've been sufficiently
exposed to such, which could explain such things starting to sound
"right" for some.

==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
======================================================================