LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.10.24 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 24 October 2006 * Volume 06
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From: 'jonny' [jonny.meibohm at arcor.de]
Subject: LL-L 'Language use'

Dear Heather,

as far as I remember you are working (or have been) as a teacher, i.a. for
German, and so you may have dealt with a problem that we native German-speakers
normally don't think about.

I guess you to be aware of a phenomena in the German pronunciation: the _st-_
('St-all', 'St-orch', 'st-ehen'...) can be spoken like English 'st-able',
'st-ork', 'st-and', but the greater part of the native German speakers prefer to
pronounce it 'Scht-all', 'Scht-orch', 'scht-ehen'. Perhaps you even know the
according proverb: "Er sstolpert über'n sspitzen Sstein.."

In my family and neighbourhood a great amount of people who are older than 60
still use the _st-_-version; I guess that's influenced by our LS, where it's
strictly forbidden to use 'sch-' before a consonant. I for myself use the
_scht-_-version (in Standard German only!!), maybe influenced by my East-German
ancients as well as by the majority of speakers around me during my childhood.

In general I assume that the _st_-version is widerly spread in the northern parts
of Germany, though I've heard people from Hessian speaking this way, too. But
even in the North I'd guess just 5 to 10 % of the speakers still use it this way;
I fear it will completely die out within only a few generations.

So, my question: what version had you been taught and what do you hand down to
your pupils?

Regards

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Phonology

Hi, Jonny, Heather, Lowlanders!

I, too, pronounce _sp-_, _sm-_, _st-_ and _sn-_ with a sh ([S]) sound in German
but not in Low Saxon and Missingsch ([s]).  (In Missingsch it's mixed now, but
these varieties are dying out now, anyway.)

Jonny:

> In general I assume that the _st_-version is widerly spread in the northern 
> parts of Germany, though I've heard people from Hessian speaking this way, too. 

Bear in mind that some of the southernmost Low Saxon dialects are used in the
northern part of today's state of Hesse.

Even in the northern dialects of Low Saxon, the sh pronunciation is encroaching
and appears to be considered acceptable by many people now.  I assume that this
is part and parcel of Germanization.  This pronunciation is old in many of the
southern and eastern Low Saxon dialects, however, including the Mennonite dialects.

In the northern and eastern areas of the traditionally German-speaking area
(e.g., south of the traditionally Low-Saxon-speaking area), including also
Limburgish and Yiddish, this sh pronunciation (i.e., [Sp], [Sm], [St], [Sn],
versus traditional northern [sp], [sm], [st], [sn]) is confined to
morpheme-initial position (e.g., _Storch_ [StOrC] 'stork', _Schmiere_ ["Smi:r@]
'smear', _spinnen_ ["SpIn at n] 'to spin', _Schnauze_ ["SnaUts@] 'snout',
/fer-steeh-st/ -> _verstehst_ [fEr"Ste:st] '(thou) understandest',
/ooster-straus/ -> _Osterstrauß_ ["o:st at rStraUs] 'Easter bouquet').*

*(Low Saxon _Stork_ [stO:k] 'stork', _Smeer_ [smE.I3`] 'smear', _spinnen_
["spI.n:] 'to spin', _Snuut_ [snu:t] 'snout', /fer-staa-st/ -> _verstahst_
[f3`"stQ:st] '(thou) understandest', /ooster-struus/ -> _Oosterstruuß_
["o:st3`stru:s] 'Easter bouquet')

Farther south in the traditionally German-speaking area, especially in the
Alemannic dialects and in the "standard" German dialects influenced by them, this
rule applies to *all* occurrences (e.g., _verstehst_ [fEr"Ste:St] '(thou)
understandest'). In these dialects, this rule usually extends to morpheme-final
/s/ as well (_Osterstrauß_ ["o:St at rStraUS] 'Easter bouquet', versus standard
["o:st at rStraUs] and now archaic Northern ["o:st3`straUs]).

I can't help grinning when English-speaking TV and radio reporters try to do
extra well on the basis of their school German by pronouncing _Bundestag_ (the
German parlament) as ["bUnd@,Sta:g].  The morpheme boundaries are /bund+ at s_taag/,
so the standard pronunciation is ["bUnd at s,ta:k] (northern ["bUndes,tax]). So this
is an example to show that knowing morpheme boundaries can be important to
pronunciation where the orthography does not represent such boundaries.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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