LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.21 (01) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 21 September 2006 * Volume 01
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From: Heather Rendall [HeatherRendall at compuserve.com]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.20 (04) [E]

Message text written by INTERNET:lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET
> but we dispassionate scientists know that it's not a case of educated and
uneducated English but of old and new English, don't we? ;)<

:-0 !

silent scream from Heather

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From: 'jonny' [jonny.meibohm at arcor.de]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.20 (04) [E]

Dear Lowlanders,

Sandy wrote:
> In England the /T/->/f/ and /D/->/v/ processes have been spreading
> outwards from London into the rest of England for a long time (decades
> at least).
> It's worth noting that even in England, people will say something like,
> "I fought you were doing those ovver fings the following Fursday?"

Something comparable we know from LS: shifting /T/->/n/, /D/->/w/ and back. In
times of my youth I remember old native speakers (you may call them low educated)
saying _snubbeln_ as well as _stubbeln_, _wrivvt_ as well as _drivvt_. It sounded
as if anyone is speaking with a completely plugged-up nose.
Regarding these and some other words it's still impossible for me to find out
which one is correct, because I no longer can find any person still
miss-articulating this way.

Greutens/Regards

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

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From: Henno Brandsma [hennobrandsma at hetnet.nl]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.20 (04) [E]

> From: Paul Tatum [ptatum at blueyonder.co.uk]
> Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.20 (03) [E/F/LS]
>
> Hi Henno,
>
>>> examples of this from around the world, and in that sense it not a
>>> change to which a lot of weight can be attached (as opposed say
>>> to the
>>> change of /D/ to /l/ in Frisian, which is a lot more unusual).
>>
>> What change from /D/ to /l/ are you talking about? In what variety of
>> Frisian? Examples?
>
> According to the chapter on Frisian in "The Germanic Languages" ed.
> Koenig and Van Der Auwera: "The dialect of Söl retained the voiced
> alveolar fricative ([Ä‘]) up to this century. In word-final
> position [Ä‘]
> has changed to [r] (cf biir 'both'); intervocalically [Ä‘] has
> become [l]
> or [r], although it is still written <đ>: faađer, 'father',
> bröđer
> 'brother'." (page 529).

Ah yes, the Söl'ring dialect. Indeed, in older books they still
mention the older
pronounciation and modern spelling keeps it, as a ∂.

> Of course, you're Frisian, mine's a book, you may know better....

It's not "my" type of Frisian (I only heard Söl'ring spoken a few
times, on
pan-Frisian meetings on Heligoland), but you're right. Even older
Fering (from tapes
I heard) had a sound similar to English voiced th, but this has died
out now, I think.

Note again the tendency for island dialects to be quite conservative:
this also holds for
the Frisian island dialects of West Frisian (Skylgersk, Aasters,
Skiermuontseagersk).

> Paul Tatum

Henno Brandsma

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From: 'Kevin and Cheryl Caldwell' [kevin.caldwell1963 at verizon.net]
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.20 (04) [E]

> From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
> Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (01) [E]
>
> >From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
> >Subject: LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.09.18 (03) [E]
> >
> >English-speaking children seem to have difficulty in picking up the "th"
> sound
> >and often pronounce it as "f" (though not "s" or "t") for quite a long
> time,
> >requiring quite emphatic repeated correction from their parents before
> they get
> >it right. Perhaps, therefore, it is a sound that will normally disappear
> in
> >languages fairly quickly if it arises, unless the speakers of the
> language attach
> >particular importance to it, as a sign of maturity or nationality. Why is
> it also
> >present in Spanish? Is this due to an Iberian substrate, Visigothic
> influence or
> >an organic development from Vulgar Latin?
> >
> Do you mean _all_ English-speaking children or just English
> English-speaking children?

I'd say it's fairly common for American children to have problems with those
sounds. My wife, born and raised in southeastern Virginia, is nearly 37
years old, and she still says 'birfday' for 'birthday' and 'bof' for 'both'.

In some American dialects, it's quite common to hear such things as
'bruvver', 'muvver' and 'fahver' for 'brother', 'mother' and 'father'.

Kevin Caldwell

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From: clarkedavid8 at aol.com
Subject: LL-L 'Railway stories' 2006.09.20 (06) [E]

"An old railway hand told me this tale last night....
When the Queensland government finally upgraded trains to electric, just prior
to the Brisbane Commonwealth Games, the services were launched by a special train
packed with politicians and their pompous wives which travelled over the
Brisbane system. One of the guard's duties was to announce the name of the next
station
and this man did so with a good working class accent on which the pompous
bitches looked askance.
He announced "Next staeshwen will be Baowin 'ills" (Bowen Hills) to which one
woman in the same carriage as he was loudly said 'I say I wish that MAN would
learn to speak properly....he missed the Itch out of Hills'. Moments later came
the announcement "Dawent Yew wurry Laedy we'll pick up that haitch again at
Halbion, (Albion), aour next stop.'

Regards

Tom Mc Rae"
 
Apparently there used to be a sign in the UK warning motorists to halt before
train crossings with the wording "Please wait while red light flashes", but this
caused confusion in parts of Yorkshire, where "while" means "until".
 
David Clarke

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From: Theo Homan [theohoman at yahoo.com]
Subject: LL-L 'Railway stories' 2006.09.20 (06) [E]

> From: Tom Mc Rae [t.mcrae at uq.net.au]
> Subject: Local Rail Tale
>
> An old railway hand told me this tale last night....
> When the Queensland government finally upgraded
> trains to electric, just prior to
> the Brisbane Commonwealth Games, the services were
> launched by a special train
> packed with politicians and their pompous wives
> which travelled over the Brisbane
> system. One of the guard's duties was to announce
> the name of the next station
> and this man did so with a good working class accent
> on which the pompous bitches
> looked askance.
> He announced "Next staeshwen will be Baowin 'ills"
> (Bowen Hills) to which one
> woman in the same carriage as he was loudly said 'I
> say I wish that MAN would
> learn to speak properly....he missed the Itch out of
> Hills'. Moments later came
> the announcement "Dawent Yew wurry Laedy we'll pick
> up that haitch again at
> Halbion, (Albion), aour next stop.'
>
> Regards
>
> Tom Mc Rae
> Brisbane Australia

Hello, hello,

well, well, well...
The world is small, very small.

The same story -with the appropriate variants- could
be heard at the other side of the world in the north
of the Netherlands, about the railway-stations of
Haren and Assen.

But your story has a nicer dressing.

vr.gr.
Theo Homan

----------

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

Ben wrote:

> Ironically, my cousin Justin, 10, rolls his r when pronouncing some /d/
> phonemes. My brother's given name is Buddy, and I'm not sure of the IPA for
> it, but I'll use the Spanish double r for it. He used to call my brother
> "Burri", with the u being the English schwa and the double r being the full
> trill. Have you ever heard of this? If only this country would get a clue
> and teach children a foreign language before high school... 

And I responded:

> The articulation of the American flap (written _tt_, _dd_) is close to that of
> single-flap aprical /r/, including the Spanish (single) /r/ and als what in
> Japanese is romanized as _r_ (though these two are not phonetically identical).
> In other words, it doesn't surprise me that a child renders it as an apical /r/.

Incidentally -- and some of you may remember me mentioning this previously -- the
same rule applies in several Northern Low Saxon dialects; e.g., _vadder_ ["fad3`]
~ ["far3`] (sometimes written _Varrer_) 'father'.

Interestingly, in some dialects (for instance some of the Lower Elbe region), in
cases of /-err-/ this involves a rule as an analogous extension of the historical
Saxon shift /-er/ > /-ar/ (e.g., _kerk_ > _kark_ 'church, _berg_ > _barg_
'mountain', 'hill', _smert_ > _smart_ 'pain'), for example _wedder_ ["vEd3`] ~
["vEr3`] ~ ["var3`] (sometimes written _warrer_) 'again', _wedder_ (_Wedder_)
["vEd3`] ~ ["vEr3`] ~ ["var3`] (sometimes written _Warrer_) 'weather', _vedder_
(_Fedder_) ["fEd3`] ~ ["fEr3`] ~ ["far3`] (sometimes written _Farrer_) 'feather'.

This supposedly Saxon shift /-er/ > /-ar/ seems to be quite old, considering that
it also applied in English (e.g., "smart," "clerk" non-Am. [kla:k], "Derby"
non-Am. ["da:bi]), though not consistently, probably due to dialect mixing.  Or
are we talking about two separate, coincidental developments?

Regards,
Reinhartd/Ron 

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