LL-L "Etymology" 2007.06.09 (07) [D/E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  08 June 2007 - Volume 07

=========================================================================

From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"

Beste Marcel,

You wrote:

> "het/de deken"
> "het/de flat" (flatgebouw)
> "het/de deksel"
> "het/de matras"
>
> Enzovoorts. Hoe zouden die woorden in het Zuid-Nederlands worden
> aangemerkt?

Bij ons (West-Brabant) wordt dat resp.:

* de sözze (woord deken bestaat niet als bedbedekking...wel bestaat "den
dèèken", maar dat is de naam voor een religieuze deken, "dean" (E)).
Tussen haakjes: sözze < serge (Frans/Engels) < serica (Latijn) ~ Seres
(oude Latijnse en Griekse naam voor Xinjiang in Noord-West China).
"Serge" gaf ook aanleiding tot denim, via "serge de Nîmes"
* flat bestaat traditioneel evenmin...sommigen zullen "de flat" zeggen (V)
* 't deksel (onzijdig dus)
* de matras (V)

Vriendelijke groeten,

Luc Hellinckx

----------

From: Marcel Bas <roepstem at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Traditions" 2007.06.09 (06) [E]

Hello John and Reinhard,

John remarked:

"You wrote that t>d is unusual, but apart from /Teut/, just in /ta-/ there
is :tag,tanz,tau,taub,tauch and taube. Tier:deer is consistent with that."

And Reinhard said that it is a feature that some people want to call a
feature of 'Southern German'. Does this equal the 'Hochdeutsch' languages?
Southern it is: if you go further south into, Carinthia and Switzerland,
you'll notice devoicing of d and b to t and p. Especially in the anlaut. Cf.
'schwyzertüütsch' (Schweizerdeutsch) and 'podn' (baden) in Carinthia.
But even further up north I have heard this. An acquaintance of mine comes
from a Bavarian 'Sprachinsel' in former Sudetenland (in Bohemia, Czechia)
and she also says 'p' and 't' where one would expect 'b' and 'd'.


I have read some ancient High German, and you see that there were a lot more
't''s where you would expect 'd''s, whereas in present High German, these
words start with a 'd'. How is that possible? Was there a later influence of
Low German? Where was this written High German spoken? Possibly very much to
the south.

Now High German to me seems a bit uncompleted when it comes to the devoicing
of 'd'.

We have Dutch vs. German:

dis - Tisch
dol -toll
dag - Tag
drinken - trinken

But:

de - die
deze - diese
dinsdag - Dienstag
dekken - decken

My idea on this is that what we now consider High German is in fact a
transitional dialect. After all, in the South this devoicing has completed.
But it could also be a dialect that is a mix of northern and southern
characteristics. Because if we look at Althochdeutsch (ancient High German)
this process seems more advanced. Could somebody say more about this?

Best regards,

Marcel.

----------

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

Hi, Marcel!

> And Reinhard said that it is a feature that some people want to call a
feature of 'Southern German'. Does this equal the 'Hochdeutsch' languages?

I believe I said that some would call the German group (German proper,
Alemannic, Yiddish, etc.) "Southern Germanic" rather that considering it
part of Western Germanic (which would then be the Lowlands languages, by and
large).

> Now High German to me seems a bit uncompleted when it comes to the
devoicing of 'd'.

Not really. You're missing something in the German shifts here.

*d > t

dis - Tisch (E. disk = table)
dol - toll (E. dull)
dag - Tag (E. day)
drinken - trinken (E. drink)
door - Tür (E. door)
droom - Traum (E. dream)

*th > d

de - die (E. the)
deze - diese (E. these)
dinsdag - Dienstag (after the god Thingsus)
dekken - decken (E. thatch)
door - durch (E. through)
denken - denken (E. think)
dik - dick (E. thick)

Is it clearer now?

Things become obscured when you look from the vantage point of one language
in thich the same sound is derived from one than one original sound, as in
the case of Low Franconian and Low Saxon:

*d > t

dis - disch (E. disk = table)
dol - dol ~ dul (E. dull)
dag - dag (E. day)
drinken - drinken (E. drink)
door - doer (E. door)
droom - droum (E. dream)

*th > d

de - de ~ dey (E. the)
deze - disse (E. these)
dinsdag - Dingsdag (after the god Thingsus)
dekken - dekken (E. thatch)
door - doer(ch) (E. through)
denken - denken ~ dinken (E. think)
 dik - dik (E. thick)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070609/77fce9af/attachment.htm>