LL-L "Language varieties" 2007.03.05 (07) [E]

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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 (Zeeuws)

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L O W L A N D S - L - 05 March 2007 - Volume 07

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2007.03.05 (01) [E]

> From: Arthur Jones <arthur.jones at yahoo.com
> Subject: LL-L "IdiotAutomatica" 2007.03.04 (04) [E][GO]
>
> Also, I have been reluctant to say this, and I certainly mean no
> offense. But I noticed when living in the UK (one year on Guernsey;
> five years in London and Bucks), fanciful etymologies were rampant.

You haven't seen anything till you've been to a British deaf club!

Of course the derivation of many signs is perfectly obvious, but this
makes people overconfident about their ability to see where any given
sign comes from.

There are protracted and oft-repeated arguments about signs and where
they come from, and amateur etymology never gets worse than when applied
to the signs for place-names.

Take the sign for "America", for example. Does it mean "all of us", does
it show a cluster of log cabins, or is it a horse corral? Nobody knows,
but everybody thinks they know.

The most hotly-debated sign at the moment is the new sign for
"Australia", which has been adopted from Australian Sign Language in
place of the "curly hat" sign we used to use. Does it show a kangaroo?
Or is it a prisoner being deported (as some Australians believe)? Or is
it a variant of the British Sign Language sign for "Britain"?

Britons are often flummoxed at what the common BSL/ISL sign for
"Ireland" signifies. Some time ago I debated this with a couple of Irish
signers. One insisted it showed a person dancing a jig, while the other
was quite sure that it showed a fork being stuck in a potato.

The worst of it is that people often alter the signs according to what
they believe the derivation is. If you believe the "Ireland" sign means
someone dancing a jig, you'll naturally tend jig your hand around a bit
when you sign it. If you believe in the "potato" interpretation, you'll
stab at one hand with the stiffened fingers of the other.

I always find it enlightening to take note of how people sign things
when they don't have a theory. People who don't have a clue about where
the sign for "Ireland" comes from always make the sign with bent
fingers, I've noticed, which doesn't really support either theory. Then.
again, the tines of a fork usually _are_ curved, right? But then again,
the BSL sign for fork is made with straight fingers, so...? It's an
argument that could run and run.

I'm sure I've come across various oral-language equivalents of this -
vocabulary that alters to accommodate amateur etymology. I can't seem to
think of any examples offhand, though.

Oh yes, the phrase "scart-free" used by at least one Scottish writer has
been discussed on the list before. Does "scot-free" really come from the
Scots for "without a scratch", or is it from the French "escot"? That
sort of thing.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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