LL-L "Language varieties" 2007.10.14 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  13 October 2007 - Volume 05
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2007.10.14 (01) [E]

Hi Ben,

As Ron pointed out, Dutch /y/ vs. German /u/ are not in complementary
distribution, the two languages only use the same grapheme for these
different sounds. Dutch /y/ rather correspondends with words that in German
have /ü/: rug, rück(e?) [Engl. back; my German is not so accurate]. Brug vs.
brück(e? not sure about this -e either). The umlaut of old Germanic /u/
usually turns up as /y/ in both languages, written /u/ and /ü/. In
(traditional) coastal Dutch dialects that later unrounded to /i/ or /e/. Cf.
West Flemish pit (English pit, Dutch put), or traditional/old Southern
Hollandic dialects "mitch" as I once heard a friend use, mosquito, English
midge/Dutch mug.
In most of the cases, Dutch /u/ (/y/) thus correspondends to German /ü/
(/y/).
Cfr. also http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/weij005nede01/weij005nede01ill55.gif for
ü > i.

The old Germanic /u/ however, remained /u/ in many words in (Standard) High
German, and is spelled /u/. In Standard Dutch, this sound generally became
/o/ and is thus written /o/. German /hund/ is Dutch /hond/, etcetera.
The dialectal situation in Dutch is however more complicated. In front of
/p:/, /k:/, /f:/ /m:/ and /ng:/ it's usually preserved in the Antwerp
dialect, and probably in a bigger area in (Belgian) Brabant as well,
although I don't dare to draw any conclusions about other Brab. dialects. In
more modern Antw. dialect (due to standard influence), only /ng/ and /m/
still preserve the /u/ instead of the /o/, apart from some frequent
relictwords as oep (Engl. up, Dutch op) or stoeffen (actually  <stoffen, but
since the word doesnt exist in St. D. it didn't get replaced with an /o/)
Traditional dialect has poep (puppet, Dutch pop), and boek (buck, Dutch
bok); but these forms are now only seldomly used anymore.
The distribution of Old Norse /u/ > /o/, /u/ in standard spoken Norwegian is
similar to that of Antwerpian (pp, kk, m, ng/nk, ff)

About West-Flemish dialects I seem to remember that they preserve the /u/ as
well in front of nC, hoent for hund/hond, here Antw. has /o/ as has Dutch.
To draw another parallel with Norwegian, most West-Norwegian dialects have
/u/ in front of /nC/ as well, where Bokmâl has /ü/, cf. the word rundt
(around) being written rondt in many dialect writings (/o/ is usually
representing IPA /u/ in Norwegian tradition)

To summarize, German /ü/ = Dutch /ü/, either /ü/ in dialects or /i/ in
coastal dia. Standard D. has the grapheme /u/.
German /u/ = Dutch /o/, with many dialects still pronouncing it as /u/,
certainly in nasal+C environments, with different and complicated
distributional rules for each indipendent dialect(group), often interferred
by standard language influence.
Greetings, Diederik

PS if you can read Dutch and want more extensive information you could look
here: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/weij005nede01/weij005nede01_0005.htm and
scroll down to the part "WestGermanic u"

From: "Ben J. Bloomgren" <ben.j.bloomgren at gmail.com>
Subject: [LLL] Dialectology

 Hello List,

Since I've never been up to the original Lowlands, I'm curious. If there
even be such a border, where would the border be between the two
pronunciations of orthographic u? That is, in Dutch they say /y/ for u
whereas in German they say /u/ for u. I've heard several of the wren
presentations in the dialects in Germany, and I've heard them say /u/. If
you can make sense of this, what would be your best guess?
Ben

---------

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

Hi, Ben!

Still having fun south of the border?

What you are asking about is at least potentially a complex thing. In
general, /u/ and /y/ are not in complementary distribution. They tend to
depend on umlauting, which depended on the absence vs presence
(respectively) of /e/ or /i/ in the following syllable, which in many cases
later disappeared, in some language varieties earlier than in others.

I'm sure others will have more specific responses for you.

Take care!

Reinhard/Ron
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