LL-L "Phonology" 2007.10.24 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  24 October 2007 - Volume 01
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2007.10.23 (07) [E]

Thanks, Mark

Interessant, baie interessant! This unrounding tendency of Afrikaans does
not at all take place in Dutch. That is, it did in the past in Dutch
spoken by people from our former colonies, like Indonesia, Ceylon,
Suriname, the Antilles and... the Cape. I suppose this popular
pronunciation has been there from the beginning in Afrikaans, but the
Standard prono from Dutch and the spelling withheld it until recently.

I understand that Afr ui > y, uu > ie etc, but what exactly is the
difference between i and u in pit vs put, kul vs kil etc? In my ears, Afr
short i sounds more like Dutch short u [2], than like Dutch short i [e].
So in that case, no unrounding but rounding?

Btw, I was not talking about this in my message, but about Dutch ui => uu,
and ij = y in some Afrikaans varieties, so one with and one without
diphthonguizing. Are you familiar with that phenomenon?

Hartelijke groeten,
Ingmar Gerrit Roerdinkholder

Mark Dreyer het geskryf

I(ngmar):

"If I remember correctly, Older Afrikaans and / or certain "coloured"
varieties of Afrikaans show something similar to Scots in having
diphthonguized Ã(R), but unchanged û: 'y' as in St Afr 'y' / Dutch 'ij' in
words like 'ys', but 'uu' for St Afr/Dutch 'ui' in words like 'huus',
not 'huis'. But I'm sure our SA members can tell us more about this."

Mark:

Yes, we call it afronding - the shape we put our lips in to articulate the
'U' the 'UU' 'UI' etc. My wife, who notwithstanding being Californian can
ordinarily handle the most arcane vowel-sounds, finds this too much, so I
suppose its too much to expect it of everyone.

In my youth people going for auditions in the Afrikaans service of the S A
Broadcasting Corporation esed to test people for their ability to pronounce
them, & if you couldn't you didn't get the job. that was until about the
early eighties, but after that they took a slacker line, which I take is a
pretty clear indication of the direction the Taal itself is taking.

I for my part see the merits of afronding. Slipping into the alternave
makes
for far too many homophones for my comfort:
Luis = louse - lys = list
Huis = house - hys = to winch
Put = waterhole - pit = pip
Vuur = fire - vier = four
Kul = bamboozle - kil = frigid
& so on.

To accomodate the need for lucidity would bring into being other necessary
changes in Afrikaans, & as I have read, initial changes in a language are
not invariably good for the language. After all, language is for
communication, not so?

Yrs,
Mark

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From: Maria Elsie Zinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2007.10.23 (01) [E/Z]

Hi all,

Ingmar wrote: ...Older Afrikaans and / or certain "coloured"
varieties of Afrikaans show something similar to Scots in having
diphthonguized î, but unchanged û: 'y' as in St Afr 'y' / Dutch 'ij' in
words like 'ys', but 'uu' for St Afr/Dutch 'ui' in words like 'huus',
not 'huis'. But I'm sure our SA members can tell us more about this.

The change from huis > hys, luis>lys relate to 'ontronding' and it's
a dialectical characteristic of many Western Cape Afrikaans speakers
 of all races.

I have to look up about the process of ijs in Dutch becoming ys in
Afrikaans.

Elsie Zinsser

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

Elsie,

I've always assumed that what is now written ij and previously also ÿ and y in
Dutch was at the developmental stage of having shifted from [i:] to [ǝı]
([@I]) at the time of the early Cape settlement and for some time
thereafter, that Afrikaans just stuck to it.

Not?

Groete!
Reinhard/Ron
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