LL-L "Etymology" 2007.09.28 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  28 September 2007 - Volume 03
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.09.27 (04) [E]

Dear Ron:

Subject: L-Lowlands Etymology

Ron said:
In casually spoken Mandarin Chinese dialects, for instance, exclamatory
particle 啊 ā tends to be fused with the last vowel of the preceding word,
and the resulting vowel is somewhat lengthened (e.g., 白色的啊！báisè de ā! ->
báisè dā! 'The white one!'). (In tonal languages, this tends to involve
tonal contractions, in some African languages resulting in contour tones
where contour tones don't otherwise exist, i.e., are not phonemic.)

So, if something like this happened in Afrikaans, what kind of absorbed word
could be involved here? "A"? "Ha"? "Ja"?  Could it be a particle borrowed
from Malay or Khoi-San?
Well, the obvious one would be as you suggested the exclamation 'Aaaa!'. The
other is a stretched out 'ag' as in: "Soen my to my Skat my Hart aaag tog!"
The 'ag' may be stretched out on other occasions, in fact any emotionally
demanding occasion, as in; 'Aaaag *nee* man!'

Yrs, Mark
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