LL-L "Phonology" 2008.02.07 (05) [D/E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L  -  09 February 2008 - Volume 01
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page.
=========================================================================

From: Henno Brandsma <hennobrandsma at hetnet.nl>
Subject: LL-L Phonology" 2008.02.07 (02) [D/E]

From: Roland Desnerck <desnerck.roland at skynet.be>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2008.02.05 (08) [E]

 Beste Ron, Ingmar en alle andere Lowlanders,

In de meeste West-Vlaamse dialecten klnikt de "oe" als een diftong. Het zijn
meestal stijgende diftongen, d.w.z. de klemtoon ligt op de tweede
klankgreep.

Zo klinkt:
goed = goewd of gwoed  (eigenlijk: hoewd of hwoed)
zoet = zoewte of zwoete
bloeden = blwoen

maar:
boek = boek
zoeken = zoekn
koel = koele

In vele West-Vlaamse dialecten klinkt ook de "oo" als een diftong. Zo in
Ichtegem, Eernegem:

rood = rwed tot rowed
hoog = hwegge tot howegge (eigenlijk: wehhe, owehhe)

De "ee" is in Geheel West-Vlaanderen een diftong met uitzondering van
Oostende waar die klinkt als de "ai" in het Franse "maître, pair"

Nederlands       West-Vlaams          Oostends
een                     jin, ijin                      ain
twee                   twji                           twai
klein                   kljinne                      klaine
heer                   jirre                           aire
enz.

Toetnoasteki
Roland Desnerck

----------

Are or were these vowels short perhaps?

Within the language group we are dealing with here, this sort of breaking,
namely the sort you demonstrated in Western Flemish, is a well-known
phenomenon in Frisian, specifically Westerlauwer (West) Frisian. I therefore
wonder if it is in fact due to an old Frisian substratum, considering that
Zeeland and the adjacent northwestern of Flanders was the southernmost
extent of the Frisian language at its height.

Old Frisian   W. Frisian   W. Flemish
ên                    ien            jin, ijin
hêra                hear              jirre

W. Frisian has "jin" as well, in compounds and as the "reflexive" of "men".
E.g. ienentweintich is pronounced as "jin-en-tweintich"
"hear" is not broken, but the comparable "hearre" (to hear) is [which might
have impeded the noun]: "jerre".

As soon as you go farther south along the coast and arrive at Ostend you
seem to leave that area. In addition, that is an area in which Saxons
settled at one time, which probably influenced the local language varieties.

Nederlands       West-Vlaams          Oostends      Northern Low Saxon
een                     jin, ijin                      ain
eyn (~ ayn)
twee                   twji                           twai              twey
(~ tway)
klein                   kljinne                      klaine
(kleyn (~ klayn))


In Frisian we have "twjilling" for "twins". The normal word is "twa" but
"twie" is historically another gender of this word.
(in North Frisian they still use 2 forms depending on gender, like German
dialects also do).

In WF we have "klien" in a very specialist meaning "petite", say. A woman
can have "kliene hannen". But "lyts" (cf. English little, Dutch "luttel",
etc) is the normal word.

In the case of Dutch *oe* [u(:)], Old Franconian has *uo* (and Old German
has *uo* where Modern German has *u* [u(:)]). So perhaps what happened was
that *uo* changed to *uu* (written *oe*) in the north, but in Western
Flanders it broke from *uo* to *wo*.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron


Henno Brandsma

----------

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

Thanks a lot, dear Henno. This was just the information I was hoping for.

For the record: the use of *lüt* (*lütt, lut*) versus *kleyn* (*kleen*, *
klein*, *klain*) for 'small' or 'little' in Low Saxon depends mostly on the
dialect. However, this does not mean that a dialect can not use both,
although one of them would be used predominantly.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20080209/2fe17657/attachment.htm>