LL-L "Sociolinguistics" 2008.02.07 (01) [E]

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From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong <Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2008.02.08 (01) [E]

Elsie Zinsser writes:

Edith Raidt postulates (_Afrikaans en sy Europese verlede_) that women and
children were pivotal in the development of Afrikaans. Perhaps that is why
Afrikaans is so comfy with diminutives?
That is an interesting thought, Elsie. You know of course that modern Dutch
is also rife with diminutives. Why we are so fond of diminutives? I do not
know. The way we use those "verkleinwoorden" if often to give an editorial
description of something.

"Die man is een zit-reusje" for a man who has very short legs in
relationship to the length of his torso, or

"Hij is een echt Napoleonnetje" For somebody who has an inferiority complex
because he is vertically challenged and tries to compensate for that by
trying to be extremely bossy.

The fact that we have two ways to describe f.i. a small animal might
contribute to that. There is a distinct difference between "Een kleine hond"
and een "hondje". The first one is a dog of small stature, the latter is the
adorable  one with the curly fur and the curly tail. The use of a diminutive
somehow gets you closer to the object.

The idea that women were pivotal in the development of the country is a
possibility. It has been said before that women got in the habit of talking
a lot because they were in the business of gathering food and raising the
young, which were things you did together with other women, and sitting
around you got to do a lot of talking.  I got a feeling for that when I
visited my grandparents and had to help the other women to clean and prepare
the vegetables that were going to be put by for the winter. Although a
hunting party existed of several men, to be quiet and stalking animals was a
lonely pursuit.  For boys the initiation into the serious business of the
tribe comes at a young age and their play becomes limited to mimicking the
behavior of the adult men. Girl children tend to be playful longer. At the
same time they are playing with dolls to learn to become a Mother, they jump
rope and play singing and clapping games.

In the case of the Netherlands, since the husbands were away at sea for long
periods of time, the women took over most of the tasks of governing the
household as well as the hired help and also were responsible for the
finances of the family. But that really does not explain our propensity for
diminutives.

Another explanation could be that where the landscape is so flat and vast,
that everything did seem small and that that lead to the use of diminutives.

These are just some loose thoughts about the subject. Could somebody else
maybe shine a light on this problem? Jacqueline

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

Hi, Jacqueline and Elsie, and everyone else!

I don't know if this shines any light on things, Jacqueline, but let me say
that, aside from gender-specific frequency of use, I have a feeling that
there is a language-group-specific thing going on here.

Perhaps this is a Frankish thing versus a Saxon thing. Frankish dialects
(low and high) as well as Ripuarian, Alemannic, Thuringian and Bavarian
dialects in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and beyond abound with
diminutives as well. Standard German has a lot of diminutives also, but far
fewer than the non-standard dialects I mentioned. Bear in mind that Standard
German is influenced by Northern German dialects as well, and they have
various sorts of Low Saxon substrata.

Like the North Germanic languages, the (real) Saxon language does not abound
with diminutive forms. It uses diminutives also, but far less, and for some
mysterious reason there seems to have been a decline of this since late
Middle Saxon or early Modern Saxon times.

As for the gender aspect, I have a feeling that high frequency of use is or
used to be considered feminine and childish because it was perceived as
"cute." Men were probably educated to limit it to the obvious, such as truly
small things, junior creatures, and words in which the diminutive has been
lexicalized (e.g. *meisje*, *Mädchen*, *Madl** *'girl', derived from
equivalents of "maid").

So much for my *beetje*.

Groetjes,
Reinhard/Ron
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