LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.06.26 (03) [E]

Thu Jun 26 15:33:04 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 26 June 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.06.23 (03) [E]

What is that something to be said for calling German etc. "South Germanic"
instead of West Germanic?

I can imagine a few things myself of course: the High German consonant
shift, dative and accusative pronouns (mir-mich), pronouns ending in -r
(er, wir, ihr), a part of lexicon, e.a.

But what we should not forget is that present day German is much closer
related to Dutch and Low Saxon than English is. A Dutchman can understand
German without previous learning, so can a Low Saxon, but they don't have
a clue when an Englishman is speaking (or writing) without having learned
his language first.
It would rather be a division between Continental West Germanic, including
German, and Insular West Germanic, including English.

So I wonder whether we should stick to relations that existed maybe 1000
or more years ago to classify these languages, Reinhard.

Ingmar

Reinhard:

(I personally use "German" for the varieties other than "Low ...", and I
think there is something to be said for the proposal to consider
them "South
Germanic" rather than considering them a group within West Germanic.)

I agree that the Benrath Line is quite indistinct in the said area. The
question is what criteria to use in distinguishing Low Franconian varieties
from Ripuarian and other Central Franconian varieties. The labels "Dutch"
and "German" ought not enter this discussion in my opinion.

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

Ingmar,

Sure you can classify languages in several ways and at various points in
time, taking into account also mutual influences. A different approach might
put English and French into one pot because of strong mutual influences,
never mind that they belong to different sub-families. Later time layers,
however, don't change the fact that there are longstanding relationships
between the "Lowlands" languages that these days most people are not made
aware of, and that's what we're about here. Furthermore, we're concerned
about longstanding common cultural and identity traits and histories of
interaction that are "typically" Lowlandic, while forums that paint with
larger brushes include not only German but also the North Germanic sphere,
as do you in constructing Middelsprake.

A Dutchman can understand
German without previous learning, so can a Low Saxon,

I doubt the "without previously learning" part. Exposure is a type of
learning situation, and people in the Netherlands and Northern Belgium are
regularly exposed to German, alone through the media. Low Saxon speakers in
Germany are of course brought up with German (as Scots speakers are brought
up with English). However, it doesn't work like that the other way around.
Most German speakers without Afrikaans, Dutch and Low Saxon exposure
understand next to nothing when Afrikaans or Dutch are spoken, and the more
resourceful among them will figure out a bit from written Afrikaans or
Dutch. They understand a bit more of Low Saxon of Germany, but mostly
because of Germanization, especially in highly Germanized varieties these
days. They have a much harder time with authentically written and spoken Low
Saxon. North Germans with some Low Saxon exposure understand Afrikaans and
Dutch better, those with more exposure or knowledge understand a lot more
and need just a bit of adjustment time to begin understanding spoken
Afrikaans and Dutch. Common learning of English has facilitated much of
this. It equips southern speakers of German for understanding otherwise
incomprehensible basic Afrikaans, Dutch and Low Saxon words such as
*later*("later") and
*redig* ("ready") in context. But then there are even greater multitudes of
false friends that lead to misunderstanding of idiomatic expressions.

Ingmar, as you know, some people pick up other languages more easily than
others. Much of it has to do with attitude, level of interest, and
experience. For such people formal studies are not necessary to acquire
listening and reading comprehension. You and I obviously belong to that
minority, for we are able to pick up comprehension skills even across
language group and family lines. I can understand Spanish (Castilian) well
enough to follow Spanish language TV talk shows, but I've never had a formal
Spanish lesson in my life. I had a few (bad) formal European Portuguese
classes and lived in a "Portuguese street" (full of immigrants from Madeira)
in Australia. This allowed me to "figure out" Castilian, Catalan and
Galician with ease, and in the meantime exposure has provided me with at
least some Spanish writing and speaking skills. Similarly, I have had two
years of university-level Russian, and this allows me to "figure out" other
Slavic languages. As I said, this has to do with my interest level and
experience, which provide me with confidence. I am sure it's the same in
your case. Furthermore, when I was a kid I started understanding English
very quickly, more quickly than the rest of my class, and this was mostly
because I immediately saw the connections with Low Saxon and adjusted my
approach accordingly, whereas my classmates approached it from a purely
German angle, aided by our teachers' lack of Low Saxon skills.

However, these "abilities" should not fool us into assuming that other
people can do the same, for they can't. We should not be led to make
generalizing statements on this basis. I have done informal tests with
interested South Germans and Austrians (all of them with good English
skills). They could only follow simple Low Saxon sentences if I pronounced
them very, very slowly, and even then they frequently misunderstood
something in them. When I did the same with Dutch, they understood less but
got the general gist. And I'm only talking about simple sentences. I bet you
you even would understand very little if someone spoke to you in authentic
Bavarian German (in which I include non-Alemannic dialects of Austria and
Northern Italy), less even in authentic Alemannic. They all agreed that they
would have understood even less had they not had any knowledge of English.
The average German has little exposure to Dutch and understands little
Dutch, while the average Netherlander and North Belgian has a lot of
exposure to German and understands a lot of German. However, there was one
person among them that had a much easier time. According to what she told
me, this was because she paid more attention to the English angle.
Furthermore, she was the only one who had taken some basic linguistics
classes, including an introductory phonology class in which sound shifts
were covered fairly intensively. So this seems to have enhanced here
analytical skills.

My point is that, when we talk about mutual comprehensibility we need to
make a distinction between inherent and acquired features, and we must be
aware that "learning" includes not only formal education but mere exposure
as well.

Again: you can use different types of language typology and approaches. The
one we use here is largely historically based, in great part because we deal
with history and traditional culture as well. This as well as typology is a
matter of approach.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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