LL-L "Language history" 2009.07.24 (02) [EN]

Fri Jul 24 18:50:47 UTC 2009

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L O W L A N D S - L - 24 July 2009 - Volume 02
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2009.07.23 (02) [EN]

* > From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
> Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2009.07.23 (01) [EN]
> Auteur(s)/Redactie:   Cajot, J.
> Gansen titel:  Een toonloze enclave in polytoon gewaand gebied; Een les in
structurele fonologie?
> Oetgaof:  in: Jaarboek 3 van de Verenging voor Limburgse Dialect- en
Naamkunde, Hasselt, 2001, 71-78 *<-- <-- read 71-88* > I only have the
publication of Cajot at home. He shows that in an enclave grouping some
municipalities, at the South-East of Belgian Limburg adjacent to the walloon
language border, tonality is lost.

** > From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language history
> I've been mulling this one over for ages. We are basically talking about a
"simple" falling tone, or *sjtoettoen* ("pushing tone"),  in contrast with
the *sjleiptoen*

I scanned the article of Cajot and left it for a brief while on my website:
http://www.euro-support.be/tmp/cajot/71.jpg
through
http://www.euro-support.be/tmp/cajot/88.jpg

Cajot does not explain where the tonality came from,
but studies for 16 word samples *how the vowel system changed in the enclave
where tonality is lost*.
The result:
http://www.euro-support.be/tmp/cajot/80.jpg

I don't know whether this phenomenon helps to explain for other cases where
tonality is eventually lost.

Some personal reflections:
- It is not easy to get rid of a tonal way of speaking. I left Limburg since
30 years and I think I lost most of it, especially when speaking Dutch, but
I often am still recognized as Limburgish
- Non Limburgish people consider the Limburgish speaking pattern as silly,
making Limbugians feel like the little black chicken in a population of
whites 'The black one generally does not survive for very long.
- As youngster we went each fall tasting the Rheingau in RÃ¼deshein (West of
Wiesbaden). Contrary to Belgians they had sympathy for our way of speaking.
They considered us as Luxembourgians though. Actually we were clearly
identifyable as not-German speakers and we spoke with a pattern similar
to dialects at the North of the HunsrÃ¼ck.

P.S. I found some abstracts from a conference dealing with the subject:
Book of Abstracts - Workshop Leiden 2003 "*The tone accents: How and Why*"
http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/ulcl/events/confs/2003/FTA/ftaabs.pdf

Regards,

Roger

----------

From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2009.07.23 (03) [EN]

from Heather Rendall  heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

re the ongoing discussion about tonal languages

Is the difference between southern Welsh and the rest of Wales, especially
the north, that it is tonal?

And if so, where would this have originated?

I know that central Wales was (mainly) Brythonic whereas the 'horns' of
Wales , North and South,  remained (mainly) Goidelic or were repopulated by
Goidels (Irish Celts) but the distinctive Welsh lilt in South Wales is not
heard in the north, so it doesn't seem as though its roots were in Goidelic.
Or......?

Could its presence be another indication that (some) celtic
langauges/dialects were tonal?

Heather
----------

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

Thank you very much, Roger and Heather!

Roger, I have copied the material you kindly posted, and I look forward to
studying it when I get time. Just by skimming across it I get the impression
that Cajot's thesis is that certain Frankish varieties are more conservative
in that they *preserve* tonality that elsewhere has been lost.

Your thoughts about the Welsh situation and Celtic in general is very
interesting, too, Heather.

By the way, to the ears of Germans elsewhere, too, there is this Rhenish
"lilt", even in the speech of people whose home dialects cannot be
classified as tonal. So there is an areal feature here. Might a noticeable
"lilt" -- as also mentioned by Heather in a certain Welsh region, and as I
had mentioned in connection with Alemannic, especially Upper and Uppermost
Alemannic -- indicate that we are dealing with remnants of tonality? Let's
go way out on the branch and ask this: might *all* early Germanic varieties
have been tonal and Scandinavian and a few Frankish varieties have retained
tonality?

Many, many of the world's languages are tonal, not only in Eurasia but also
throughout Africa and the Americas. "Tonality" in connection with language
means that differences in pitch convey different meanings, which is not the
same as intonation.

Tonality is definitely not unheard of in Indo-European. Aside from the said
Germanic varieties, we get it in Baltic (Lithuanian and Latvian), Southern
Slavic and Ancient Greek. Signs of tonality are found also in some
Indo-Aryan languages such as Punjabi (not counting cases like some Bengali
dialects on Sino-Tibetan substrata).

When I first heard spoken Amdo Tibetan (used in China's Qinghai, Gansu and
Sichuan provinces) there was a definite up-and-down "lilt". Later I found
out that tone is not phonemic in these varieties and in Ladakhi Tibetan,
while all other Tibetan varieties, including Standard Tibetan, have two
phonemic tones: high and low. Again: is a "lilt" indicative of former
tonality?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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