LL-L "History" 2009.06.28 (05) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 28 June 2009 - Volume 05
lowlands at lowlands-l.net - http://lowlands-l.net/
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)
Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
===========================================

From: M.-L. Lessing <marless at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2009.06.28 (04) [EN]

Dear Luc, you are welcome to burst any bubble of mine with something so much
more interesting! :-) Do you mean to say that "Stahlhof" is *not* a
translation of "Steelyard" and the ping-pong of this word between the
languages has not really taken place? "Stahlhof" and "Steelyard" (tha
balance) each have an etymology of their own? But it is quite a lot of a
coincidence that they seem to be translations, hm? Or do I get you wrong?

Hartlich

Marlou

----------

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

As the plot keeps thickening it is beginning to look to me as though Middle
English "Steelyard" and Modern German *Stahlhof* are mistranslations of
Middle Saxon *Stalhof*.

I wrote:

I think the confusion arises because of vowel length differences.

Modern Low Saxon has a phonological rule whereby a short vowel is somewhat
lengthened before a nasal or liquid; e.g.

*tamm* (Netherlands/Middle Saxon spelling *tam*) [tʰaˑm] 'tame'
*Kinn* (Netherlands/Middle Saxon spelling *kin*) [kʰɪˑn] 'chin'
*Melk* (Netherlands/Middle Saxon spellin *melk*) [mɛˑɫk] 'milk'
*Stall *(Netherlands/Middle Saxon spelling *stal*) [staˑɫ] 'stable',
'stall', 'pen'

In the case of /a/ the pronunciation remains the same as in other cases of
short /a/; it is just slightly lengthened ([aˑ]). (This provoked some Low
Saxon writers in the Netherlands to write it as "aa", because it sounds more
like long Standard Dutch /a/; hence *laand* 'land', and *staal* 'stable' as
opposed to *staol* 'steel'.) It is *not* pronounced like a long /a/, which
is farther back and more or less rounded.

I imagine that this rule existed already in Middle Saxon, hence spelling
like *Stalhof*, *Stâlhof* and *Staelhof* for what is really /stalhov/
'display/exhibition yard', which would be spelled **Stallhoff* in Modern Low
Saxon, pronounced [ˈstaˑɫhɔf], if it didn't become umlauted to
**Stellhoff*[ˈstɛˑɫhɔf] (while
*Stahlhoff* , Netherlands spelling *Staolhof*, 'steelyard', would be
pronounced [ˈstɒːɫhɔf] or [ˈstoːɫhɔf]).

"Display yard" or "exhibition yard" makes a lot more sense to me than "steel
yard", since this was a compound in which potential English buyers found the
merchandise displayed that Hanseatic ships had delivered across the North
Sea and up the Thames.

Yeah, Luc!

Rehards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

P.S.: Gosh! Wouldn't it be great to be able to time-travel?

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20090628/77b3e3d7/attachment.htm>