LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.12.11 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 11 December 2010 - Volume 02
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>

Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.12.11 (01) [EN]



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

As most of you know, Pomeranian Low Saxon (“Platt”) is moribund in Europe.
(While some people may still speak Western Pomeranian dialects in the
eastern part of the German State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), there
now appear to be few or no speakers on the Polish side of the border.)


As some of you may also know, Pomeranian Low Saxon is still used in
southeastern Brazil, apparently by around 100,000 people of all ages.

There is a video-taped interview in Brazilian Low Saxon (with German
subtitles) with Arvelino Lutzke, a young Brazilian doing an internship on a
farm in Northern Germany. Please note similarities with Mennonite Low Saxon
(“Plautdietsch”); e.g. the *-e* (instead of *-n*) endings. However, you can
tell that his dialect originated much farther west, probably in an area west
of today’s Polish border. You can tell this by the absence of frontal
unrounding that is typical of dialects farther east. For instance, he says *
Köh(e)* [ˈkʰœˑɪ(ə̆)] ‘cows’ and *Lü(e)* [ˈlyː(ə̆)] ‘people’, where Mennonite
Low Saxon has *Kjäih* [kʲɛˑɪ] and *Lied* [liːˑd] respectively.



The video: http://vimeo.com/15857556



Mennonite Low Saxon is Prussian (from the Weichsel delta region near Danzig)
and this is Pomeranian. Unrounding is a feature of Prussian while
non-unrounded "Lü" is perfectly normal for Pomeranian. I don't see any
indication for an origin west of today's Polish border in that. He says
"geht" instead of "geiht". The "geht"/"geiht" isogloss runs along the river
Oder (which is the Polish border today). Therefore it's unlikely that the
origin is from west the border.

My personal guess, based on comparing different sounds to Wenker maps, is an
origin in Eastern Pomerania. It's the region I have assigned to the number
"59" at my Plattmakers dictionary. See the map at
<http://plattmakers.de/?show=diallist><http://plattmakers.de/?show=diallist>.
But based on the fact that Pomeranian dialects are rather similar to each
other and that Brasilian Pomeranian most likely underwent some dialectal
leveling it's perhaps futile to try to pinpoint the exact origin. Speaking
of dialectal leveling I also was surprised that he uses the word "snacken".
If we rely on Wenker the normal words for "to speak" are either "reden" or
"spreken" in Pomerania. But perhaps it's just the fact that he was
interviewed on a farm in the "snacken" area by an interviewer from the
"snacken" area, so he adapted to the speech his conversation partner used in
the questions.

Marcus Buck



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

Subject: Language varieties



Thanks, Marcus.

That’s a great map, by the way.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA



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