LL-L "Etymology" 2010.02.19 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 19 February 2010 - Volume 02
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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2010.02.18 (05) [EN]

From: Hellinckx Luc <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"
Standard dialect word for "sometimes" in Southern Brabantish seems to be
"vantijd". I've also heard "somwijlen" (soemaëlen) a couple of times, but
it's very rare these days. "Soems" is of course a direct calque of Standard
Dutch "soms".

In the South "s(e)wijle" does not stand for "sometimes". Rather, it means
"terwijl", (mean)while (E), and it comes in the following forms
s(e)wijle(n)(s)(t), often shortened to "swens(t), swajnst" (paragogic -t-).
Origin: deswijlen.


RE: this "s(e)wijle" here also has a not very clear meaning all the time,
but I haven't heard it often enough anymore to make out it's meaning 100%
sure. It tends more towards "sometimes" than towards "while" tho, but rather
in a non-litteral way, or non-temporalis way (I mean not as clearly
referring to the time/repeated aspect. Like "soms" also can be used in
Dutch: mag ik soms een kopje koffie? Ma 'kik swijle een koem kaffe? Could I
maybe have a cup of coffee?)
"while" is "swengst"/swenst.

Van tijd also exists here in the meaning "sometimes", indeed. As far as I
know it's a synonym of soem(ted)s. Similar in meaning is also "bij
tijden"/"ba tijde"/"bè tije".

As we can see the word "sometimes" can be rendered in many different ways
here in Antwerp, maybe that's the reason why half of them are on the verge
of extinction... "soms", "somtijds", "somwijlen", "swijlen", "bij tijden",
"van tijd", probably too many small nuances between them for the modern
speaker to handle!

Diederik



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