LL-L "Phonology" 2012.02.20 (01) [EN]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 20 February 2012 - Volume 01
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <roerd096 at PLANET.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2012.02.19 (01) [EN]

Thanks for clarifying, Ron.

I think j- from LS g- in Plautdietsch is such a far Western, Low Franconian
feature originally too, we find it in many Low Franconian as well in Middle
Franconian dialects such as Kölsch and Berlinerisch.

In the Southern Netherlands, i.e. Brabant, Limburg, South Gelderland, East
Flanders, every g- is palatal, pronounced like a voiced ich-laut,
regardless it position, so it's always palatal, also before a non-palatal
vowel (ga, go, gu) or before a consonant (gl-, gr-, gn-). In Standard
Dutch, g is quite differently pronounced as non palatal [G] or often
voiceless [x].

Palatal g is quite a rare phoneme, only few languages have it, so I can
imagine that it changes easily into j, which is related to it, one could
say that Southern Dutch g is right between Standard Dutch [G] and [j].

So my point is now: Plautdietsch j- for other Low Saxon g- in all positions
is dew to Low Franconian palatal g-/j-.
In this case it's not Slavic influence, because then it would only occur
before palatal vowels.

Berlinerisch j- is also likely to have the same origins, because it's well
known that Brandenburg  was colonized mainly by people from what's nowadays
the Netherlands, Flandria and Low Franconian areas in Western Germany.

Btw about Plautdietsch, I think it's a bit strange that, with all that
obvious Slavic influence and when the language was already completely
surrounded by Slavonic languages, a totally non Slavic development took
place in uu becoming üü, the latter sound even doesn't exist in Polish,
Russian or Ukrainian.

Btw 2 about Plautdietsch, when I look at the phonological developments, the
parallells with the even more far western Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic
languages (Old Frisian, Old English) are also quite striking: k becomes
kj/tj before palatal vowels, unrounding of ö to e, ü to i, deletion of
final -n in verbs into -a, -e, man/hand becomes mon/hond
etc.

Very interesting all this

Ingmar

From: R. F. Hahn <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Phonology

Hi, Ingmar!

The early Mennonites came from various parts of the Netherlands, on their
way east were joined by people of what is now Northern Germany, and
eventually picked up the East Pomeranian Low Saxon dialect of the Vistula
Delta. I assume that they developed their own dialect variant by way of a
far-western substrate accumulation. Later developments took place in
Ukraine  and eventually all over the Soviet Union.

One of the main characteristics of Germanic varieties that were exported to
the far east is the unrounding of front rounded vowels; typically ü > i and
ö > e. This applies to all far-western Low Saxon, German and Yiddish
varieties and may be assumed to be due to Slavic and Baltic substrata.
Plautdietsch (i.e. Mennonite Low Saxon) underwent additional shifts, some
of which it shares with now mostly extinct other Vistula Delta var. Notable
is almost general vowel lowering (with rounding of the low vowels): i > e,
e > e ~ a, a > au, aa > o(a), but i and ö derived from rounded vowels (ü >
i and ö > e) tend not to be affected by this.

Non-Mennonite
 Mennonite


Gift
 Jeft
 poison

in
 en
 in

is
 es
 is

Hööd
 Heed
 hats

gröön
 jreen
 green

Hüs’ ~ Hüser
 Hiesa
 houses

Hand
 Haund
 hand

dat
 daut
 that

gahn
 gohne
 to go

klagen
 kloage
 to complain

büst
 best
 (thou) art

Küken
 Kjiekjel ~ Tjietjel
 chick

düütsch
 dietsch
 German

Already at the Vistula Delta (as opposed to later Ukrainian colonies),
Plautdietsch acquired palatalization before front vowels. This includes the
shift k > kj which some ("Russian") dialects later shifted to tj.
Palatalization of non-word-initial /d/ is a feature Plautdietsch shares
with Lower Rhine Frankish.

Non-Mennonite
 Mennonite


Gift
 Jeft
 poison

Gold
 Gold
 gold

gääl
 jääl
 yellow

Küken
 Kjiekjel ~ Tjietjel
 chick

Kind
 Kjind ~ Tjind
 child

Kinner
 Kjinja ~ Tjinja
 children

Band
 Baund
 band

Bänner
 Benja
 bands

kaken
 koake
 to cook

kieken
 kjiekje ~ tjietje
 to look

wegen
 wäje
 to cradle, to weigh

There is another shift that distinguishes "New Colony" Plautdietsch from
"Old Colony" Plautdietsch and is predominant in the dialects of
20th-century Soviet Union. While front rounded vowels had earlier become
unrounded (see above), this latest development made back-vocalic long /u/
into frontal ü.

Non-Mennonite
 Old Colony
 New Colony


Huus
 Huus
 Hüüs
 house

Hüs’ ~ Hüser
 Hiesa
 Hiesa
 houses

Tuun
 Tuun
 Tüün
 fence

Tüün
 Tien
 Tien
 fences

Uul
 Uul
 Üül
 owl

bruun
 bruun
 brüün
 brown


I hope that this clarifies a few things.

I believe that Plautdietsch -e compared with Low Saxon -en adds to the Low
Frankish sound.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

----------

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

Thanks, Ingmar.

So my point is now: Plautdietsch j- for other Low Saxon g- in all positions
is dew to Low Franconian palatal g-/j-.
 In this case it's not Slavic influence, because then it would only occur
before palatal vowels.

Then this would of virtually all Low Saxon dialects east of Saxony-Anhalt
since they all have variants of this feature.

Plautdietsch palatalization does apply only before palatal vowels ...
palatal vowel *phonemes*. *Jeft* 'poision' is realized with an [e] which is
a lowered allophone of /i/.

Berlinerisch j- is also likely to have the same origins, because it's well
known that Brandenburg  was colonized mainly by people from what's nowadays
the Netherlands, Flandria and Low Franconian areas in Western Germany.

Berlin used to have its own Low Saxon dialect variants, and Berlin German
(which is really a type of Missingsch) got some features from those
substrata. This includes /g/ > [j]. However, applies to *all* instances of
syllable-initial /g/, and to /g/ only, not to /k/ and /d/ like in
Plautdietsch and in other dialects of Eastern Pomerania and Eastern
Prussia. For example, Plautdietsch has *gaunss* (Berlin *janz*) 'whole', *
good* (Berlin *jut*) 'good', *jreen *(Berlin *jr**ün*) 'green',*
*j*ä*we*(Berlin
*jeben*) 'to give', and *Goade* (Berlin *Jarten*) 'garden'. (*
Palatalization can apply across liquids.)

I assume that personalized forms of the verb "to be" in Plautdietsch and
other dialects of the Vistula Delta are indeed Frankish-influenced:

  *Plautdietsch*

*North Saxon*



senne

sien, wäsen

to be

ekj (etj) sie

ik bün

I am

du best

du büst

thou art

he es

he is

he is

wi senne

wi sünd

we are

Btw about Plautdietsch, I think it's a bit strange that, with all that
obvious Slavic influence and when the language was already completely
surrounded by Slavonic languages, a totally non Slavic development took
place in uu becoming üü, the latter sound even doesn't exist in Polish,
Russian or Ukrainian.

Here you need to bear in mind that Mennonites always learned German as
their "high" language, especially in scripture and liturgy. Pronouncing
front unrounded ü and ö when they learn German has always been a challenge
for Central and East Europeans except Hungarians, Livonians and Estonians.
I assume that the consistent shift u > ü in New Colony Plautdietsch arose
with overcompensation. I don't know if it is relevant, but please also let
me mention that some Mennonite communities in the Soviet Union were exposed
to Turkic languages, all of which have /ü/.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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