tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post2740887139508499086..comments2024-02-25T20:07:56.114-06:00Comments on Mr. Verb: Dutchified English in the newsMr. Verbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04048931596146402872noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-34175387688520759942008-07-06T12:16:00.000-05:002008-07-06T12:16:00.000-05:00Thanks, Anon, I've heard something to this effect ...Thanks, Anon, I've heard something to this effect before, but third hand.<BR/><BR/>Still, I'm going to wash my screen and eyes with lye soap after seeing lit terms used for linguistic notions.Mr. Verbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04048931596146402872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-64789741032646913712008-07-06T11:34:00.000-05:002008-07-06T11:34:00.000-05:00sorry, I've let my reading of the blog get severel...sorry, I've let my reading of the blog get severely neglected these past few months... but how could I not comment on this?<BR/><BR/>You're right, Verb, "Throw father down the stairs his hat" is some stereotypical concoction of PA Dutch English thanks to the tourist industry... though I've met plenty of people who swear that they say sentences structurally similar to that one in making fun of their own "Dutchy talk" --- I guess that's what Gayatri Spivak would call "strategic essentialism", adopting mainstream stereotypes for in-group identity and distinctiveness...<BR/><BR/>p.s. is there a more linguistic-y term for this? or do we have to take it from the literary theorist Spivak?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-41110000501453607702008-06-20T16:35:00.000-05:002008-06-20T16:35:00.000-05:00Does anybody know more about the use of inshallah ...Does anybody know more about the use of inshallah in Egypt? My impression was that the word has long been so pervasive in Arabic that it's hard for it to 'creep' very much farther! Is this a recency illusion effect or something?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-86893570615156729272008-06-20T16:03:00.000-05:002008-06-20T16:03:00.000-05:00Right, Pennsylvania Dutch is not connected to the ...Right, Pennsylvania Dutch is not connected to the language we call 'Dutch', except that they are both Continental West Germanic languages. I think Mr. V knows that, but it is important that you note it, since many readers won't. If I could add some detail:<BR/><BR/>Plattdeutsch or Low German is actually spoken in the northern areas of the German-speaking world. Pennsylvania Dutch has roots mostly in the Palatine dialects (the Pfalz region), far to the south. (It's close to Mannheim dialect in some ways.) What distinguishes 'Low' from 'High' German is the 'second consonant shift', differences including the t in English 'water' (with similar forms in Frisian, Low German, Dutch) versus the ss in German Wasser. The same patterns exist with k vs ch in make/machen, help/helfen, and so on. Penn. Dutch has shifted forms like German does (although only to the extent of 'central' not 'upper' German dialects). So, Penn. Dutch is not Low German, but comes from a West Central German dialect. <BR/><BR/>In the US, there's a long tradition of calling about any non-standard variety of German 'Low German'. -- I've heard Bavarian, Hessian, East Franconian and Upper Saxon dialects called that. In that sense, Penn. Dutch counts as 'Low German', but not by the definitions linguists and dialectologists use. There are many Low German speakers in North America, including Mennonites, as it happens, but that's another story.<BR/><BR/>You're also quite right that Low German dialects have front rounded vowels (virtually all of them, in fact). Pfälzisch, though, like most central dialects, lost them long before people came to Pennsylvania. So, English influence didn't really play a role in that change, though this seems to be widely believed. There is some English influence on the language, of course, like the use of English 'r' sounds by lots of speakers, borrowing of even core vocabulary, and so on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-49709476443125071582008-06-20T15:34:00.000-05:002008-06-20T15:34:00.000-05:00Oh, and some (most?) Low German dialects include f...Oh, and some (most?) Low German dialects include front rounded vowels. The Pennsylvania ones probably lost them due to English influence.James Crippenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10927937760368098278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-49910999679275483422008-06-20T15:26:00.000-05:002008-06-20T15:26:00.000-05:00I guess it’s not that important, but I wanted to n...I guess it’s not that important, but I wanted to note that Pennsylvania Dutch isn’t actually Dutch at all. It’s instead a dialect of <I>Plattdeutsch</I> or <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German" REL="nofollow">Low German</A>, which is spoken in the northern regions of Germany. It’s in a separate branch from the Low Franconian languages that include Dutch, as well as a separate branch from the High German languages that include Standard German (i.e. <I>Hochdeutsch</I>) and Yiddish, among others.James Crippenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10927937760368098278noreply@blogger.com