| Author |
Message |
the Omrud
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 1:44 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
Robert Bannister spake thusly:
| Quote: | the Omrud wrote:
Not to me. Dutch, Swedish and Danish are all closely related to
German, and fluent German speakers can make some sense of all those
other languages. Ditto Spanish and Portuguese.
Dutch yes, but the Scandinavian languages? - I would be very surprised.
I'd like to hear from some native Germans on this, but I would guess it
would be easier for an English speaker to makes sense of Norwegian, than
for a German to understand Swedish - and not very easy for either,
except perhaps in their written form, which is a different matter.
|
Yes, I was hoping for some comment from Germany or Holland. However,
it's worth noting that Norwegian is a dialect of Danish (let's see if
that stirs them up). Where is Simon Hughes when you need him?
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
the Omrud
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 1:47 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
Robert Bannister spake thusly:
| Quote: | One of the things I find interesting is that it seems to be the Welsh
who speak only English who have the strongest accents, especially those
from the South. I've met Welsh-speaking Welsh whose English was not
noticeably distinguishable from any resident of SE England.
|
<... cannot ... resist ... fist ... of ... death ....>
Never mind; I am sure that with some study they could become
competent speakers of English.
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Matthew Huntbach
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 2:05 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Robert Bannister wrote:
| Quote: | One of the things I find interesting is that it seems to be the Welsh who
speak only English who have the strongest accents, especially those from
the South. I've met Welsh-speaking Welsh whose English was not noticeably
distinguishable from any resident of SE England.
|
A similar phenomenon is observed in Scotland. The English of the
Highlands and Islands is fairly close to RP, whereas the English of
other parts of Scotland can get to the point of being incomprehensible
to English people.
This is because the English was picked up as a second language a few
generations ago when Gaelic was still the language of the people,
and was picked up in a form resembling RP.
I think you will observe the same in Ireland as well - the further
removed the people are from Gaelic speaking ancestors, the further
their English is from RP. So the English in the west of Ireland is
much more comprehensible to English people than the English in
Dublin or Belfast.
Matthew Huntbach |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Matthew Huntbach
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 7:42 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Areff wrote:
| Quote: | Matthew Huntbach wrote:
A similar phenomenon is observed in Scotland. The English of the
Highlands and Islands is fairly close to RP, whereas the English of
other parts of Scotland can get to the point of being incomprehensible
to English people.
This is because the English was picked up as a second language a few
generations ago when Gaelic was still the language of the people,
and was picked up in a form resembling RP.
I think you will observe the same in Ireland as well
And in Cumbria, where the language of the people was Old Norse, wot?
|
But that would have been quite a few generations further back than
the Scottish, Irish and Welsh cases mentioned. The language of the
people in Cumbria was not still Old Norse at the start of the 19th century
was it?
Matthew Huntbach |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Don Aitken
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 10:11 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
On Wed, 4 May 2005 14:42:11 +0100, Matthew Huntbach
<mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 4 May 2005, Areff wrote:
Matthew Huntbach wrote:
A similar phenomenon is observed in Scotland. The English of the
Highlands and Islands is fairly close to RP, whereas the English of
other parts of Scotland can get to the point of being incomprehensible
to English people.
This is because the English was picked up as a second language a few
generations ago when Gaelic was still the language of the people,
and was picked up in a form resembling RP.
I think you will observe the same in Ireland as well
And in Cumbria, where the language of the people was Old Norse, wot?
But that would have been quite a few generations further back than
the Scottish, Irish and Welsh cases mentioned. The language of the
people in Cumbria was not still Old Norse at the start of the 19th century
was it?
And, of course, Norwegian, like Danish further south, was similar |
enough to blend with Anglo-Saxon, rather than competing with it. It
must be getting on for a thousand years since anybody in Cumbria spoke
anything but English, but the old Cumberland dialect, which also
contains Celtic elements, is as impenetrable as any.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Robert Bannister
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 7:13 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
Don Aitken wrote:
| Quote: | And, of course, Norwegian, like Danish further south, was similar
enough to blend with Anglo-Saxon, rather than competing with it. It
must be getting on for a thousand years since anybody in Cumbria spoke
anything but English, but the old Cumberland dialect, which also
contains Celtic elements, is as impenetrable as any.
I wonder whether it was the similarities and differences (ie that it |
could be vaguely understood, but wasn't the same) that gave English the
push to lose its inflected grammatical structure.
--
Rob Bannister |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Robert Bannister
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 7:13 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
Matthew Huntbach wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 4 May 2005, Robert Bannister wrote:
One of the things I find interesting is that it seems to be the Welsh
who speak only English who have the strongest accents, especially
those from the South. I've met Welsh-speaking Welsh whose English was
not noticeably distinguishable from any resident of SE England.
A similar phenomenon is observed in Scotland. The English of the
Highlands and Islands is fairly close to RP, whereas the English of
other parts of Scotland can get to the point of being incomprehensible
to English people.
This is because the English was picked up as a second language a few
generations ago when Gaelic was still the language of the people,
and was picked up in a form resembling RP.
I think you will observe the same in Ireland as well - the further
removed the people are from Gaelic speaking ancestors, the further
their English is from RP. So the English in the west of Ireland is
much more comprehensible to English people than the English in
Dublin or Belfast.
|
I agree completely. I could possibly add that North Germans speak a
language much closer to "book German" than those in the South for the
same reason.
--
Rob Bannister |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donna Richoux
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 5:16 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
Robert Bannister <robban@it.net.au> wrote:
| Quote: | Don Aitken wrote:
And, of course, Norwegian, like Danish further south, was similar
enough to blend with Anglo-Saxon, rather than competing with it.
|
I'm a little surprised to hear them called "Norwegian" and "Danish" here
-- I thought it was "Old Norse" all over the Scandinavian kingdoms. But
then again, nothing was uniform and standardized then, was it?
| Quote: | It
must be getting on for a thousand years since anybody in Cumbria spoke
anything but English, but the old Cumberland dialect, which also
contains Celtic elements, is as impenetrable as any.
I wonder whether it was the similarities and differences (ie that it
could be vaguely understood, but wasn't the same) that gave English the
push to lose its inflected grammatical structure.
|
I thought I had copied out that section of "The Story of English" once
here, but I only find this post I wrote:
The Story of English" goes on to say "After Alfred, the Danes and
the Saxons lived alongside each other for generations, more or less
at peace." It gives an example of the similarities of the
languages:
Modern English: I'll sell you the horse that pulls my cart.
Old English: Ic selle the that hors the draegeth minne waegn.
Old Norse: Ek mun selja ther hrossit er dregr vagn mine.
It concludes by saying the biggest influence the Norse had on Old
English was that the English simplified and regularized their
grammar -- in order to talk to these foreigners, I gather.
Checking the book (p. 53) again to see exactly what was said about that
last part... The authors quote Profesor Tom Shippey, "who has made a
close study of the mingling of Saxon and Viking culture":
...So, roughly speaking, they understand each other. One says
"waegn" and the other says "vagn."... They understand the main
words. What they don't understand are the grammatical parts of the
sentence. For instance, the man speaking good Old English says for
one horse "that hors" but for *two* horses he says "tha hors." Now
the Old Norse speaker understands the word /horse/ all right, but
he's not sure if it means one or two because in Old English you say
"one horse," "two horse." There is no difference between the two
words for horse. The difference is conveyed in the word for "the",
and the Old Norseman might not undrstand this, because his word for
`the" doesn't behave like that. So: are you trying to sell me one
horse or are you trying to sell me two horses? If you get enough
situations like that, there is a strong drive towards simplifying
the language.
There is some more about inflected endings for plurals, and then Shippey
ends:
...The language became simplified because these
complications become very difficult to keep going
when you have to speak to someone who does not have
a total grasp of it, and perhaps especially
difficult if you're talking to someone who has a 90
percent grasp of it. The vital 10 percent is just
enough difficulty to give the wrong impression.
I've heard Dutch people say much the same about trying to get along in
German -- the languages are misleadingly similar. Shippey continues:
It's very much the situation you have now between the Danes and
the Swedes. They think they can understand each other; they say
they can understand each other. But they go away from the same
conversation with different opinnions about what's actually been
agreed.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Linz
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 6:53 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
On Sat, 07 May 2005 10:10:26 +0800, Robert Bannister
<robban@it.net.au> wrote:
| Quote: | Don Aitken wrote:
And, of course, Norwegian, like Danish further south, was similar
enough to blend with Anglo-Saxon, rather than competing with it. It
must be getting on for a thousand years since anybody in Cumbria spoke
anything but English, but the old Cumberland dialect, which also
contains Celtic elements, is as impenetrable as any.
I wonder whether it was the similarities and differences (ie that it
could be vaguely understood, but wasn't the same) that gave English the
push to lose its inflected grammatical structure.
|
Yes, that's how it was explained when I studied EngLang at university.
--
The point of education is to correct ignorance. It cannot deal with stupidity.
(Mortimer Hebblethwaite, uk.misc) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Don Aitken
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 7:09 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
On Sat, 7 May 2005 13:16:02 +0200, trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux)
wrote:
| Quote: | Robert Bannister <robban@it.net.au> wrote:
Don Aitken wrote:
And, of course, Norwegian, like Danish further south, was similar
enough to blend with Anglo-Saxon, rather than competing with it.
I'm a little surprised to hear them called "Norwegian" and "Danish" here
-- I thought it was "Old Norse" all over the Scandinavian kingdoms. But
then again, nothing was uniform and standardized then, was it?
The differentiation was only just beginning, but, although I am no |
expert, my understanding is that there *are* sufficient differences to
say that the Viking element in Cumbria came ultimately from Norway,
and that this is one of the major pieces of evidence for the
conclusion that they came from the west (the Norse kingdoms of Dublin
and Man) rather than the east (the Danish kingdom of York).
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| |
FAQ
Memberlist
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in