A couple of thoughts. If the Normans hadn't invaded we wouldn't say I sing or I chant with slightly different meanings. It's also interesting to put the sentence The lunar module landed and the astronauts were on the moon. into Google translate. We have a Latin/French derived adjective and a Germanic noun.
PC: In a failed Norman Conquest, would an influx of continental Germans make English "Anglish"?
- Thread starter oshron
- Start date
I would have preferred you present something along the lines of "look at these situations similar to the Danelaw where that didn't happen" but instead I had my argument mischaracterised as pretending while you provided situations that weren't similar to the Danelaw and I had to keep highlighting the parameters of my argument to show why your situations didn't fit.
So yeah, twisting the argument only in the sense of not actually twisting it all, and in response to counter arguments that weren't actually counter to the argument as presented.
But perhaps that's all pretending too? /s
A side note: Standard Dutch is still somewhat in transition as regards to the number of genders. It really still depends on how "conservativice/prescriptivist" or "progressive/descriptivist" your view of what constitutes Standard Dutch is. Northern dialects clearly have evolved towards a common gender encompassing traditionally male and female words, thus leaving only a distinction between de-woorden and het-woorden. But many (most) standard language speakers would still frown upon phrases such as de strijd en haar uitkomst - and even more would frown upon de beschaving en zijn voordelen. Especially, but not only, South of the Belgian-Dutch border. The Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst still distinguishes male and female gendered words (somewhat), as do dictionaries.
And then, there's the recent (= a couple of decades old) tendency of using haar when referring to male or even neuter words, specifically those with a more abstract meaning. Het orkest en haar dirigent, Amsterdam en haar kanalen...
GIA RN GPRP GN. GPRP GDA GN (GV GNEG) RV GPN (GV GNEG) GV GPN GV GCJT GPN RV GPRP GADV RADJ GN.
(GPN GV) GADV RADJ GPRP GV GDA RN GDA RADJ RN GV GCJT GDA HLN GV GADV GDA GN. GPRP (GN RV).
GPN GV GIA RN/GN RV RN GCJT GIA RADJ RN.
I think the situation is opposite in Swedish, where the standard language has 2 genders but most dialects keep only 2.
I have already presented half a dozen cases, like I said you arbitrarily decided that the existence of a linguistic continuum somehow invalidate those cases despite those intermediate varieties not actually playing a role(there are no pockets of Tuscan or Roman dialect in Sicily or Basiclicata, only Piedmontese/Italo-Gallic and Occitan)
You mean "the standard language has two genders but most dialects had (remnants of) three (before the dialects went extinct)"
I am afraid so. But I do not have complete knowledge of the situation. Most people use the standard language with a regional accent.
Considering I was talking about a situation where speakers of related but different languages settled one amongst the other and yet your examples were of already existing neighbouring dialects in a continuum remaining next to each other I'm not sure how you consider those to be the same situations.
That actually is twisting things to fit!
Otto Kretschmer
Banned
BTW: all Germanic languages except Icelandic/Faroese have lost vast majority of case marking. Standard German has 4 cases but they are marked mostly on articles and to a lesser extent adjectives. IIRC only masculine singular articles have different forms in all 4 cases
Which is an example of settlement in depopulated areas of Sicily. Thus understandable that they didn't become influenced or influence their immediate neighbours to the same extent. As they had no immediate neighbours.
Gallo-Italic of Sicily - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Yes, all Germanic languages have lost original PG cases. There seems to be a rate of loss depending on the environment.
The page explicitly mentions that some Sicilian dialects were affected.
Those pockets that survived to this day were more isolated but at the time settlement wasn't localized there, it's not like all of Norse settlement in England was in core regions, most of Wessex, Sussex, Kent and half of Mercia had few settlements of Norse origin.
Last edited:
Half/most of Jutlandic apparently lost all cases and most gender distictions and I've seen people claiming it happened around the same time as English.
If so that gives a perfect example for a largely independent and just as rapid simplification of declensions ans grammatical gender.
I'll try to double check that, but regardless nglish definitely doesn't look so peculiar that we have to invoke a specific explanation beyond normal locally driven sound changes.
Last edited:
Otto Kretschmer
Banned
As I said it happened because of accentuation. Germanic langauges tend to be stress timed with stress on the first syllabe which weakens inflectional endings which are all at the end of the word. A similar process has also happened in French and Goidenic Celtic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic).
An interesting linguistic AH might be a situation in which Proto Germanic keeps the pitch accent of PIE like Lithuanian and Slovene did.
An interesting linguistic AH might be a situation in which Proto Germanic keeps the pitch accent of PIE like Lithuanian and Slovene did.
Why did it survive in Icelandic? Also Romanian(there genesis of new cases is also present I believe)
Otto Kretschmer
Banned
In Romanian the cases are not new. Only some forms of vocative derive from Slavic languages, the genitive/dative is Latin in origin.
For Icelandic I don't know. Likely it's a combination of low population and high literacy rate, someone might be able to say more than me
I think Dutch shows that high literacy rate won't necessarily save archaic features even when people push them.
The page explicitly mentions the Sicilian settlements were in depopulated areas.
Unlike the Old Norse settlement.
Your comments about settlement outside the Danelaw seem like a bit of a nonsequitur, like mentioning the lack of settlement in the parts of Sicily outside Sicily.