Re: Columbian Danish (was: political Zera)

Lars Henrik Mathiesen:
>Just populate New Foundland with fishermen from Bornholm and Thy
>(Burgundians and Teutons), the mainland with farmers from Vendsyssel
>and Himmerland (Vandals and Kimbrians). Then have supplies/traders
>come from the Southern Islands (r ) and the administrators from Ribe
>(because the overseas possessions formally belong to some count or
>other in that diocese). That represents all the dialect groups except
>the one that becomes Standard Danish. A fine stew, even without the
>native input.
What a cocktail! From what I know of these dialects, Columbian
Danish would definitely evolve into something quite different.

>By the time the central administration in Copenhagen wakes up, in the
>late 1700s or so, it will be too late --- Columbian-Danish will be a
>completely separate language. It will probably also escape the
>influence of literacy on pronunciation, which +ACo-here+ACo- has retarded some
>phonetic developments for close to 200 years.
A number of things could have happened with such a cocktail. From what
I know of these dialects, these include:

1) loss of the stød (influenced from the Southern Islands), e.g.;
     <hun> [hun] 'her' and <hund> [hun?] 'dog' would both sound like [hun]
     <ved> [veD] 'by' and <ved> [veD] 'know' would both sound like [veD]

2) phonemic nasalization (Southern Islands), e.g.;
     <hun> now becomes [hu:~]

3) further lenition of syllable-final voiced stops (Southern Islands
and Jutland), e.g.;
     <hund> now becomes [hu~j]
     both <ved>'s become [vej]

4) /v/ -> /w/ in all positions (Jutland), e.g.;
     both <ved>'s becomes [wej]

5) palatal consonants (Bornholm), e.g.;
     <gøre> and <køre> become [JøQ] and [cøQ] respectively

6) slightly different grammar (Jutland), e.g.;
     <hunden> 'the dog' now becomes [E 'hu~j]

Pretty cool! I doubt there are any Danes who would know what [E 'hu~j]
would mean if he meat a Dano-Columbian.

-kristian- 8)