Re: Intergermansk

Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

[snip]
> None of these differences make a language. I mean, I'm speaking a dialect
> that is not mutually intellegible with the standard language and differs
> from the standard language phonologically, lexically, morphologically and
> grammatically.
This, of course, depends on what one considers the distinction between languages
and dialects to be. Unfortunately, the army-and-navy criterion does not work
well with Afrikaans, since SA has got a few too many official languages. :)

If we do want to take socio-political factors into account, the facts that
Afrikaans has a separate written standard from Dutch (Nederlands), and that it
has status as one of the official languages of the Union of South Africa would
seem strongly suggestive of it being a separate language.

> >Ray Brown wrote:
> > >
> > > I have a copy of the opening of the Pater Noster in the 1902 version:
> > > Vio fadr hu bi in hevn,
> > > holirn bi dauo nam,
> > > dauo reik kom,
> > > dauo vil bi dun an erd,
> > >     as it bi in hevn.
> >
> >Nice! :) It tastes a bit antique to me (which is a good thing) (hmm,
> >maybe because of 'bi' which also exists in Middle-Dutch).
>
> To me, the impression of antiquity is provoqued by the "dauo" which reminds
> me of Gothic. It also gives me a feeling of being very close to English,
> because of forms like "hu, bi, dun, hevn, fadr, it, as", but this might be
> due to my lack of knowledge of other Germanic languages than high
> (non-northern) German and English.
FWIW, to me, a native speaker of Swedish, fluent in English and High German, and
not entirely unfamiliar with the other Scandinavian languages and Dutch, it also
seems decidedly English-like.

                                                   Andreas

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