En réponse à Thomas Leigh :
>Dutch long /e:/ and /o:/ become diphthongs /i@/ and /u@/ in
>Afrikaans.
Heard in some Dutch dialects too :)) .
> Afrikaans has also developed long open /E:/ and /O:/
>(written [ê] and [ô]), which I don't think exist in Dutch.
They do, in dialects.
> Also
>the diphthong written ui is something like /{y/ in Dutch (at
>least that's how it sounds to me),
You have a strange ear. In Dutch the most common pronunciation is /9Y/,
both elements fully rounded, although the second almost tends to unrounding
(but certainly not the first).
> whereas in Afrikaans both
>elements are fully rounded, /2y/ or something close.
That's how Dutch pronounces "eu".
> Note that
>Afrikaans writes as y the diphthong which Dutch writes as ij.
Common in older orthography of Dutch, and still present in some names.
>Dutch intervocalic g and d are often lost in Afrikaans, e.g. oog
>"eye" > plural oë, Dutch ogen/oogen (sp?);
Ogen. Here again, a phonetic change frequent in Dutch dialects.
> Afrikaans môre
>(morning) = Dutch morgen. Note that the Dutch inflection -en is
>just -e in Afrikaans, the n being completely lost (as happens in
>Dutch pronunciation, but they still write it).
Indeed.
> Sometimes a final
>consonant disappears but reappears when an inflection is added,
>e.g. nag "night" > plural nagte; Dutch nacht > nachten (sp?)
Correct spelling. What you refer too happens also in Haags, the dialect of
Den Haag, although they spell "night" "nach".
>Afrikaans lacks the sound /z/, and has /s/ instead.
From what I've heard, some Dutch people have trouble with /z/ too,
especially initial. And since I've also heared "finale" pronounced
[vi"nal@], I'd say the problem is with the phonemicity of voicing of
initial fricatives :)) .
>That's not everything, of course, but I think those are the most
>salient differences. Mind you, I know more about Afrikaans than
>about Dutch, due to a long standing interest in the former, but
>I don't actually speak either beyond a few basic sentences and
>niceties.
Now I understand why most Dutch people can understand Afrikaans rather
well. It has ondergone phonetic changes that are present in many Dutch
dialects too, and thus doesn't sound so foreign to Dutch ears.
> > all nouns use the article 'de' rather than 'de' or 'het'
>
>Die /di/.
Yep, sorry, forgot that :(( .
>And curiously, the indefinite article is written ['n] but
>pronounced /@/!
LOL. Niceness.
>No, they use plurals just like Dutch or any other Germanic
>language. The usual plural ending is -e ( from Dutch -en), but
>as I said this often causes changes in the form of the word,
>e.g. consonants drop, or dropped consonants reappear, so there
>are a lot more apparent irregular plurals than there are in
>Dutch.
OK.
>No, [g] is /x/ in Afrikaans (as is [ch]).
Really? My South-African colleagues definitely pronounced [g].
>Afrikaans puts participles and modals and stuff at the end of
>clauses all the time like Dutch does, but I don't know the rules
>for this in either language, so I don't know if they are the
>same or different.
Here again, my experience with my South-African colleagues tells something
completely different. Would Afrikaans have dialects?
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.