Re: Reinventing NATLANGs

On 11/07/06, Michael Adams <abrigon@...> wrote:
>
> Niederdeutsch does that include in some aspects English? Or was the shift
> the divide between Frisian and English?
>
> What about dielects/seperate lanugages like Dutch or Yiddish? As well as
> forms outside of what is now Germany and related areas..
Yiddish is a High German language (i.e. a descendant of Middle High
German e.g. it's had a substanital portion of the 2nd consonant
shift), but it's not "Hochdeutsch". But as for the rest the term "Low
German" is sometimes used to include Dutch (there is or was till
relatively recently a dialect continuum between Highest German and
Dutch), but rarely if ever English and Frisian, which are just (not
High German) West Germanic languages (and no dialect continuum exists
between them and Dutch/German, tho Frisian has been influenced by
Dutch/German to a greater extent, and much less by French).

Note that "East Frisian Low Saxon" is a different language form "East
Frisian". One is the dialect of Low Saxon (Low German) spoken in East
Frisia in Germany; the other is an eastern form of Frisian spoken in
Germany.

> English seemed to have had some Nordic influences from an early day, even
> before the move to Britain.
English is based on dialects that were spoken on the same peninsula as
Danish/Old Norse, so there's probably some sort of similarities. It's
still clearly West Germanic, though. But I think i-umlaut was most
complete in Old English and North Germanic...

--
Tristan

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