Re: Zelandish (was: 2nd pers. pron. for God)

On 09/13 06:37  Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
>  --- andrew wrote:
>
> > > >I keep a journal, and most of it, for 6 years, has been written in a
>
> > Driete, let my gan sibful, for'm ik heb seen't sinte de du hest jeruwed
> > beforn all folks; for'ne cudness toe'm deie, an liet, and't wulder for
> > dyne folk Israhel.
> >
> > Lord, let me go peacefully, because I have seen the salvation that you
> > have prepared before all people; for a revelation to the nations, a
> > light, and glory for your people Israel.
> >
> Zelandish, that's the name of the language?
Yes.  It's native name is Zelandisch (pronounced the same).  In my
journal-keeping it is spoken in the province south of Woepie river,
mainly in Land-in-Siet and Leewell, as well as a few outlying towns.

> It reminds me quite strongly of Frisian, except for the word "cudness", which
> reminds me more of English; but any Dutch person who is familiar with Frisian
> orthography but not with its vocabulary might easily be fooled. Anyway, I'd be
> curious to see some of the grammar.
>
It is closer to Dutch or German than to modern English.  Unfortunately I
don't have a Frisian grammar, so I couldn't use that.  Sometimes when I
think that I should record the language I work through my grammar books
to devise the prescribed grammar.  I have TY Old English, Dutch, German,
Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic.  The word order is English normally.
Voiced |f| is now written |v|.  Soft |c| has become |ch|, |sc| > |sch|,
back |h| has disappeared, but not without lengthening preceding vowels.
|g| at the end of word has become silent, soft |g| is written |j| or
|gj|.  Edh and thorn merged with |d|, or |t| at the end of words.
Zelandish has stolen the rule of d>j between a long vowel and a shwa.

The rhoticity of |r| is indeterminate and variable.  In some cases it is
softly pronounced after a vowel, in others it appears to be swallowed.
There is no hard and fast rule on this.

Long |a| and |u| are written with an accent.  The first is a back
mid-open vowel and the second a front rounded vowel.  |ae| and |e|
merged.  Long |o| is written |oe|, a mid-front rounded vowel.  |y| has
split, merging with |i| or |u|, although |y| is still used for /i:/ in
short words like pronouns.

The first person pronouns are ik and wy (subject), my and us (object),
and myn and ur (possessive).  Possessive pronouns can be declined like
adjectives.  It is optional for object pronouns to come before or after
the verb.

The second person pronouns are du and jy (subject), dy and ew (object),
and dyn and ewr (possessive).  Zelandish culture is very informal and
will drop the jy in conversation as quickly as possible, as soon as the
use of first names has been established.  In some casual situations it
is not used, even among strangers.

The third person pronouns, a bit more complicated, are hy, sy, hit, and
hylie (subject), him, hir, hit/him, him (object), his, hir, his,
hir/hirn (possessive).  Hit is used as the direct object, normally
reduced to 't.  The oldest form of the third person plural subject
pronoun was hie.  When I started codifying the language I decided that
it needed to be distinct from hy.  I experimented with hai for a while
but now I'm trying out hylie, from hie leed, them guys.  (Any Dutch
dialects have hulle without julle over there?)

The indefinate pronoun is man.  No reflexive pronouns have been
introduced, apart from using self for emphasis.  The indefinite
collective article sum can be used as a indirect object or possessive
pronoun, to him/of them, after a noun or adjective.

Grammatical gender has been dropped in favour of natural gender.  The
definite article is det, 't (subject or direct object), dom (indirect
object), des (possessive article).  The plural forms are da, dom and
der.  The indefinite pronouns are an (singular) and sum (collective),
they are declined like adjectives.  Prepositions can optionally combine
with the definite article: on+dom=om, toe+dom=toe'm, in+dom=im,
et+dom=ettom. (I have caught myself nearly writing them in English so
many times...!)

Nouns are not declined for case if this is indicated in the article or
adjectives.  Strong nouns are declined for number with the historic
endings -s, -e or -0.  Weak nouns take the ending -e or -n in the
oblique or plural cases.  Not all nouns have a possessive -s.  Generally
Strong nouns with -e and all weak nouns indicate possession with the
preposition |of| or the possessive pronouns, which can be reduced to -'s
and -'r.  Only irregular nouns have ablaut, generally in the plural
case.

Adjectives have two paradigms, weak and strong.  Weak is more common,
used after articles and possessive pronouns.  The weak adjective nearly
always takes the ending -e (or -n).  The strong adjective is rarer.  It
takes no ending in the singular subject or direct object, or the
predicate.  The strong possessive adjective ends in -s in the singular
and -er in the plural.  The indirect (prepositional) adjective ends in
-e, as does the plural subject or direct object adjective.  The
comparative ending is -er, and the superlative -ste; or the adjectives
|mar| and |meeste| may be used instead.

Adverbs are unmarked.

The numbers are an, twa, drie, feur, five, six, seve, et, nine, ten.
|an| declines like an adjective.  As well as being used for the
indefinite singular article, the weak adjective |ane| is used as an
adjective or adverb meaning 'only'  |twa| and |drie| have possessive and
prepositional forms, |tweer|, |tweem|, |dreer|, |drim|.

Zelandish has strong verbs with ablaut in the past tense and weak verbs
with a dental ending.  There are a lot of irregularities that remain
unrecorded.  There are two simple tenses: present and past; indicative
and subjunctive.  There are two past auxilliaries: |hebbe|, to have,
for most verbs; and been, to be, for verbs of motion and intransitive
verbs.  The future auxiiliary is |schie|, shall, will.

tell, to tell

ik tell  wy telt     ik heb teld  wy het teld
du telst jy telt     du hest teld jy het teld
hy telt  hylie telt  hy het teld  hylie het teld

ik schie tell  wy schie tell
du schie tell  jy schie tell
hy schie tell  hylie schie tell

> Of course, AFAIK the name "New Zealand" is derived from our Dutch province
> "Zeeland", which has its own dialect(s) as well. But the adjective of this
> province is not "*Zeelands", but "Zeeuws".
>
It's AFAIK too.  Looks like I get to keep *Zeelands for Zelandish.  What
does the end of Zeeuws derive from.  I think the Old Englisc called it
Saeland, but I can't find it written down anywhere.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                         hobbit@griffler.co.nz
alias Mungo Foxburr of Loamsdown
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

Pray for Peace, Act for Peace

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