Re: YADPT (D=Dutch)

--- Tristan McLeay skrzypszy:

>> >What is the Dutch word for Cassowary? (Oma doesn't know and Harrie and
>> >Mien don't speak English.)
>>
>> No idea! The thing is, I have not a clue what a cassowary is... I just
>> checked in my electronic dictionary here at work, and the word isn't
>> there... :(
>
>My favorite kind of bird: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary (my other
>email address and yahoo! ID is kesuari, the Malay source of the word).
>(Though the bird is Australian, I tend to think of it as Papua New
>Guinean. Probably to do with the context I first heard of it in.)
Thanks for the clarification (and John, and Stone). I'm at home now, and I
just checked in the dictionary: the Dutch name, surprise surprise,
is "kasuaris".
Note: possible, due to the recent spelling reform, the spelling ought to
be "casuaris". But I'm not sure if that matters much to you... ;)

>> >There is a word for young girl pronounced sort of like [meiS@]. It might
>> >be a dialect word, I'm not sure. How is it spelt?
>>
>> "meisje". And it is not a dialect word; it is the normal word for "girl".
>
>Okay. Mum was asking about two words, one of which was a dialect word and
>the other was standard. I forgot which way was which (and what the dialect
>word was for that matter).
Hm, would you remember the other word, then?
(in "my" Westfrisian dialect, not to confuse with Frisian BTW), the word
would be "moidje").

>On this subject, I just remembered one qn I forgot: I noticed that Mien
>seemed sometimes to randomly pronounce <s> and <z> as [S] and [Z] (e.g.
>in the word for 'visiting', which I think was 'bezoek op' but I'm
>probably wrong). Is this some feature of the orthography I don't know or a
>dialect thing or my ears deceiving me?
I don't think it has anything to do with orthography. Partly because /S/
and /Z/ do not exist in Dutch as phonemes, our pronunciation of <s> and <z>
sometimes comes dangerously close, especially in city dialects.

>> Normally, I would say [Ej]. However, this is one of those diphthongs that
>> strongly tend to differ regionally [E:, e, Aj, Oj, etc.]. I'm not sure
>> about the pronunciation in Zeeland.
>
>[Oj]? That's a bit extreme isn't it? But fair enough :)
That's what Westfries does! :)) For example the above-mentioned "moidje"
for "meisje".

>> No. <ie> is always [i], and [i] is always [I].
>
>Really? Because I really _cannot_ hear the difference. If that's not a
>dialectal peculiarity or an oddity of my own, maybe the French should
>learn to speak Australian English or something :)
Strange, "bit" and "biet" (both existing Dutch words) are pronounced the
same as English "bit" and "beat". With one difference: "biet" sounds like
[bit], "beat" more like [bi:t]. Perhaps it's that difference that makes it
difficult to distinguish for you?

> (Incidentally, is it common for older people to use computers in the
> Netherlands? It sounds like Oma is the only one of her still living
> siblings who doesn't.)
Difficult for me to tell. I'd say that most of the older people don't. But
I might well be mistaken. Anyway, in my family the situation is like this:
none of the 70+ people have a computer. My mother (63) has no computer (she
is still faithful to her non-electric typewriter). My late father had a
computer (two, actually), but didn't really know how to use it. My mother's
eldest sister (60) has been using computers for years.
Not that my family is particularly representative: both sides together
number perhaps 10 people.

>> >Tanke val (?),
>>
>> Not correct, but very inspiring. Perhaps an idea for Føtisk?
>> You should have written "bedankt", "hartelijk dank", or someting similar.
>> By the way, you're welcome anyway! ;))
>
>I was more concerned about the spelling, actually. It's _definitely_ what
>Oma, Mum, Harrie and Mien use for 'Thankyou' (and what Oma and Mum have
>explicitly said is the word on many an occasion).
Ah, of course! Well, then you meant either "dank je wel" or "dank u wel"
(the latter is more formal).

>Perhaps a dialect/time thing? (Mum's dialect is obviously going to be
>oldfashioned for her age and bad.)
No, all these forms can be used in standard Dutch.
Frisian, BTW, says "Dankewol".

>And for it to be Føtisk, it would have to be a borrowing; the /T/ of thank
>would become /f/. But that's obviously not an impossibility :)
Hehe.

>Hartelijk dank, :)
Graag gedaan,

Jan

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