Re: Language Change

On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> >(pronouncing the /n/ means that one is either from the North or a
> >pedant;
>
>         Really ? In Eindhoven and the towns even more in the South,
> pronouncing the /n/ is pretty much the rule, as I heard it when I
> was there. And there, they say that not pronouncing the /n/ is a
> feature of the North...
Depends on what you call the North. In Eindhoven, what they call the
North is the middle, where relatively standard Dutch is spoken. What
*we* call the North is *really* far north, Groningen for instance,
where they pronouce _lopen_ [lo:pm] with a syllabic 'm', whereas we
say ['lop@] and people from Brabant and Limburg who think they're
speaking standard Dutch say ['lop@n]. My mother-in-law, a retired
schoolteacher who lives in Brabant, pronounces the -n (and so do our
kids when they come back from a few days' visit).

I think (but I might be wrong) that it's a hypercorrection, because
they see the /n/ written and think it should be pronounced; I don't
know enough about Southern Dutch dialects to know whether they have
the final -n or not.

   Irina

--
            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself) - http://valdyas.conlang.org (Valdyas)
        http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (home)