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 From Low German to Celtic to French to English

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Islanddawn
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PostSubject: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptySun 12 Jan 2014, 16:12

On another site there is some debate on Anglo/Saxon being a Low German language, well mainly between German contributors on High vs Low German really, and therefore English being a Germanic Language. There is also some talk about what is termed 'Celticised English' which I hadn't heard before, so this link was posted in explanation.

It is from a talk given by a German Linguist, Prof. Theo Vennemann, back in 2005. He sounds a bit pompous and I have some issues with some of his historical data but overall it is an interesting read. Although, I don't know enough about languages to judge how accurate this assessment/theory is and I'd be very interested in everyone's opinion on the piece.


English is a substratally Celticized
(and thereby indirectly Semiticized),
superstratally Romanized
Low German dialect.
A German linguist’s footnote:
The German-speaking peoples may be proud that a
marginal dialect of their language has advanced to
the status of the first universal
lingua franca
in
world history.

http://www.rotary-muenchen.de/2005-2006/theo-vennemann.pdf
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptySun 12 Jan 2014, 17:21

He claims that a specific similarity between Celtic languages and Semitic languages in the instance of what he calls "external possessiveness" proves a common source for both or at least a sufficient commonality for one to absorb elements of the other, and on this basis makes his closing statement that you quote above. This would be credible if other crucial similarities could also be identified, notably ones which are not shared by Germanic languages. However he fails to do so, and this is not surprising since superficial similarities can be found not only between Semitic languages and Celtic, but between Celtic and Germanic, and indeed Germanic and Semitic, both in terms of phonetic and grammatic overlaps.

This is a classic case of the person who, having noticed one small similarity, then runs with it as "proof" that this demonstrates a common origin for absolutely everything related to the element that apparently is similar between two otherwise distinct entities, in this case two language groups. It is a notorious trap which is all the easier to fall into the further back in time one cares to go when plucking such instances out. And nor does he help rescue himself from this trap when he fails to address how or why Celtic as it evolved and emerged in a Western European setting should adopt and even integrate to a fundamental level any elements of Semitic speech.

He claims in his address to the Rotary Club that "unfortunately" he could not keep everyone there until midnight while he discussed this issue. He overcompensates somewhat by seemingly not discussing it at all, simply asserting it as fact.

I have to say that his views are not in accord with most linguistic theory I have read, including much written after the year in which this speech was delivered.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptySun 12 Jan 2014, 17:44

He also fails to understand the "sympathetic dative", this crucial element common "to all Indo-European" languages but which is "absent" from Celtic and therefore now also from English.

For one thing it is alive and well in Irish, which everyone would agree I assume is a Celtic language. For another it is also something that is a rather crucial grammatical device used to indicate when a person can be deemed "in possession of" something but not in a legal sense or in the sense that they can be said to own it exclusively. In other words it implies possession without being genitive, a necessity that every language he mentions in his speech has had reason to accommodate. It is used in English, contrary to what he says, every time someone refers to "The Heimlich Manouevre", "The Ipcress Files" etc when the person as specified in the term occupies the target of any sentence construct using the dative case.
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Arwe Rheged
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyMon 13 Jan 2014, 11:22

To my mind, his argument seemed a little naive at times, but there was some good stuff in there.  For example, he's probably right to say that English does indeed have a 'Celtic' (by which he really means Brittonic) substrate.  The early English tongues were a ragbag of localised dialects and there is a strong suspicion that the north Northumbrian variant overlays a pre-exisiting Brittonic dialect line.  Given that the notion of wholesale ethnic replacement in the fifth and sixth century is now generally confined to the fevered imaginings of folk who did their school history before the 1980s and to folk who flood Amazon with self-published burblings about the Real King Arthur and given also the evidence for substantial British survival in Northumbria, such a conclusion should surprise no-one.

However, that substrate may have affected English indirectly rather than directlly.  The question of loan words is one area which excites a lot of debate - as the article says, there are very few Celtic loan words in English.  However, what the article doesn't state (and what most other observers of the same phenomenon don't state either) is that it has never been demonstrated that the Celts of post Roman Britain actually still spoke Brittonic.  There is, as far as I am aware, only one example from the entire four centuries of Roman domination in Britain of a document apparently written in British.  Everything else is written in Latin and whilst there are various ways to explain this away, we have to be alive to the possibility that, as in Gaul, what the Germanic incomers of the fifth century found in the wealthy, lowland parts of Britannia at least was a population speaking a form of Latin.

The army - concentrated in the military zone in the north of the Diocese - also spoke a form of low Latin and whilst British must have survived in order to have become Welsh, Cornish and Cumbric, we might be better seeing British as a first language as a feature of the less Romanised* parts of the north and west.

If this is correct, then English may have been affected less by 'pure' Celtic and more by a regional Latin patois which had an existing Celtic substrate.

Regards,

AR

* A phrase loaded with dangerous assumptions, but used here simply to mean 'not the area dominated by the villas and the towns'
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyMon 13 Jan 2014, 12:01

He shies away from calling it "Brittonic" because of the other claim he makes that "Celtic" was influenced strongly by "Semitic" and therefore doesn't want to highlight just how unique a British version may have become.

It is also, as you say, incredibly näive of him to make such a claim on any language's behalf, least of all one he purposefully misidentifies in this way. To fit the timescale he infers he should at least be referring anyway to what is now called Proto-Semitic (of which we have only assumptions regarding vocabulary and grammar based on the six or seven major diversions this language group later took). He should also be reticent about calling any language "Celtic", even British. It is more normal these days to avoid the term when discussing assumed Celtic root languages devolved from an original Indo-European stem. The old assumption that a pre-Roman and pre-Germanic common language prevailed in Europe has long been challenged on the basis that it pandered more to 19th century notions of nationhood than it was ever based on concrete examples, be they real or even just demonstrable through informed inference.

In summary he has falsely identified not one but three languages in order to pursue his theory. A speech that may have gone down well in the Rotary Club but which I fear would have been torn to metaphorical shreds (and probably real shreds in some cases) had it been made to linguists.
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Islanddawn
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyMon 13 Jan 2014, 14:57

nordmann wrote:

In summary he has falsely identified not one but three languages in order to pursue his theory. A speech that may have gone down well in the Rotary Club but which I fear would have been torn to metaphorical shreds (and probably real shreds in some cases) had it been made to linguists.

Yes, I did a bit of googling and Vennemann's work does seem to be controversial in the linguistic world, unsurprisingly.

These are his main theories listed on Wiki

Vennemann's controversial claims about the prehistory of European languages include the following:



  • Numerous toponyms that are traditionally considered as Indo-European by virtue of their Indo-European head words are instead names that have been adapted to Indo-European languages through the addition of a suffix.


  • Punic, the Semitic language spoken in classical Carthage, is a superstratum of the Germanic languages. According to Vennemann, Carthaginians colonized the North Sea region between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC; this is evidenced by numerous Semitic loan words in the Germanic languages, as well as structural features such as strong verbs, and similarities between Norse religion and Semitic religion. This theory replaces his older theory of an unknown Semitic substrate language he called "Atlantidic" or "Semitidic".




  • The Germanic sound shift is dated to the 6th to 3rd centuries BC, as evidenced by the fact that some presumed Punic loan words participated in it, while others did not.


Thanks for your interesting input and ideas Nordmann and AR.
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Vizzer
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptySun 21 Jun 2020, 12:43

Arwe Rheged wrote:
The question of loan words is one area which excites a lot of debate - as the article says, there are very few Celtic loan words in English.  However, what the article doesn't state (and what most other observers of the same phenomenon don't state either) is that it has never been demonstrated that the Celts of post Roman Britain actually still spoke Brittonic.  There is, as far as I am aware, only one example from the entire four centuries of Roman domination in Britain of a document apparently written in British.  Everything else is written in Latin and whilst there are various ways to explain this away, we have to be alive to the possibility that, as in Gaul, what the Germanic incomers of the fifth century found in the wealthy, lowland parts of Britannia at least was a population speaking a form of Latin.

In a year when the Summer Solstice falls on a Saturday and Midsummer’s Day falls on a Sunday, it seems a good time to ask why, of the days in the week, Saturday is the only one which seems to be a hybrid loan word coming from either Brittonic or Latin. In Netherlandish the word for Saturday is zaterdag, in Welsh it’s dydd Sadwrn, in French it's Samedi and in German it’s Samsdag. Yet in Netherlandish there is the variant rustdag while in German there is Sonnabend. The Scandinavians, on the other hand, have a completely separate ‘lor’ construct as in the Danish lørdag. There’s probably a really obvious answer but I’ve never been able to work out when and/or how the word Saturday came about in the English language.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptySun 21 Jun 2020, 15:06

Vizzer,

why not a word from the continent?

https://www.etymonline.com/word/saturday

seventh day of the week, Old English sæterdægsæternesdæg, literally "day of the planet Saturn," from Sæternes (genitive of Sætern; see Saturn) + Old English dæg (see day). Partial loan-translation of Latin Saturni dies "Saturn's day" (compare Dutch Zaterdag, Old Frisian Saterdi, Middle Low German Satersdach; Irish dia Sathuirn, Welsh dydd Sadwrn)

The Latin word itself is a loan-translation of Greek kronou hēmera, literally "the day of Cronus."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(mythology)

The figure of Saturn is one of the most complex in Roman religion. G. Dumézil refrained from discussing Saturn in his work on Roman religion on the grounds of insufficient knowledge.[18] Conversely, however, his follower Dominique Briquel has attempted a thorough interpretation of Saturn utilising Dumézil's three-functional theory of Indoeuropean religion, taking the ancient testimonies and the works of A. Brelich and G. Piccaluga as his basis.[19]
The main difficulty scholars find in studying Saturn is in assessing what is original of his figure and what is due to later hellenising influences. Moreover, some features of the god may be common to Cronus but are nonetheless very ancient and can be considered proper to the Roman god, whereas others are certainly later and arrived after 217 BC, the year in which the Greek customs of the Kronia were introduced into the Saturnalia.[20]


Again from: https://www.etymonline.com/word/saturday

Unlike other English day names, no god substitution seems to have been attempted, perhaps because the northern European pantheon lacks a clear corresponding figure to Roman Saturn. A homely ancient Nordic custom, however, seems to be preserved in Old Norse laugardagr, Danish lørdag, Swedish lördag "Saturday," literally "bath day" (Old Norse laug "bath").


German Samstag (Old High German sambaztag) appears to be from a Greek *sambaton, a nasalized colloquial form of sabbaton "sabbath," also attested in Old Church Slavonic sabota, Polish sobota, Russian subbota, Hungarian szombat, French samedi.

Hence: Saturday no equivalent of the French "samedi" Wink

Kind regards, Paul.
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Dirk Marinus
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyTue 23 Jun 2020, 09:07

Paul and Vizzer,

 May I couple up on this one with some Frisian language:

Sunday ......    Snein
Monday .....    Moandei
Tuesday.....    Tiisdei
Wednesday..   Woansdei
Thursday.....   Tongersdei
Friday.........   Freed
Saturday.....  Sneon

Today...........Jhoed
Yesterday..... Juster
Tomorrow......Moarn

1......           ien
2.......         twa
3......          trije
4.....           fjouer
5......          fiif
6......         seis
7.......        sãn
8.......        acht
9.......        njoggen




Dirk
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyTue 23 Jun 2020, 17:10

Dirk,

I think I already mentioned it in my European language border thread...
Most studies see a link between old English, old Frisian, old Saxon
And they call that the ingvaeonic languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Germanic

From Low German to Celtic to French to English 300px-Germanic_dialects_ca._AD_1

The distribution of the primary Germanic languages in Europe in around AD 1:
  North Germanic
  North Sea Germanic, or Ingvaeonic
  Weser-Rhine Germanic, or Istvaeonic
  Elbe Germanic or Irminonic
  East Germanic

I think that our Dutch (from the Weser-Rhine Germanic or Istvaeonic) is only related to English via Frisian?

Paul.
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Green George
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyWed 24 Jun 2020, 00:20

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Meles meles
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyWed 24 Jun 2020, 20:33

This seems to be a fairly succinct overview of the similarities between Fresian and English:

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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyWed 24 Jun 2020, 22:05

MM, of course we need the opinion of Dirk from the Northern Netherlands and perhaps in the film they have just chosen the wrong examples to differentiate Frisian from Dutch, but there was only one word in the whole film where I saw nothing similar of the dialects from Dutch and the official Dutch that I know and it was the word: "juns" or something like that for "avond" (evening)...and perhaps "juns" as also a connection with a Dutch word related with "avond" (evening)

"benne" is also not foreign to me, as we have : "ik ben" (I am) and for instance in "Piet Hein" "zijn daden bennen groot" (his deeds are great)



https://lyricstranslate.com/en/de-zilvervloot-silver-fleet.html

Kind regards, Paul.
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Dirk Marinus
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyThu 25 Jun 2020, 15:06

Paul,

  you mentioned the word "june"and "juns" being used in the film.

Yes , you are absolutely right  the Friesian word "june" means evening , in other words if I would wish you  "good evening " I would in the Friesian language say " goejun ".

Goe for good and jun for evening.

Btw have a look at this :

https://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/regio/Fries

And then browse through it and see for yourself how many Friesian and English words are same sounding and sometimes even the same spelling.


Dirk
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: From Low German to Celtic to French to English   From Low German to Celtic to French to English EmptyThu 25 Jun 2020, 22:49

Dirk Marinus wrote:
Yes , you are absolutely right  the Friesian word "june" means evening , in other words if I would wish you  "good evening " I would in the Friesian language say " goejun ".
Goe for good and jun for evening.

Btw have a look at this :
https://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/regio/Fries
And then browse through it and see for yourself how many Friesian and English words are same sounding and sometimes even the same spelling.

Dirk,

I did some research for the etymology of the word "jûn" (the only word that I found which was not related to Dutch) and after more than an hour gave up. But in the meantime I learned a lot.

I read all the words and sayings in the list that you mentioned. Of course the sayings are many times quite something others as in the standard Dutch, but in the Frisian sayings I still recognized the Dutch words...
Perhaps does differ the West Frisian spoken in The Netherlands not so much from Dutch as the other Dutch dialects?
And yes some Frisian words sound (I suppose) or are at least written the same way as in Flemish dialects.
For instance for the Frisian "ierappel" we say in East-Flemish "èrappel" (aardappel (potatoe)). But in West-Flemish we say "patatte" as in French.

And some words as "jûn" can differ in a dialect from the standard language...
for instance the different words for the "(rol)luiken" (English: shutter, French volets)

West-Flemish: 
"rolstores or stores" (propably from the shutters of a store?)
also:
"fentenelen" from French: ventenelle, Spanish ventanilla
East-Flemish: "blafeturen"
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaffetuur
also:
"persiennen" I think this comes from the French "persienne"

In Flemish (East and West-Flemish) we have also words for "schommel" (swing)  (as in East-Flemish: "ritsekoker" and in West-Flemish: "toeter"...

Dirk, all that to say that I have the impression that West Frisian (as spoken in The Netherlands) is a dialect from Dutch.
And it is obvious as you say then that many words in Frisian are the same as in English, as Dutch is the same to English.
As I tried to prove overhere: half of the English words are Dutch and the other half is French. And the more scientific you go the more French words, the more colloquial you go the more Dutch words...

As for the discussion "language" or "dialect" I have from my todays reading on the internet the impression that it is rather a political discussion and of groups of "enthusiasts" of the language that seek for the recognition as "language"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_Dutch
"The West Frisian dialect (DutchWest-Fries) is a Dutch dialect spoken in the contemporary West Friesland regionWieringenWieringermeer, Nieuwe Niedorp, the coastal area from Den Helder to Castricum, and the island of Texel. It is a Hollandic Dutch dialect but is influenced by West Frisian (Dutch: Westerlauwers Fries, a language of Friesland Province distinct from Dutch), which is related."

And further scientific research:
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/44454617/Van_Bree_en_Versloot_2008_Stadsfries.pdf
https://www.waddenacademie.nl/fileadmin/inhoud/pdf/06-wadweten/Proefschriften/thesis_Mathilde_Jansen.pdf

I agree pure linguistic one can perhaps speak about an apart language when there is a switch as in the Dutch "paard" and the German "pferd"...but in my opinion that doesn't do anything in relation with "comprehencibillity as indeed for instance "paard" and "Pferd"?

Paul.
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