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On 4/30/2012 9:15 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 10:49 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Kevin Wampler<wam### [at] u washingtonedu> wrote:
>>> You might be interested in this reading of Beowulf:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&t=25
>>
>> Sounds like a mixture between Old Norse and German.
>>
> Actually, from some of what I have read there was, until fairly
> recently, a "High German" and "Low German". The low version was very
> close to English, enough that it was fairly understandable.
High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
you will observe no sudden shifts in the speech of the locals at any
given point. The exceptions occur if you wander into a French-speaking
area or a region whose inhabitants have consciously altered their
dialect (in order to conform to another dialect).
In a like manner, walking from the tip of the boot of Italy, up the
coast into France, and then down into Spain will result in to sudden
shift in language along the way (although signs placed by the government
will generally be in the official dialect).
Or I could be wrong.
Regards,
John
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> High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
> along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
> southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
You can even start in northern Italy rather than southern Austria. Also
I heard several times that when English people try to speak German it
often sounds very Dutch, so I guess even though we (in England) have
mutated the language a fair bit the accent is still there somehow to
carry on the smooth progression across Europe.
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John VanSickle <evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
> High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
> along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
> southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
> you will observe no sudden shifts in the speech of the locals at any
> given point. The exceptions occur if you wander into a French-speaking
> area or a region whose inhabitants have consciously altered their
> dialect (in order to conform to another dialect).
> In a like manner, walking from the tip of the boot of Italy, up the
> coast into France, and then down into Spain will result in to sudden
> shift in language along the way (although signs placed by the government
> will generally be in the official dialect).
In contrast, if you were to walk from Sweden to Finland to Russia,
you'll find three languages that couldn't be much more distinct and
unintelligible to the others.
(Of course inside Finland the dialect will change gradually from west
to east, but there are still very sharp divides between Swedish and
Finnish, and Finnish and Russian.)
--
- Warp
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On 5/23/2012 9:17 AM, Warp wrote:
> John VanSickle<evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
>> High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points
>> along a very smooth spectrum. I am told that if you were to walk from
>> southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands,
>> you will observe no sudden shifts in the speech of the locals at any
>> given point. The exceptions occur if you wander into a French-speaking
>> area or a region whose inhabitants have consciously altered their
>> dialect (in order to conform to another dialect).
>
>> In a like manner, walking from the tip of the boot of Italy, up the
>> coast into France, and then down into Spain will result in to sudden
>> shift in language along the way (although signs placed by the government
>> will generally be in the official dialect).
>
> In contrast, if you were to walk from Sweden to Finland to Russia,
> you'll find three languages that couldn't be much more distinct and
> unintelligible to the others.
>
> (Of course inside Finland the dialect will change gradually from west
> to east, but there are still very sharp divides between Swedish and
> Finnish, and Finnish and Russian.)
Primarily because at least two of these languages are next to the third
because of recent (in linguistic terms) migrations.
Regards,
John
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> In contrast, if you were to walk from Sweden to Finland to Russia,
> you'll find three languages that couldn't be much more distinct and
> unintelligible to the others.
Swedish and Russian are both Indo-European languages. Finnish, which is wedged
up between them, is totally unrelated. It would be difficult to make a smooth
transition.
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