--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Howey <andyandmae_howey@...>
wrote:
>
> Guys, guys, guys, (and ladies):
> Please, none of this answers my original query of whether the
hypothesis stated at web site http://www-
lib.icu.ac.jp/LibShuppan/lecture/6-2-1.html of proto-Japanese
originally being a creole of an Austronesian language and an Altaic
language is valid. (Okay, so I originally neglected to
specify "Proto-" in my original query -- silly me... :-) Please feel
free to castigate me thoroughly. :-) ) Has anyone other than Torsten
taken a look at this web site? Please, comments would be greatly
appreciated. After all, how would a creole language fit into the
Nostratic hypothesis? Thank you,Torsten, very much for your coments.
>
> Andy Howey
>
One thing I found interesting is: the North Sea Germanic languages
historically break down similarly grammatically, English being at the
lead. Example: Low German (Plattdeutsch) has "Einheitsplural",
unitary plural, in verbal inflection, either
Eastern, close to Dutch
-e -en
-st -en
-t -en
or
Western
-e -t
-st -t
-t -t
corresponding to the state of affairs in some middle English dialects
(Piotr would know more if he'd care to comment?).
Danish, at the same time
-er -e
-st -e
-er -e
now
-er -er
-er -er
-er -er
cf. Black English
-s -s
-s -s
-s -s
Of course 1066 meant a break in tradition. Suddenly foreigners with
incompletely mastery of the language had status. Similarly Denmark
ceased to exist 1332-1340 under German nobility. I suspect there was
always a "low" variety of the variety of Germanic languages.
Whether "high" or "low" became standard was a question of
sociological factors (trade vs. hierarchy). Lack of trade means
language needs status. Traders don't care. There's a similar struggle
going on in 1600's Dutch in nouns between standard plural -s for all
nouns vs. keeping traditional -en plural, espec. for dat. pl. ('arms'
vs. 'armen'). Dutch also has the great feature of the optional final
-n. You don't have to pronounce it, if you don't want to. Great for
tourists (and traders). Imagine what that does to eg. the
German "weak" inflection:
xxxx m. f. n. pl.
nom. -e -e -e -n
acc. -n -e -e -n
gen. -n -n -n -n
dat. -n -n -n -n
No distinction between n and not n and the system collapses.
Torsten