Plattdeutsch isn't really German...it's Low Saxon, descended from Old Saxon,
a Germanic relative of Old High German and Old English. It has the one
plural form in the present and past like OE, but shares features of German,
except the Second Consonant Shift. Swiss is like German Ebonics to me, but
ask a German what he thinks. Or I will once I move there in a
month...actually...I'll get back to you on that last comment, after I e-mail
one of my fellows at FHK.
James
-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pierre Abbat
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 11:53 PM
To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Brazilian Portuguese
On Thursday 19 August 2004 22:54, James R. Johnson wrote:
I agree with Jimbo here. Portuguese is one language,
just as English
is one language, despite regional differences, and despite some
ignorant (in my view) people saying they don't speak English, but
American. And though I may find British accents and spelling funny,
that's simply what they do, and if I were to move there or visit, I'd
change how I spell things to follow their norms. But despite our
differences, we are all still English speakers, just as Mexicans,
Colombians, and Spaniards are all Spanish speakers, and Germans, Swiss,
and
Austrians are all German speakers.
German is three distinct languages: Plattdeutsch (which has its own
Wikipedia), Hochdeutsch (standard German), and Oberdeutsch (spoken in higher
lands such as Switzerland). Swabian, an Oberdeutsch dialect, is pretty hard
for a Hochdeutscher to understand. Luso and Brasileiro are hardly different
at all: septimo/setimo, seu/dele (one of them, I forget which, says "seu"
for "your" (de você) and "dele" for "his"), ananas/abacaxi.
This is no
different than American and British color/colour or tomahawk/hatchet (both A
and B say "hatchet" but "tomahawk" is an Algonquian word - which
somehow got
all the way to PNG as "tamiok").
phma
--
li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa
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