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@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pierre Abbat Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 11:53 PM To: wikipedia-l@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 _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l