HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO2053 9/1/02 "FLEMISH/WESSEX DIALECT SIMILARITIES" ======================================================================= From: "Gary Alderson" Subject: For Conscience Sake Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 23:53:58 +0100 Spending a week in Belgium, two things strike: a ) the resemblance of Flemish to Wessex dialect in the early 19th century (eg "voot" = "voet"); b) (more relevant) - the inconsistency in "For conscience Sake". Millborne is 50+, yet his early activities happened 20 years ago, when he was 21. Frances can't be 31, or she wouldn't be the blushing young maid. Millbourne can't be (despite appearances) 40, or he wouldn't be "nearly an old man". Did Hardy ever accept the discrepancy? Or have I (quite likely) got it wrong? Gary Alderson ========== From: "Patrick Tolfree" Subject: Re: For Conscience Sake Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 10:16:55 +0100 I cannot answer (a). I would, however, be surprised if there were not some similarities between the English langauage and the Flemish language. However, I am not too happy with the concept of a Wessex dialect. Although my Concise Oxford Dictionary defines dialect as a regional form of speech, and Wessex is broadly speaking a region, , I would say that the dialect employed by Hardy is peculiarly Dorset, and although dialects are no respecters of county boundaries, there are differences between Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornish dialects. As for (b), you are absolutely right about Hardy's inconsistencies. Milborne was 'fifty at least', yet his 'unfulfilled promise was made 'twenty years ago' and he 'came up to town at one-and-twenty'. The general picture of an elderly bachelor, yet when Mr Cope discerns the facial simillarity between him and his daughter, he is 'the middle-aged father'. As far as I am aware, he never acknowledged these inconsistencies.similarity ========== Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 08:38:16 -0400 From: Rosemarie Morgan Subject: Re: For Conscience Sake On a very mundane level don't let's forget that in the mid nineteenth century your life expectancy, on average, would be 47 years and by the time you reached that venerable old age you'd have lost most of your teeth. Cheers, RM ========== Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 07:30:12 -0700 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Flemish/Wessex Dialects I can't speak for the resemblances between Flemish Dutch and regional dialects in the south of England, but when I studyed Chaucer for the first time after having just spent a year in Antwerp I found marked similarities between modern-day Dutch and Middle English. Anglo-Saxon is of course Germanic in origin like the languages of the Low Countries, as Hardy noted in the sonnet "The Pity of It" written in the midst ofthe First World War. I walked the loamy Wessex lanes, afar >From rail-track and from highway, and I heard In field and farmstead many an ancient word Of local lineage like 'Thu bist', 'Er war', 'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar, Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird At England's very loins, thereunto spurred By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are. Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be At root amd bottom of this, who flung this flame between kinfolk tongued even as are we, 'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame; May their familiars grow to shun their name, And their brood perish everlastingly. April 1915 Betty Cortus ========== Fom: Gary Alderson Subject: Re: Flemish/Wessex Dialects Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 23:06:55 +0100 The obvious examples in Hardy that sprang to my mind were both in the Christmas Eve scene in UTGT - "the family voot" and "the Dree Mariners". Voot is like Flemish "voet", rather than German "fuss". And a typical difference between "standard" English and the other Germanic languages is the change from "d" to "th", eg three/drei, thresh/dreschen, thou/du. If this change happened in English under Norse influence, it might explain why Dorset retained these old forms longer the Midland counties. Of course, the people of Friesland in the Netherlands have their own language - "Frisk" - which is said to bear more resemlance to mediaeval English than anything else. ========== From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com Subject: RE: Flemish/Wessex Dialects Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 17:39:57 -0500 Is the "V" in the Flemish "voet" pronounced as in English, or is pronounced like an "F", as it would be in German? Chuck Anesi Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com 612-667-9518 pager 888-278-6532 ========== From: "Gary Alderson" Subject: Re: Flemish/Wessex Dialects Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 07:19:57 +0100 According to the attached site, it's "halfway between an f and a v", which I suppose is a decent description of the German "v" as well. http://www.stanford.edu/~lswartz/belgium/dutch.html ========== From: "K Eldron" Subject: Re: Flemish/Wessex dialects Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 10:59:59 +0100