| Lunenburg English | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | Nova Scotia |
Early forms | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Lunenburg English is amoribund,German-influenced dialect ofEnglish,[1] spoken in the town ofLunenburg andLunenburg County in the province ofNova Scotia. It is sometimes called "Lunenburg Dutch".[2] The dialect shows unique features in pronunciation, e.g. unusual handling ofrhotic consonants, in syntax and vocabulary, which portray the various sociohistorical influences.
Lunenburg was founded in 1753. Troops from Braunschweig-Lüneburg settled in Nova Scotia as well as many Germans, some Swiss and French (fromMontbéliard).[3][4] In addition, around 8,000 New Englanders settled in Nova Scotia between 1759 and 1768; they also had a great influence upon the dialect in the county.[5][6][7]
Although German emigrants at this time were mostly from theElectoral Palatinate and Württemberg, the townLüneburg where the name originates from was in theElectorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg. That might be caused by some German veterans who had been in the King's service.[8] During the early years of the settlement German, French, and English were all spoken privately and in church.[9] However, French died out first, while German prevailed longer.[10][11] The majority of the Lunenburg settlers belonged either toLutheranism orCalvinism.[12] Several Lutheran churches used German for sermons and received German-speaking clergy from Germany orPennsylvania,United States, until the end of the 19th century.[13][14] Thus, the Lutheran church helped to preserve the language in public use.
German was more commonly used in the countryside than in the town itself. Most families who used German in the town were engaged in farming or simple labour. It is no longer spoken in the town.[13] The ninth census of Canada, in 1951, revealed that 15,531 out of 33,183 of the population in Lunenburg show a German ethnic background. However, only 78 residents, all of whom presumably came from the oldest generation, listed German as their mother tongue.[15]
Pronunciation in Lunenburg county "is known to be the only mainland White Canadian community to be non-rhotic."[16] Thatshibboleth, however, cannot be traced back to influence from German since in the 18th century, it was highly rhotic.[16][17] However, New England speech is non-rhotic, and one suggestion is that the New Englanders who settled seven or eight years after the non-English-speakingForeign Protestants taught them English and so they greatly influenced the dialect.[6][7]
There are several unique characteristics regarding the pronunciation. The most distinctive is that it isnonrhotic and so vowel length isphonemic, like inAustralian English.[17][1] However, some homonyms and some smaller particularities are also limited to the region.
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | short | long | ||
| Close | iː | uː | ||||
| Near-close | ɪ | ɪː | ʊ | ʊː | ||
| Mid | ɛ | ɛː | ə | ʌ | ɔː | |
| Open | æ | ɑː | ||||
| Diphthongs | eɪ ɑɪ ɔɪ ɑʊ oʊ | |||||
The accent is nonrhotic and so in terms oflexical sets,LETTER is merged withCOMMA,NORTH andFORCE are merged withTHOUGHT/ɔː/ (makingor,oar, andawe homophonous as/ɔː/), andSTART is merged withPALM/ɑː/./ɪː/ and/ɛː/ are theNEAR andSQUARE vowels, which are the long versions ofKIT andDRESS (and soshared is differentiated fromshed only by vowel length:/ˈʃɛːd,ˈʃɛd/). BothCURE andNURSE are rendered/ʊː/, the long counterpart of/ʊ/ as infoot/ˈfʊt/:sure/ˈʃʊː/,curb/ˈkʊːb/. There is word-internal linking/r/, as instory/ˈstɔːriː/ (comparestore/ˈstɔː/).[17]
Not all people in Lunenburg still speak that way, especially since younger people tend to reintroduce the etymological/r/.[18][16] That is caused by the influence of newcomers who come from other parts of the province or from Massachusetts.[18]
The ending points of the diphthongs (as ingo/ˈɡoʊ/) tend to be fully close ([ˈɡou]), more similar to syllable-initial[jw] (as inyet andwet) than to[ɪ̯ʊ̯].[19]
The accent featuresCanadian raising and soflight[ˈflʌɪt] has a different vowel fromfly[ˈflɑɪ], and the nounhouse[ˈhoʊs] has a different vowel from the verbhouse[ˈhɑʊz]. The raising is phonemic in the latter case and so the stressed vowel in the former word belongs to the/oʊ/ phoneme (/ˈhoʊs/), and the corresponding verb has/ɑʊ/:/ˈhɑʊz/. In Lunenburg, the phraseabout a boat contains two identical stressed and two identical unstressed vowels:/əˌboʊtəˈboʊt/, rather than theStandard Canadian English/əˌbaʊtəˈboʊt/, with distinct stressed vowels.[20]
The non-rhoticity derives from the New England settlers (also proved by the fact thatNEAR andSQUARE are monophthongs[ɪːɛː], rather that opening diphthongs of the[iɐ̯eɐ̯] type found in German), there are also characteristics in the pronunciation that probably come from the German settlers.
One example is the tendency to pronounce/w/ inwitch (including the historical/hw/ inwhich, which does not exist in Lunenburg) the same as/v/ as invan, which is particular to the Lunenburg County and probably rooted in German, which has only/v/.[21]
Another example is the lack of the dental fricatives/θ/ and/ð/, which are replaced by the alveolar stops/t/ and/d/ (renderingthank andtank homophonous as/ˈtæŋk/).[22][23]
Sample of a conversation between two people: "De kids vere over der in da woods, gettin inda dis an dat." "Dey never did?" "Yeah, an now dey gone da get some of dem der apples you see." "You don't say?" "no foolin, dey over der now." "Dey brung some of dem apples over heera da day before." "Oh, dey vere some good eatin I bet." "Now look, you make no nevermind, dose vere da best apples I ever did have, dey vas some good." "Oh, here dey come now, dey bedda know da wash der feet off."
The "t" at the end of words is usually silent: "get" becomes "ge."
The few syntactical characteristics that are following are now very rare or have slowly stopped being used.[24][25]
One example isseparable verbs, which are very common in German and used in Lunenburg as well.[24][25]
Thus,use,once, andwith can be found at the end of a sentence.[26]
Much vocabulary is from German stock, but a few extraordinary New England features are also rare or not used in the rest of southwestern Nova Scotia.[27]
