Audience Design and eighteenth century VIDC [dct]
On February 6, 2016, I presented a paper during the so-called Grote Taaldag/Taalkunde-in-Nederland-dag of the Algemene Vereniging voor Taalkunde, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. In this presentation I focused on the use of Bell’s Audience Design model to study the authenticity of eighteenth century Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. Of course it will eventually be a part of my dissertation.
Please feel free to send me feedback!
Cefas van Rossem
Posted in Historical corpora, Meetings, Presentations
Tagged Audience Design, eighteenth century, word order
In 1986 Thomas Stolz (University Bremen) published his thorough study of Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. In German he presents an extensive description of VIDC grammar. At the moment it is available as download for members of ResearchGate.net.
Posted in Announcements and reviews, Linguistics, On the Internet
Tagged publications, Stolz
On February 17, 2003 Hein van der Voort received an e-mail from Poul Olsen of Copenhagen’s Rigsarkivet in which he presented a newly found manuscript of a hymn book. The text consists of 86 pages on which 76 hymns and a litany are written. The print was stored in our archives and only a few hours ago, when I was working on the comparison of different versions of the hymn O! Planterman, it appeared to be different from the other hymn books by Danish translators.
Van der Voort thought this manuscript was likely to be of Andreas Joachim Brandt’s 1799 hymn book. A closer look shows a bulk of similarities, but also differences. The title, for instance, is never used for a printed hymn book.
An interesting incidental is the presentation of an alternative preposition like I described in my Aruba presentation (to be published). The author originally used the Dutchlike preposition in, but added the Creole preposition na above of it. The word in was not erased and so it seems as if a final decision about correct use was postponed. Eventually only Creole na was used in the titles of printed hymn books by Danish translators. In the rest of the manuscript we see erased and underlined words. In most cases of the underlined words, another word or form is added in one of the margins. For instance: regt skoon ‘truely fair’, is changed into heel skoon ‘very fair’ (p. 3). The word heel seems to be more according the vernacular than regt. In the same hymn ju Geest selv ‘your spirit himself’ is changed into ju Geest Selv, as if a capital was needed to clarify the relation between Geest and selv. Capitals are always used to indicate nouns.
It is unclear from what period on Dutch Creole was replaced by English or English Creole. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, missionaries still translated and published large texts into Dutch Creole. However, the manuscript which shows best that English became the most important language of the Danish Antilles is Wied’s Confirmations Unterricht of september 1843 (3.3.2 in Stein’s 1986 bibliography of Herrnhuter manuscripts). The first 60 pages of the catechism are in Dutch Creole, but the questions 4, 11, 18 and 25 are already written in English. The final 23 pages, from 1847, are in English.
In 1833, when the Gospel Harmony was published, the edition numbers give the impression the language was still vivid. Among the about 9000 Christianized slaves, 2000 copies of this large book were distributed.
(Anon. “Moravian Brethren’s Tract Operations”. In: Twenty-second Annual Report of the American Tract Society, Boston, presented at Boston, May 25, 1836, showing the facilities enjoyed for enlarged operations in foreign and pagan lands, and in our own country. Together with lists of auxiliaries, benefactors, depositories, publications, &c. Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1836. P. 34.)
With regard to the use of language in the church of the Moravian Brethren, in 1829 the following is published:
(Anon. Periodical Accounts relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren, established among the heathen. Volume XI. London: McDowell, 1829, p. 241-245.)
Lito Vall’s dictionary of Virgin Islands English Creole What a Pistarckle! contains several entrances which were originally Dutch Creole.
The original publication from 1981 can be searched here: What a Pistarcle! 1981. The 1990 supplement is digitally available here: What a Pistarckle! 1990.
Most of the Dutch related words are obsolete. It would therefore be interesting to collect Dutch Creole words which are still in use in Virgin Islands English Creole.
Posted in Dictionaries, On the Internet
On September 28th, Robbert van Sluijs presented his paper Grammaticalization and semantic development of lack > need > want in Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (Negerhollands) mankee(r) during the Workshop on Grammaticalization of the Radboud University Nijmegen. An abstract can be found here:
Next week Peter Stein (University of Bremen) will present a very interesting description of Virgin Islands Dutch Creole: the original version of Oldendorp’s Grammar (1768). From the 1980s on Stein published a lot about the ‘earliest creolists’ namely the translators of the Moravian Brethren,, mainly based on a bulk of texts written in Virgin Islands Dutch Creole/Negerhollands. In 2000 he was one of the editors of the original manuscript of Oldendorp’s History of the Moravian Brethren in the Danish Antilles. This edition is much more extensive than the original 1770 publication Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Brüder auf den Caraibischen Inseln S. Thomas, S. Croix und S. Jan.
Please see the conference program here.
and the conference booklet here. Stein’s abstract is on p. 112.
Posted in Announcements and reviews, Meetings, Moravian Archives
Tagged Grammar, Oldendorp, Peter Stein
On thursday June 11th, 2015 I have presented my paper ‘Numbers to change word order, Philogical aspects of Negerhollands texts to study audience design’ at the Revitalizing Older Linguistic Documentation meeting at the University of Amsterdam. The contents will be published in my dissertation. My PowerPoint can be found here.
In this article, which was already published in December 2014, Robbert van Sluijs focuses on the Virgin Island Dutch Creole imperfective and prospective aspect markers LE and LO. Does the distribution of these markers reflect language change between the eighteenth and twentieth century ? Or is it due to sociolinguistic variation?
Read the article here.
die creol taal 
Creol Psalm Buk 1834 digitally available
For his work on the VI Dutch Creole Database and Die Creol Taal 1996, Hein van der Voort studied many, if not all, available Creole texts by Danish translators. In our Bibliography he added several remarks with regard to the printing history of these sources. The information about Creol Psalm-Buk, of een Vergaedring van Oûwe en nywe Psalmen na Creol-Tael. (Copenhagen: 1834) gives interesting information which is comparable to the metalinguistic comments I published in my former post:
‘Schuchardt (1914:124) also mentions this (1834, cvr) edition. This must then be the fourth edition or the fifth (when Brandt 1799 is included) of 1770. This is an exact copy of 1827. Note that likewise, Prætorius’ catechism-and-textbook of 1834 is identical to the one from 1827. Furthermore, both works from 1827, then printed at C. Græbe, were reprinted in 1834 at P.T. Brünnich, and each in an issue of 1000 copies (as appears from an account of 10 November 1834 in RA, Koloniernes Centralbestyrelse, Kolonialkontoret, Gruppesager II. 922 Salmebogssagen).’ (Bibliography p. 19, November 6, 2015)
Like the Gospel Harmony which was distributed in 1834 in 2000 copies, this hymn booklet was distributed in 1000 copies. This seems to me a huge number, when we keep in mind that Dutch Creole is already more and more replace by English (Creole) in the early nineteenth century.
A comparison of four versions of the hymn, O Planterman, (Wold 1770, Kingo 1770, Praetorius 1823 and Creol Psalm-Buk 1834) shows that there are, although minor and only orthographical, differences between the latter two.
The Creol Psalm-Buk is available at the following places:
Babel Hathitrust
Google Books
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Posted in Danish sources, On the Internet
Tagged comparison of texts, Hymn books, metalinguistic comments