Amerikaens
Amerikaens (Amerikaens: /ɑː.mi.riˈkɑːns/) is a West Germanic language spoken across and native to vast swathes of North America. The language is a descendant of numerous Dutch dialects introduced to New Netherland in the 17th century which were spoken by settlers from the Netherlands. Distance from Europe, the impact of indigenous and immigrant lects, as well as preservation of archaic dialectal features caused Amerikaens to develop distinguishing characteristics over the next few centuries. In 1910, a standardized orthography devised by the Amerikaens Taelkomisie and based on the prestigious New Amsterdammer accent was adopted.
Amerikaens | |
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| Ethnicity | Amerikaeners |
Language family | Scythian
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Early forms | Leeg Duits
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Writing system | Latin |
| Official status | |
Official language in | New Netherland Tussenland South Tussenland Amerikaens Free State Opdamsland Boschland |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Regulated by | Amerikaens Taelkomisie |
Today, Amerikaens serves as the official language of a number of Amerikaener states such as New Netherland, Tussenland, Boschland, and several others. Since 1951, it has also become one of the official languages of the Association of North American Nations.
History
Phonology
Due to Amerikaens phonology differing greatly by dialect, the Juys Mondordt (/jœus mondɔːrt/, 'correct speech') accent of New Amsterdam is widely considered to be the standard and most prestigious variety of the language. It has 21 consonants, 12 vowels, and 6 diphthong phonemes.
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | g | |||
| Affricate | t͡ʃ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | χ | h |
| voiced | v | z | ||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
Vowels
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Differences from Dutch
The Juys Mondordt accent, as well as several other Amerikaens varieties, are incredibly phonologically distinct from the standard Dutch of the Netherlands and non-American Batavosphere countries. The phonological base for Amerikaens largely rests upon the lects spoken by the founding settlers — dialects which evidently share a strong similarity with modern dialects spoken in Utrecht, north Brabant, and south Holland.
Generally, short front vowels were lowered while long front vowels were backed; meanwhile, back vowels were variously raised, rounded and umlaut-ed. This vowel shift can be described as counterclockwise (Linksom). Consonants remain relatively closer to Dutch despite some undergoing palatalization and mergers.
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Orthography
Amerikaens orthography was first widely standardized by law in 1910 with the publication of the first edition of the Taelbück in New Netherland. Since then, the Taelbück has been considered the unequivocal authority on Amerikaens spelling in north America. Its conventions, derived mainly from old Dutch orthography, has also incorporated innovations by formalizing the use of diacritics.
| Dutch | aa | d | ee | ei | f | ij | k | l | m | oo | oe | ui | uu |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amerikaens | ae | dt[1] | î | ey | v[2] | ÿ | ck | ll[3] | mm[4] | ö | ü | uy | ue |
The use of ö and ü has been controversial as they represent entirely different phonetic values in Amerikaens compared to all other Germanic languages, thus creating confusion. Numerous orthographic reforms have been proposed in order to address issues such as this. However they have all been rejected by the Taelkomisie, which has been characterized as a conservative institution in modern times.
Sound change
Lenition is prevalent in Amerikaens, especially affecting consonants in the middle of words. Most notably, it affects the suffix -tie. Initially, the suffix was realized as /tsi/ but has since shifted solely to /si/. Deletion of final sounds (coda) is also common; final consonants and vowels, commonly n and e, are elided. These changes are markedly reflected in modern Amerikaens orthography; for example, Dutch politie has become Amerikaens polisie (/pʌ.ˈliː.si/, lit. 'police').*Dutch tevreden → tevrede (/təˈvreː.də/, lit. content, satisfied)
- Dutch zeide → zeyd (/zæit/, lit. said)
Letter-sound correspondence
Amerikaens uses a number of graphemes to represent sounds, including several digraphs, trigraphs, and quadgraphs.
| {| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="text-align:center;" | ||
| Grapheme | IPA | |
|---|---|---|
| initial | final | |
| b | /b/ | /b/, /p/ |
| ch | /ʃ/ | |
| d | /d/ | /d/, /t/ |
| dj | /ʒ/, /dʲ/ | |
| f | /f/ | |
| gh | /χ/ | |
| g | ||
| /g/ | /k/ | |
| h | /h/, Ø | |
| j | /j/ | |
| k | /k/ | |
| l | /l/ | |
| m | /m/ | |
| n | /n/ | |
| ng | /ŋ/ | |
| p | /p/ | |
| r | /r/ | |
| s | /s/ | /s/, /z/ |
| sj | /ʃ/, /sʲ/ | |
| sch | /ʃ/ | |
| t | /t/ | |
| tsch | /tʃ/ | |
| tch | ||
| v | /v/ | /v/, /f/ |
| w | /w/ | |
| z | /z/ | |
| style="vertical-align: top" |{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="text-align:center;" |+Vowels ! rowspan="2" |Grapheme ! colspan="2" |IPA |- !checked !free |- ! rowspan="2" |a | /ɑ(ː)/, /ʌ/ | /ɑ(ː)/ |- | colspan="2" |/ə/ |- ! ae | colspan="2" |/ɑː/ |- !aei | colspan="2" rowspan="2" |/ɑ(ː)i/ |- !ai |- !au(w) | colspan="2" |/ɑw(ː)/, /ɔw(ː)/ |- ! rowspan="2" |e |/ɛ/ |/eː/ |- | colspan="2" |/ə/ |- !ey | colspan="2" |/æi/ |- !eu | colspan="2" |/y(ː)/, /œ(ː)/ |- ! rowspan="2" |i |/ɛ/ |/i(ː)/ |- | colspan="2" |/ə/ |- ! î | colspan="2" |/eː/ |- !ie | colspan="2" | /i(ː)/ |- !ieuw | colspan="2" |/iw/ |- !o | colspan="2" |/o(ː)/, /œ(ː)/, /ɔ(ː)/ |- !ö | colspan="2" |/oː/ |- !oi | colspan="2" |/ɔi/ |- !ou(w) | colspan="2" |/ɔw/ |- !u |/ʌ/, /y/, /œ(ː)/ |/yː/ |- !ü | colspan="2" |/uː/ |- !uy | colspan="2" |/œu/ |- !ue | colspan="2" |/y(ː)/ |- !ÿ |/i(ː)/ |/ɑi/, /æi/ |} |}
Grammar
Generally speaking, Amerikaens grammar is largely based on the grammars of early modern Dutch, English, and Flemish. It is often considered to have one of the, if not the simplest syntax and morphology among the Germanic languages.
Nouns and pronouns
| Person | Subject | Object | Possessive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st singular | Ik ('k) | Mÿ (me) | Mÿn (men) |
| 2nd singular | Jÿ (je) | Jou (ju) | Jouw (juw) |
| 3rd singular, masculine | Hÿ (he) | Hem (em) | Hÿs (hes) |
| 3rd singular, feminine | Sÿ (se) | Her (er) | Hers (ers) |
| 1st plural | Wÿ (we) | Ons | |
| 2nd plural | Jul | Juls | |
| 3rd plural, for a person | Hun | Huns | |
| 3rd plural, for an object | It | Its | |
Amerikaens only differs between the singular and plural forms, much like English. The plural form is usually created by the addition of the suffix -s. If a word already ends in an s, then an -en is added to signify plurality. Amerikaens also preserves the possessive genitive case from archaic Dutch declension unlike other Netherlandic varieties. Its survival beyond the early 18th century most probably was influenced by English.
Like Dutch, Amerikaens pronouns retain case distinction; subject (nominative), object (accusative), and possessive (genitive). Pronouns occur in a stressed form and an unstressed form (shown in brackets). The stressed form retains the whole original vowel and is used mainly in formal situations or when distinction is necessary.
Determiners
Only two articles, a definitive (de) and an indefinitive (în), exist in Amerikaens. They may be inflected in the genitive form (for example, Koninckrÿck der Nederlands lit. 'Kingdom of the Netherlands').
Demonstratives are words used to distinguish entities being referred to. As grammatical gender does not exist, there are only four demonstrative determiners in Amerikaens. Proximal indicates that the entities are close to the speaker, while distal incidates that they are far away.
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Verbs
| Tense | Form | Amerikaens | Dutch | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | Ît(e) | Eten | (To) eat | |
| Present | Pronoun + verb | Ik ît | Ik eet | I eat |
| Past | Pronoun + hab + verb | Ik hab ît | Ik at | I ate |
| Future | Pronoun + zhal + verb | Ik zhal ît | Ik zal eten | I will eat |
| Continuous aspect | ||||
| Present | Pronoun + dü + verb | Ik dü ît | Ik ben aan het eten | I am eating |
| Past | Pronoun + dîd + verb | Ik dîd ît | Ik was aan het eten | I was eating |
| Future | Pronoun + zhal dü + verb | Ik zhal dü ît | — | I will be eating |
Amerikaens is considered a tenseless language as verbs do not have morphological tenses; they do not conjugate or inflect. The infinitive form of the verb is complimented by a pronoun and an auxiliary verb to indicate different tenses.
See also