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Lunenburg English is a moribund, German-influenced dialect of English, spoken in the town of Lunenburg and Lunenburg County in the province of
Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Engl ...
. It is sometimes called "Lunenburg Dutch". The dialect shows unique features in pronunciation, e.g. unusual handling of
rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including , in the Latin script and , in the Cyrillic script. The ...
s, in syntax and vocabulary, which portray the various sociohistorical influences.


History

Lunenburg was founded in 1753. Troops from Braunschweig-Lüneburg settled in Nova Scotia as well as many Germans, some Swiss and French (from
Montbéliard Montbéliard (; traditional ) is a town in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France, about from the border with Switzerland. It is one of the two subprefectures of the department. History Montbéliard i ...
). In addition, between 1759 and 1768 around 8000 New Englanders settled in Nova Scotia as well and also had a great influence upon the dialect in the county. Although German emigrants at this time were mostly from the
Electoral Palatinate The Electoral Palatinate (german: Kurpfalz) or the Palatinate (), officially the Electorate of the Palatinate (), was a state that was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The electorate had its origins under the rulership of the Counts Palatine of ...
and Württemberg, the town
Lüneburg Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...
where the name originates from was in the
Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg The Electorate of Hanover (german: Kurfürstentum Hannover or simply ''Kurhannover'') was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in northwestern Germany and taking its name from the capital city of Hanover. It was formally known as ...
. That might be caused by some German veterans who had been in the King's service. During the early years of the settlement German, French, and English were all spoken privately and in church. However, French died out first, while German prevailed longer. The majority of the Lunenburg settlers belonged either to
Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
or
Calvinism Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the Christian theology, theological tradition and forms of Christianity, Christ ...
. Several Lutheran churches used German for sermons and received German-speaking clergy from Germany or
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...
,
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
, until the end of the 19th century. 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. 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. Pronunciation in Lunenburg county "is known to be the only mainland White Canadian community to be non-rhotic." That
shibboleth A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwo ...
, however, cannot be traced back to influence from German since in the 18th century, it was highly rhotic. 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-speaking
Foreign Protestants The Foreign Protestants were a group of French Lutheran and German Protestant immigrants to Nova Scotia. They largely settled in Halifax at Gottingen Street (named after the German town of Göttingen) and Dutch Village Road as well as Lunenburg ...
taught them English and so they greatly influenced the dialect.


Pronunciation

There are several unique characteristics regarding the pronunciation. The most distinctive is that it is nonrhotic and so vowel length is
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
, like in
Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Eng ...
. However, some homonyms and some smaller particularities are also limited to the region. The accent is nonrhotic and so in terms of lexical sets, is merged with , and are merged with (making ''or'', ''oar'', and ''awe'' homophonous as ), and is merged with . and are the and vowels, which are the long versions of and (and so ''shared'' is differentiated from ''shed'' only by vowel length: ). Both and are rendered , the long counterpart of as in ''foot'' : ''sure'' , ''curb'' . There is word-internal linking , as in ''story'' (compare ''store'' ). Not all people in Lunenburg still speak that way, especially since younger people tend to reintroduce the etymological . That is caused by the influence of newcomers who come from other parts of the province or from Massachusetts. The ending points of the diphthongs (as in ''go'' ) tend to be fully close (), more similar to syllable-initial (as in ''yet'' and ''wet'') than to . The accent features
Canadian raising Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source o ...
and so ''flight'' has a different vowel from ''fly'' , and the noun ''house'' has a different vowel from the verb ''house'' . The raising is phonemic in the latter case and so the stressed vowel in the former word belongs to the phoneme (), and the corresponding verb has : . In Lunenburg, the phrase ''about a boat'' contains two identical stressed and two identical unstressed vowels: , rather than the
Standard Canadian English Standard Canadian English is the largely homogeneous variety of Canadian English that is spoken particularly across Ontario and Western Canada, as well as throughout Canada among urban middle-class speakers from English-speaking families, ex ...
, with distinct stressed vowels.


German influence

The non-rhoticity derives from the New England settlers (also proved by the fact that and are monophthongs , rather that opening diphthongs of the 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 in ''witch'' (including the historical in ''which'', which does not exist in Lunenburg) the same as as in ''van'', which is particular to the Lunenburg County and probably rooted in German, which has only . Another example is the lack of the dental fricatives and , which are replaced by the alveolar stops and (rendering ''thank'' and ''tank'' homophonous as ). 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."


Syntax

The few syntactical characteristics that are following are now very rare or have slowly stopped being used. One example is the splitting of a verb, which is very common in German and used in Lunenburg as well. :German: ''mitgehen'' ('to go with someone') :Examples: Will you go with? I am going with. Come on with! :German: ''Abwaschen'' ('to wash off') :Example: Wash your face off! Thus, ''use'', ''once'', and ''with'' can be found at the end of a sentence.


Vocabulary

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. * ''get awake'' instead of wake up * ''all'' in the sense of all gone (as in German); for example: My money is all * from German "to eat greedily" * raised doughnuts have the name which comes from the German word ''Fastnacht'' * : slices of dried apple, (singular) derives from the German word * means insipid and derives from the German


See also

*
Canadian English Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French ...
*
Atlantic Canadian English Atlantic Canadian English is a class of Canadian English dialects spoken in the Atlantic provinces of Canada and notably distinct from Standard Canadian English. It is composed of Maritime English (or Maritimer English) and Newfoundland Engli ...
*
Pennsylvania German language Pennsylvania Dutch (, or ), referred to as Pennsylvania German in scholarly literature, is a variety of Palatine German, also known as Palatine Dutch, spoken by the Old Order Amish, Old Order Mennonites, Fancy Dutch, and other descendants of ...
*
Rhoticity in English Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic variet ...


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * {{English dialects by continent Canadian English Culture of Nova Scotia Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia