We happen to have met with a little book printed at Malines (Mechlin),
in the province of Antwerp, which contains some dialogues in Flemish
with a French translation opposite. As the Flemish may be considered a
fair specimen of the spoken language of that province, the reader may be
curious to compare it with his mother tongue, to which it is so near
akin. If he has paid a visit into Somersetshire, and has learnt a bit of
the _Zomerzetshire_ dialect, he will easily recognise many of the words
beginning with _z_. Those who have any acquaintance with our country
dialects, or the common language of the Scotch lower classes, will
easily give the right pronunciation to most of the words which we shall
present, and will as readily understand their meanings.
_Flemish._ _English._
Van waer komt gy? From where come ye?
The word _gy_ is both the singular and plural pronoun _thou_ or _you_:
if the _g_ is pronounced like _y_, the resemblance to our own _ye_ is
apparent, which word in some parts of England is used for the singular
pronoun _thou_. In some parts of this country also, _g_ at the beginning
of a word is pronounced like _y_: thus _gate_ is called _yate_.
Ik ken u nu. I ken (know) you now.
This second example will cause no difficulty to a Scotchman.
Waer wilt gy gaen? Where will you go?
Wat nieuws? What news?
Hoe gaet het met u? How goes it with you?
The dealer in cloth recommends his wares by saying to his customer,
Ik heb van alle soórten. I have of all sorts.
Van wat kouleur wilt gy? Of what colour will ye
(have)? what colour do
you choose?
The host says to his friend at table,
Zet u daer, Set ’o there.
_or_ Zit gy daer. _or_ Sit ye there.
Vergeeft my, ik zal my Forgive (excuse) me, I
daer niet zetten. shall me there not sit.
The guest asks for some meat and salad; the host says,
Houd, daer ist ’t enn en Hold (take), there is
’t’ ander. tone and tother.
The expression _tone and tother_, the one and the other, is familiar
enough in some parts of this island, and was once used as we have
written it, in printed books.
The host and his guests have a friendly altercation about eating and
talking:--
Mynheer gy eét niet. Sir, ye eat not.
Ik heb wel gëeéten en wel I have well eaten and
gedronken, God zy well drunken, God be
geloófd. beloved.
En gy, Mynheer, gy zegt And ye, sir, ye say not a
niet een woórd. word.
Gy spreékt niet meer als Ye speak no more than if
of gy geene tong had. ye no tongue had.
Again,
De zon is zoo warm dat zy The sun is so warm that
brand. she burns.
It should be observed that the Flemings and Germans call the sun _she_,
and the moon is made a _he_; which is just the reverse of our practice.
Is het niet tyd van te Is it not time (tide) to
bed te gaen? bed to go?
Our word _tide_, which signifies time, is now hardly ever used, except
in compounds, such as _noon-tide_, _Whitsuntide_, and in the word
_tidings_.
Gy kunt niet beter doen. Ye can’t (can not) better
do.
_Do-en_ and _ga-en_ only differ from our _do_ and _go_ in having the
_en_ at the end, which, as we have remarked in a former number, still
exists among us in such words as _quick-en_, _sharp-en_.
The mother is waking her daughter in the morning:
Myne dogter staet op. My daughter stand (get)
up.
et is tyd om naer de It is time near to school
school te gaen. to go.
Hoe, myne moeder, is het How, my mother, is it so
zoo laet? late?
We recommend those who wish to compare the various dialects of that
extensively-spread language, of which ours is one, to see some specimens
of the Frisian language in the Westminster Review, No. 23.
“In a large part of ancient Friesland,” says the article alluded to,
“the language has left no traces behind it in the present day. In East
Friesland it has been superseded by the Low German, and in Groningen by
the common Dutch, modified by a few provincial idioms of Frisian
character.”
The following specimen of the present state of the Frisian language is
from the Westminster Review:--
Lijk az Gods sinne swiet uus wrâd oerschijnt,
Like as God’s sun sweetly our world o’ershines,
Her warmte in ljeacht in groed in libben schinkt.
Her warmth and light and growth and life gives.
Lijk az de mijlde rein elk eker fijnt,
Like as the mild rain ilk (each) acre finds,
So dogt eak dat, wat in uus, minsken, tinkt.
So does eke (also) that what in us, men, thinks.
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The Rev. John Hartley, who has travelled as a missionary in Greece,
records in his Journal the following interesting scriptural
illustration:--“Having had my attention directed last night to the
words, (John x. 3.)--_The sheep hear His voice, and He calleth His own
sheep by name_, &c., I asked my man if it was usual in Greece to give
names to sheep. He informed me that it was, and that the sheep obeyed
the shepherd when he called them by their names. This morning I had an
opportunity of verifying the truth of this remark. Passing by a flock of
sheep, I asked the shepherd the same question which I put to my servant,
and he gave me the same answer. I then bade him to call one of his
sheep. He did so, and it instantly left its pasturage and its
companions, and ran up to the hand of the shepherd, with signs of
pleasure, and with a prompt obedience which I had never before observed
in any other animal. It is also true of the sheep in this country, _that
a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know
not the voice of the strangers_. The shepherd told me that many of his
sheep are still WILD; that they had not yet learned their names; but
that by teaching they would all learn them. The others which knew their
names, he called TAME.”
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_Effect of Music in the Conversion of Savages._--Nolrega (a Jesuit) had
a school, where he instructed the native children, the orphans from
Portugal, and the _mestizos_, or mixed breed. Reading, writing, and
arithmetic were taught them; they were trained to assist at mass, and
_to sing_ the church service, and frequently led in procession through
the town. This had a great effect, for the natives were passionately
fond of music, so passionately, that Nolrega began to hope the fable of
Orpheus was a type of his mission, and that by songs he was to convert
the pagans of Brazil. This Jesuit usually took with him four or five of
these little choristers on his preaching expeditions; when they
approached an inhabited place, one carried the crucifix before them, and
they began singing the Litany. The savages, like snakes, were won by the
voice of the charmer; they received him joyfully, and when he departed
with the same ceremony, the children followed the music. He set the
catechism, creed, and ordinary prayers to _sol fa_; and the pleasure of
learning to sing was such a temptation, that the little Tupis sometimes
ran away from their parents to put themselves under the care of the
Jesuit.--_Southey’s History of Brazil._
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_Fossil Remains of the Elephant in New Holland._--In a pamphlet
published last year at Sydney, New South Wales, by the Rev. J. D. Lang,
detailing the steps which had been taken for the establishment of an
Academical Institution, or College, in that Colony, we find the
following curious statement: “A collection of fossil bones which had
been discovered in a lime-stone cave at Wellington Valley, by George
Rankin, Esq. of Bathurst, and to the discovery of which the writer had
the honour of calling the attention of the Colonial public, in an
anonymous letter published in the _Sydney Gazette_, about eighteen
months ago, was entrusted to the writer by Mr. Rankin, for Professor
Jamieson, of the University of Edinburgh. One of the bones had evidently
belonged to some large animal; and Professor Jamieson and an eminent
naturalist of the College of Surgeons in London, to whom it had
afterwards been forwarded, coincided in regarding it as a bone of the
hippopotamus. Not satisfied, however, with their own opinion concerning
it, it was subsequently sent to M. Le Baron Cuvier of Paris; and that
distinguished naturalist (Professor Jamieson informed the writer just
before leaving Scotland) had ascertained that it was the thigh-bone of a
young elephant; thereby establishing the interesting and important fact,
that the wilds of Australia were once traversed by that enormous
quadruped.”
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