Versloot, A.P.

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Kathrin S. Bussmann, Diphthongs in Frisian, a comparativeanalysisofphonemic in-
ventories past and present. Germanistische Bibliothek; Bd. 21, Heidelberg (2004).
Universitatsverlag Winter, 271 pp., ISBN3-8253-5003-7.
I was surprised to find this bookappearing on my desk, and I am not the onlyone. No
Frisian scholar that I know had ever heard of this research project, and no Frisian
scholar is mentionedin the 'Acknowledgements'. This is importantfor two reasons.
ThatFrisian may apparentlybea subjectofinterestto scholarsoutsidethe smal1circle
ofFrisianscholarship. and thatFrisianconsiderednot as a discreteunit may he usedto
contribute 10 a universal typologyoflanguagefeatures. A negative aspect, especially
for the author, is thatshe has notmanaged10negotiatethe minefieldofFrisian dialects
andphonological historycompletely unscathed.
As the title states, this studyaddressesdiphthongsin Frisian. Frisian isheretakenin
its broad sense, from OldFrisianto modemWest,EastandNorth Frisiandialects. The
goal is 10grasp a betterunderstandingofdistinctive phonologicalfeatures concerning
diphthongsinFrisianand 10"[...] detectcertaintypological trends." Frisian was chosen
because "Frisian dialects have been particularly noted for the wealth and variety of
their diphthongs." (page 2).
The author treats Old Frisian and all tbe living modem dialects one by one and
evaluatesthe diphthongsfor possibledistinctivefeatures: length, roundness, accentua-
tion and directionality(Chapter1). Aftera comparativeanalysis ofall Frisianvarieties
(Chapters2 and 3), diphtbongsin severalWestGermaniclanguages are studied (Chap-
ter4) and theirtypologicalaspectscompared10theFrisian. Finally, some general con-
clusions are drawn (Chapters 4.2 and 5).
In the first place, Frisian is norma1in the sense that the abstract diphthongs IAUI
andIAJJare the mostcommonly occurringin the language, and this is the case too in
otherWestGennaniclanguages and mostlanguagesofthe world. But most Frisiandia-
lects show a lot more diphthongs. Bussmann identifies three features ofFrisian diph-
thongs thatare typologically marked (Sections 4.2 and 5.1):
• The first is length. Diphthongs are phonologicallylong in most languages. In Old
Frisian, Helgolandishand WiedingharderFrisian lengthis sometimes adistinctive
feature, as in the case ofOId Frisian riucht 'right' with shortliulversus stiura 'to
steer' with long Iïûl.
• Theso-calleddarkening diphthongs, likeHaJ andluo/, constitutea markedtypeof
diphthongwith falling accentand rising sonority. OldGennaniclanguages hadthis
59type ofdiphthongbutthesewereabandonedin mostmodern Gennanielanguages.
In Frisian tbey survived as a type. A related, also marked, type are tbe centring
diphthongs. These appear in some otberFrisian dialects, such as Standard West
Frisian.
• It has beenclaimedthat languagescannothavebotbrisingandfalling diphtbongs,
butsome Frisian varieties do.
So far tbe mainconclusions and, as far as lamabIeto judge,the rnaterial and presenred
analysis are concemed, 1think they stand. Butthings have sometimes gone seriously
awry at thelevelofdetails.
Thetaskwas notsimple: Frisian dialects havenotbeendescribedin auniformway
and using a uniform approach. The various souree data, many at least 50 years old,
"confront today's scholar witb a confusing varietyofantiquated, idiosyncratic nota-
tionalsystems." (page53). Unfortunately, Bussmannbas apparentlymissedtheHand-
buch des Friesischen/HandbookofFrisian Studies. Theauthorhas triedto convertthe
spellings appliedin severalmonographsinto modemIPA notation.This was definitely
not an easy task. Sometimes it goes wrong, e.g. on page 165, where Standard Dutch
and Terschelling <Ui>are transcribedas lreyl and lui!respectively, devianttranscrip-
tions for tbe same sound. Butall in all tbe taskofphonologieal interpretationofgiven
spellings seems fairly accurately fulfilled.
The main omission is authorial overlooking ofÁrhammar's artiele on Old Frisian
lia! (Die Friesischen Wöl1er fûr 'Rad' ('Wheel'). In: Kopenhager Germanistische
Studien, Bd. I, 1969, pp 35-84.) This artiele treats complex developments in the Old
Frisian /ia!. The mostimportantoutcomeofthe artiele is that the OldFrisianlia! and
fiulmust havebeenrisingdiphthongsin everyOldFrisiandialect, evenin cases where
the modem representation is a monophtbongor afalling diphthong,likestandardWfr.
biede 'offer' < Ofr. biada. Bussmannconsidersthe OldFrisianlia! and/iul to be 'fal-
Iing'.The consequenceis thatshe has 10 assumea wholebunchofincidentaldevelop-
ments 10 account for the modem forms. She even tries 10 deduce Sehiermonn. tjail
'wheel' from a falling diphthong/ia! by assuming a developmentHa!>Hel>/i:1>léil
>Ijéil>Ijáil. insteadofliál >Ija:/>Ijail (cf. Sehm. baim < Ofr. bam). In particularin
conneetion withthe complicateddevelopmentofOfr.ftal and/iul, several etymological
mistakes are made, likenot recognisingWfr. dief'thief as a Dutchloanword(phono-
logicalFrisianis archaic tsjeaj), deducingljocht 'light' from Ofr. liacht(wheredialec-
tal forms ljacht/llj)echt are the properexamples; ljochtis an analogue formation ac-
cording to tbe verb *liuchta) or, anothercase, d.educing Schierm, seeunde 'sin' from
Ofr. sende, insteadofsonde. It does not seemuseful to me 10 mentionhere everyety-
mologica! mistakein detail, buttbere are quite a few.
A proper application of the outcome of Árhammar'spaper would imply different
eonclusions for the Old Prisian part. It would also imply different viewpoints 10 he
adoptedin diachronie discussions throughoutthe book (cf. page 163, wherewe again
find the statementthat when ''[...] dealing with darkening falling diphthongs, [...] ac-
centshiftis notobservablein WFris. dialects."). As the bookis mainlyeoncernedwith
60synchroniephonemeinventories,thesediachroniemistakesdo not overly in:t1uence the
genera!outcome.ForOldFrisian,however, it wouldmean thatthisdialectdid not have
darkeningdiphthongs (fallingaccent, rising sonority)butthataccentand sonorityhad
beenlevelledout As a eonsequenceit wouldbecomequestionabiewhetherOld Frisian
evenhadrising diphthongs, becauseOldFrisianliaJdevelopedas glide + (long) vowe1.
ModernFrisian 'breaking'-diphthongsare also interpretedthis waybyBussmann(fol-
Iowing Booij and Visser, page59).
It maybe ofinterestto add two minorsynchronieobservations. In 3.1.2.7 theHin-
delooperH-diphthongsare considerednotto bephonemicbecausetheirdistributionis
predictable. Butin words like bird[blat] 'beard' en hert[hext] 'heart' thediphthongs
maybe historically predietable butthey form synchronie minimal pairswith bit 'bit'
and het'what'. At leastphonetically, thesediphthongs are shortandcontrastwithe.g.
[I.H] in e.g. beald 'statue', which wouldpleadin favouroftheir phonemic status.
Anotherintriguingcaseis thatoftheoppositionbetweenWFris. dei'day' and dooi
'dough'.In theWalden-dialectthediffereneeis bothqualitative and quantitative: [dei]
- [da:i]. In theKlaai-dialectthelengthoppositionhas beenlevelledout andthe pronun-
ciation in both instances become something like [dá.i]. Atthe southern fringe, espe-
cially arnong olderspeakers. a c1eardistinction [dai] - [da.i] canJcouldbe heard. The
marginal status ofthis phenomenon fits nicelyinto the typologicalcharacterisationof
lengthoppositionsin diphthongsas beingmarked. Thisoppositionhas existedin West
Frisian only sincethe 19
th century, whenthepronunciation [dai] for dei cameintobe-
ing and soon disappeared again.
Altogether,this studyis avaluabiecontributionto an integralstudy ofFrisianvarie-
ties and, whatmakesit even moreinteresting,it showsthatelaborationofFrisianmate-
rial canbeusedto contributeto thedebateconceminginternational theoreticallinguis-
tics. The genera! conc1usions hold, but many mistakes may befound in etymologica1
details. The diachronie observations are not valid, mainly due to wronginterpretation
ofOldFrisanIWand liul. Themostintriguing question, as I see it, is whymostFrisian
dialects on the onehandconvertmarkeddiphthongs intounmarkedsequences -typo-
logically a logical development - and on the other create new marked diphthong se-
quences, e.g. Ofr. biada 'tooffer' (beitwithliaJ, as Bussmannsupposes,or with liálor
even/ja:/, still a markedsequence)> modoHallig Frisianbiide, butOfr. sren 'stone' >
modoHalL Fr. stian (withHal). To find answers to this questiona carefulreassessment
ofBussmann's datais required.
Arjen Versloot
Fryske Akademy
Ljouwert
61

Kathrin S. Bussmann, Diphthongs in Frisian, a comparative analysis ofphonemic inventories past and present.

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