[Buddha-l] David Loy

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joy,

> I just sadly discovered through Wikipedia, this wasn't the oldest Dutch
fragment anymore. As >could be feared the oldest fragment is indeed a
religious quote:
>
> 'Gelobistu in Got alamehtigan fadaer?' (Do you believe in God, the
almighty father?).
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebban_olla_vogala

It's worse than that. One of the theories on Hebben olla vogala (cited on
the same Wikipedia page) is that it is an old form of English (old Kentish),
not Dutch. And this new oldest line (Gelobistu...) is -- like some would say
about modern Dutch -- just "misspelled" German.

Some might also say that modern Dutch is still largely misspelled and
mispronounced German (the Dutch, for many reasons, would find that an
offensive observation). When last in Amsterdam, in a moment of linguistic
dyslexia, I mispronounced kaasbrood (cheese sandwich -- pronounced
kahs-brahd) as if it were German, Käsebrot (KAY-ze brot), only to receive a
blank, unknowing stare from the waitress, until, recognizing my error,  I
adjusted my pronunciation.

The delight always came at the end of the meal, when instead of the "bill"
one receives a final Reckoning (Rechnung -- pronounced similar to the
English reckoning, not the German word it is spelled like [German
pronunciation like reshnung]).

One thing that intrigued me about spoken Dutch is that, aside from a liberal
sprinkling of gutterals [e.g., van Gogh is not pronounced van Go, as we do
in English, but van goch - the -ch similar to the gutteral in Bach or
Chanukah], the Dutch consonants and vowels are very similar to American
English, which means that unlike most other languages that an American would
try to speak, and affect a kind of accent to NOT sound like one has an
accent in that language, when pronouncing Dutch one can completely relax and
pronounce it the same as one would American English. I guess linguists have
some technical term for that. It also means that sometimes when Dutch speak
it sounds like German with a strong American accent.

Mandatory Buddhist content? When in Holland, Buddha never had to pay the
bill -- the tab was always picked up by others, and so he never had to deal
with a final Reckoning (the apocalyptic elements entered Buddhism later).

Dan