Legend underlined   introduced key term dark red   German-based spelling light blue   General Orthography    / /   phonemic    [ ]   phonetic    >   developed into    <   developed from    →   becomes (by rule)    ~   or; alternating with    “   ”   literally       link to further detail

Nouns: Articles

Like their English counterparts, most Low Saxon nouns are in most cases preceded by articles. Low Saxon articles are related to English, German and Dutch articles. Using them is just a little more complex than in English, far less complex than in German and most similar to the Dutch system.

The use of articles depends on number and on gender. It also depends on whether it is definite (as is English “the”) or indefinite (as are English “a” and “an”).

In this brief chapter you will be introduced to the articles in their nominative case forms. Their objective case forms will be covered under “Noun Inflection”. Let’s take a look at the Modern English articles first:

English Articles   Definite   Indefinite Singular the   a(n) Plural the

And here at the Low Saxon ones in the nominative case:

Low Saxon Articles (1)   Definite   Indefinite   masculine   feminine   neuter   masculine   feminine   neuter Singular de dey   dat dat   een eyn   een(e) eyn(e)   een eyn   Plural de dey

This looks almost as simple as the English system in dialects in which the indefinite articles are the same for all three genders:

Low Saxon Articles (2)   Definite   Indefinite   masculine   feminine   neuter   masculine   feminine   neuter Singular de dey   dat dat   een eyn   Plural de dey

In rapid, non-emphatic speech, the articles may be “swallowed” and also written that way:

Low Saxon Articles (3)   Definite   Indefinite   masculine   feminine   neuter   masculine   feminine   neuter Singular de dey   ’t ’t   ’n ’n   Plural de dey

Short de is pronounced [de] or [dɛ] (in some dialects [dɛˑɪ] or [daˑɪ] like the long version).

The indefinite article ’n is pronounced as a syllabic consonant (i.e., a consonant pronounced for the duration of a syllable, which is the role usually played by a vowel). It is pronounced as a syllabic “m” [m̩] before m, b and p, as a syllabic “ng” (as in “sing”) [ŋ̍] before g and k, and as a syllabic “n” [n̩] anywhere else.

Examples:

’n = [m̩]			’n = [ŋ̍]			’n = [n̩]
’n Mann ’n man	‘a man’		’n Gaarn ’n gaarn	‘a garden’		’n Steen ’n steyn	‘a stone’
’n Bruud ’n bruud	‘a bride’		’n Katt ’n kat	‘a cat’		’n Huus ’n huus	‘a house’
’n Pott ’n pot	‘a pot’		’n Glas ’n glas	‘a glass’		’n Aal ’n aal	‘an eel’
’n Mœhl ’n moel	‘a mill’		’n Kraan ’n kraan	‘a crane’		’n Dœr ’n doer	‘a door’
’n Plaan ’n plaan	‘a plan’		’n Gröten ’n groyten	‘a greeting’		’n School ’n schoul	‘a school’

Some speakers pronounce ’n as “n” ([n̩]) in all cases, especially when they enunciate slowly and clearly.

The “long” pronunciation and spelling of the indefinite article—een (eyn), etc.—can easily be misunderstood, because een (eyn), etc., also means ‘one’. Most people avoid it for this reason, though it tends to be used more often in singing, recitation and other forms of “good enunciation,” also in writing, because many people consider it less colloquial.

In the Northern, Mecklenburg and Pomeranian Low Saxon ranges, very few dialects have preserved older neuter definite et (et) or it (it) where most dialects now have dat (dat). However, they are still very common in the Westphalian and Eastphalian dialects. All of them can be abbreviated to ’t (’t). In some farwestern dialects, ’t (’t) can begin a sentence or a phrase. In other dialects it occurs only after words that do not end with stop consonants, typically after prepositions; for instance för’t (vör ’t) ‘for the’, or vun’t (vun ’t) ‘from the’, ‘of the’.

In some dialects, ee (ey) is pronounced not [ɛˑɪ] (as in English “day”) but [aˑɪ] (as in English “die”). Using German-based spelling, speakers of such dialects usually write dei instead of de, and they also write ein instead of een. (In the Groningen dialects of the Netherlands these tend to be spelled dai and ain respectively.)

Many writers in Germany do not use the spelling ’n at the beginning of a sentence; they write Een instead, even if they pronounce it as ’n. This is because they do not know how to handle sentence-initial capitalization where ’n is involved. Other writers do use ’n at the beginning of a sentence and do not capitalize the following word unless it is a noun (e.g. ’n starken Mann is he. ‘A strong man he is.’) In the Algemeyne Schryvwys' we follow the Afrikaans and Dutch system in which any following word is capitalized (e.g. ’n Starken man is hey.).

Inflection