Comparin Shaetlan & English grammar
Noo an agein fokk claems at da grammar o Shaetlan is “maistly English”. Dis implies twa things: (1) at Shaetlan comes fae English, an (2) at if a language haes grammatical features at owerlap wi English, dan dey surely mosst come fae English. Baith is plein wrang factually spaekin: (1) Shaetlan døsna come fae English, insteid hit’s a mixter o Scots, Norn an da Low Germanic languages; an (2) aa Germanic languages, (Swedish, Dutch, German, etc) hae a lok o grammatical features at owerlap wi English but dat døsna mean at d’ir taen dem fae English. Hit jüst means at dey ir clossly relatit.
W’ir combined da major features listit fir English in da Grammar of Spoken and Written English wi da features listit fir Shaetlan sae far inna wir primer. Twartree features wis da exact sam. Fir example, baith languages hae da sam basic wird oarder (subjict-verb-objict), bit so døs 35.4% o da wirld’s languages. Twartree features wis alaek but no fairly da sam. Fir example, baith languages hae reglar an irreglar verbs (as døs aa idder Germanic languages), but de’r a differ in WHIT verbs is reglar or irreglar. Twartree features døsna owerlap atween da twa languages. Fir example, StE haes relative pronouns (who/which), but Shaetlan døsna. Relative pronouns is braaly rare, onnly fun in 7.2% o da wirld’s languages. On da idder haand, Shaetlan haes a associative plural (an dem) an a speecial form fir da 2sg person (du), bit StE haes nidder. Agein yun maks StE a streinge language fae a global perspective: 84.4% o da languages aroond da wirld hae a associative plural; an tae no hae a 2sg person is “rarissiumum” aboot da wirld (terrible rare).
Da result o wir comparison is at oot o da 243 major features inna wir databaess, 69 (29%) is identical, 111 (46%) is alaek but no da sam, an 54 (22%) haes nae owerlap atween da twa languages ava. So dan, dis data døsna suppoart da claem at da grammar o Shaetlan is “mainly English”.
References
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey N. Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finnegan. 2021. Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) 2013. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available at http://wals.info.
Rara & Universals Archive. Das grammatische Raritätenkabinett & The Universals Archive. Available at https://typo.uni-konstanz.de/rara/.
Velupillai, Viveka. 2012. An Introduction to Linguistic Typology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Velupillai, Viveka & Roy Mullay. 2022. Shaetlan. A Primer. Available at: https://www.iheardee.com/shaetlan/shaetlan-grammar-dictionary.
