[Buddha-l] David Loy, catering and shaggy dog stories

[Joy Vriens]

Dan,
>> 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. 

Yes, thank you. If ever I need someone to stir up a knife in a wound I will come and see you. In fact, I originally come from a south-eastern region. And the dialects in the Eastern regions of the Netherlands are very similar to Low German (Plat Deutsch). When speaking in dialect, people from either side of the border have no difficulty understanding each other. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_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. 

Well, these are strange times. My wife who is English, had the surprise of when asking directions from a London ticket collector, to be answered in broken English with a very heavy Italian accent. And waiters and waitresses are often foreign. So you may have been talking to a foreign waitress, unless she was wearing a traditional Dutch cap and clogs in which case she must have been Dutch of course. :-)
"kaasbrood" strikes me as a bit odd though. Usually it is or was called "broodje kaas", "broodje" being a bread roll followed by whatever you want your bread roll with: ham, chicken, shrimps etc. As a vegetarian you would want a "broodje gezond". "Gezond" means healthy, so you mainly end up with a salad in your bread roll. As for "kaasbrood", with "kaas" affixed to "brood" it suggests that cheese has been used as an ingredient of the bread. Compare with olive bread, walnut bread etc. The "je" at the end of "brood" is a diminutive. A Dutch sandwich (broodje) leaves someone of my constitution still hungry, wheras a French sandwich which is half a loaf of bread ("baguette") accomplishes what it is expected to accomplish.      
 
>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]). 

Interestingly the French call it "addition" and one can notice the difference between Latin and German cultures. In German cultures, you enjoy yourself, but at one point you will have to suffer for it, pay for it. Wheras in a more Burgundian Latin culture, one enjoyment is added up to another enjoyment etc. without any notion of suffering. Of course not paying the bill would end up with a very similar suffering in both cultures.     
 
>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],

Or the Spanish "j" (pronounced chchchotta), like in "Mucho coJones".

 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. 

There is something to that. If you speak a foreign language that you don't master too well, it is probably better to go for it in a very self-assured way and with your own awful accent, then to create an atmosphere of doubt and hesitation between both parties involved by trying to pronounce it as accurately as possible. Because any other word you will say after that will be evaluated hesitantly, people will "helpfully" try to correct you, suggest words that you weren't looking for at all etc. It will get you nowhere and you may have to spend quite some time before you can eat your kaasbrood. 
 
>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). 

As Jamie Hubbard didn't say: Buddha is one with everything. I am more worried for David Loy, what will he make of this thread? Anyway I am sure I will have the last word, because Jim and Richard will bang their fists on the table and end it here.

Joy