...aha! Lightbulb moment. I was trying to figure out where the got the negative "geen" from, as it looks nothing like "nicht" or even "nee", their word for "no". Obviously there's been a consonant shift and it comes from "kein". It's actually pretty consistent; German hard s --> Dutch z, as in "zee", 'sea'; German z --> Dutch t, as in "toegang", which is pronounced almost exactly like "Zugang", missing the voiced 's' after the initial 't'.
There's also a slight vowel shift, where oo = German long o, uu = ü, and eu is almost an ö but not quite.
They also use German slang, or at least common slang, although they tend to deny it. ^^; Explaining something at the desk often gets a casual, "ah, toll," as an answer, for example.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-20 08:58 pm (UTC)There's also a slight vowel shift, where oo = German long o, uu = ü, and eu is almost an ö but not quite.
They also use German slang, or at least common slang, although they tend to deny it. ^^; Explaining something at the desk often gets a casual, "ah, toll," as an answer, for example.