Language Variation - European Perspectives. Selected Papers from the Third International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (Iclave 3), Amsterdam, June 2005.

Studies in Language Variation #1

by Frans Hinskens

This volume presents 16 original studies of variation in languages representing the three main European language families, as well as in varieties of Greek and Hungarian. The studies concern variation in or across dialects or dialect groups, in standard varieties or in emerging regional varieties of the standard. Several studies investigate a specific linguistic element or structure, while others focus on areas of tension between variation and prescriptive standard norms, on regional standard varieties and regiolects, on problems of linguistic classification (from folk linguistic or dialect geographical perspectives) and the classification of speakers. Language acquisition plays a main role in three studies. The studies in this volume represent a range of methods, including ethnographic and 'interpretative' approaches, conversation analysis, analyses of the internal and geographical distribution of dialect features, the classification and quantitative analyses of socio-demographic speaker background data, quantitative analyses of both diachronic and synchronic language data, phonetic measurements, as well as (quasi-)experimental perception studies. The volume thus offers a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmos of world-wide research on variability in (originally) European languages at the beginning of the 21th century and the linguistic expression of cultural diversity.

279 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Ans Schapendonk · Rating 1 out of 5]

According to the description, these types of books by Frans Hinskens offer “a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosm of global research into variability in (native) European languages at the beginning of the 21st century and the linguistic expression of cultural diversity”. But in all these editions before 2012 there is no correct interpretation. That only came after 2013 when Hinskens – good friends with the director Jürgen Schmidt of the Deutsche Sprachatlas at the Philipps University-Marburg – came into contact with the research results on the universal sound helix of Ans Schapendonk. She worked at this university where she was accused of sexual harassment, resulting in immediate dismissal. Not only German but also Dutch and Flemish linguists profiled themselves with the universal soundhelix that Schapendonk developed. Together with Marc van Oostendorp and Nicoline van der Sijs, Hinskens focused on all the new sound rules that Schapendonk had formulated, including the alphabetical progression of the vowels. In the book Wat gebeurt er in het Nederlands (What Happens in Dutch?) (2021), Hinskens wrote on page 26 “The view that the frequency of use of words determines all types of sound change, including amplification processes, seems to be refuted.” Schapendonk proved this years earlier, but Hinskens, van Oostendorp and van der Sijs refuse to acknowledge the source, making it a serious form of plagiarism. The Dutch oe helixes via u into ui, creating an alphabetical progression, an extremely relevant discovery in the study of sound change. Hinskens and Co always speak of ‘sound change’, because they do not dare to put Schapendonk's 'soundhelix' into their mouths. This helix (4 elements with a little 5th one) also shows that there are not three rows P, T and K, but also a fourth row W, which Hinskens and Co never noticed. Nor does it say in any book by all these corrupt linguists before 2013 that sounds and therefore words become longer from the back (adjectio), dissolve from the front (detraction), rotate around their own axis (metathesis), read from back to fore alias retrogarde (permutation a), for the repetition of parts (permutation b) and for the formation of spaces (delivery). Hinskens leaves the highly corrupt Radboud University Nijmegen and the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam, where his false colleagues praised each other by holding a symposium on November 10, 2023. Hinskens continues to be 'active' in linguistics. What an irony. Hinskens never had a clue about sound shifting. What a loss of taxpayer money.