LSGL 15: A Dictionary of Plautdietsch Rhyming Words

A Dictionary of Plautdietsch Rhyming Words

Eldo Neufeld

The author has been guilty of versifying from his early elementary school years. The hours spent searching mentally for proper rhyming words are unnumbered. Rhyming dictionaries are available in some languages, but not in the author's Plautdietsch mother tounge. In Little Red Hen fashion, the only solution was to fashion one oneself. In this attempt it became immediately clear that an abundance of rhyming words in English, often spelled in many different ways, does not exist in Plautdietsch. For example, variations in spelling in the rhyming portions of words (homonyms) like "ate, bait, straight, freight," sound alike and therefore rhyme with each other, have no counterpart in Plautdietsch. Rhyming words are usually spelled much more consistently, e.g. "deele" (to divide), "feele" (to feel), "heele" (to heal), or "Draikj" (dirt), "Flaikj" (intestines), "Saikj" (sacks). In all three cases of these groups of words, the rhymes are exact. It appears, therefore, that for the Plautdietsch versifier, the spelling variations in rhymes are much more limited than those in English.

The book is arranged into three sections:
Section I: Monosyllables, and words accented on the last syllable. Secion II: Words accented on the syllable before the last. Section III: Words accented on the third syllable from the end

In each section words are arranged alphabetically in lists under phonetic syllables, which are themselves arranged alphabetically. This arrangement should make it possible for the versifier to go quickly to a group of words which all contain the sound for which he is searching. It is hoped that this work will be found useful for the would-be Plautdietsch poet who is stuck for a rhyme in the middle of a great idea, or needs a better word to end a lovesong, or is tired of the same old refrains.

A Dictionary of Plautdietsch Rhyming Words is part three of the Plautdietsch project by Eldo Neufeld (Plautdietsch Grammar, ISBN 3895866156. LINCOM Studies in Germanic Linguistics 08; Plautdietsch Verb Conjugation, Vol I. ISBN 389586 614 8. LINCOM Studies in Germanic Linguistics 09, Vol II. ISBN 389586 882 5. LINCOM Studies in Germanic Linguistics 10).

ISBN 9783895863622. LINCOM Studies in Germanic Linguistics 15. 76pp. 2002.