Re: American Dutch dialects

> Perhaps NYC English has a Dutch substrate --e.g. "Dem bums don'
> know nuttin' 'bout dat." "Put da erl in da cah." "Flush dem toids
> in da terlet."

Where do you get that idea from? There is nothing Dutch about the
development /&r/ > /&I/. On the contrary it shows later immigrants
struggling with the Dutch/American retroflex 'r'.
The only other languages I know which uses 'them' as an article is
colloquial Swedish:
'Them thar' mountains' = 'Dom där bergen'
But Afrikaans has double negative, unlike Dutch, so that could be from
a Dutch creole. On the other hand, double negative is common elsewhere
in English.

> But standard US English did not spread from NYC, it spread
> from the Philly area, Lancaster Co. PA and points west with the
> arrival of the Scots-Irish and Germans, the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Ellis Island, Pa.?
Do you have numbers on that?


Torsten