Re: American Dutch dialects

> From my point of view, because I think the colonists who originated
> from Britain would regard the Dutch settlers as foreigners, and
> therefore would not be prone to imitating their styles of
> pronunciation, particularly since most of them wouldn't be able to
> speak English anyway. Also weren't the Dutch at this time a
> minority?
> I think minority languages seldom have much influence on majority
> languages, especially not on their pronunciation. I know Québec
> French has absolutely no influence on the English spoken west, east,
> south, or north (Nunavut) of it, and probably never has.
>
> If you're saying that the Dutch partly assimilated and adopted
> English as their language but pronounced it with their retroflex
> r's, and this style of English spread throughout the U.S., I would
> doubt it because I know that foreigners who come to Canada almost
> all eventually come to speak Canadian-accented English (e.g. in
> their children's speech), rather than Canadians adopting uvular or
> trilled /r/ for example.

All true. Here's my scenario:
After the English take over, Dutch goes to the bottom of the social
scale. The Dutch begin to switch to English. The social scale wrt.
lasnguage looks like this: On top correct British English, then
various English dialects, then Dutch-colored English, then Dutch. Then
Dutch dies out in NYC and nearest surroundings. Then the American
revolution. This means correct British English falls from grace. How
would the new elite in New York mark their Americanness vis-a-vis the
vestiges of British power, the old elite? By reaching down to Low New
York, which would have been Dutch-tinged by the time. They pick up
certain phonetic mannerisms, and a few loanwords. Washington Irving
etc popularize it. Remember, this Low New York is no longer seen as a
foreign language, but as a newly cool way of speaking from New York.
You may compare it to the success of African American English in
influencing General American: some of those words or even mannerisms
may originate in some African language, but that's not what makes them
cool. Similarly, this new fad was not cool because it was Dutch, but
because it was New York. School marms, if they were anything like
today, must eagerly have picked the latest fads in correctness when
there were visitors from the Big City. Of course, if this fad had been
identified with Dutch in the public mind, it would have been dropped
immediately.

> If you're saying that the Dutch were not so much a minority and
> their numbers could have had this much influence on American
> English, well, I would ask why aren't Americans speaking Dutch
> today, or why aren't there larger enclaves of Dutch today, since
> the numbers required to have this much influence would surely leave
> greater remains today? I think that to truly cause Americans to
> start pronouncing English /r/'s according to the Dutch method, the
> Dutch would have had to become the teachers of American settlers.
> And in that case wouldn't they have taught Dutch rather than
> English?

The Dutch are not particularly keen on their language, as Rick
observed. To them, business comes first. Language fanaticism exists in
hierarchical societies, where trade is a threat and a nuisance. The
Dutch mindset is the opposite.

> I remember you once said that the Danish uvular /r/ is due to French
> influence.

Uvular r includes Scania and Småland in Sweden. It was a chain, French

> German > Danish > Southern Swedish, and always a city thing.

> I would ask, is the fact that /w/ became /v/ in Danish
> also due to French influence?

I think it came the same way, through the same stages, Jysk still has
/w/, but also that it happened all over Europe, Belorussian still has
/w/, says Piotr. It started in the 18th century, with French at its
peak influence. Also the 'thick' l, according to contemporaneous
writers, was disappearing in Swedish late 17th century, due to city
and German influence. English has been able to set up barriers against
that kind of French influence. On the continent, /w/, apical /r/,
thick /l/ all became marked as boorish manners.

> Or could Danish and French have
> developed them independently, and if so why not uvular /r/?

Danish, German, Southern Swedish, Southern Norwegian, parts of Dutch,
even Russian, later reversed, going through the same development
simultaneously independently? No.

> Similarly, why couldn't American English have developed retroflex
> (and bunched) /r/ independently, from the original English
> speakers, and not due to foreign influence?

You gotta make up your mind now. Is it some English substrate or is it
spontaneous, if it can't be the horrible Dutch? ;-) The Dutch were
there, they had the retroflex r and r-colored vowels. I think making
those two things independent stretches credibility.


Torsten