Re: OT American dialects

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 12:01:16 +0000, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
>
> >I was pointing to a possible Dutch
> >connection, because it seemed to me that American dialectologists
> >wouldn't have been aware of that particularity of Dutch dialects
>
> 20/21st century Dutch dialects...
>
> >(or
> >worse, would have reacted like Miguel: this dialect is

insignificant,

> >since no one has written about it,
>
> I don't care if anyone has written about it.

Apprently not.

>I used to live in and around
> Leiden (1964-1984), so I know what I'm talking about.

Thus, since the Spanish siege?

> To summarize the argument thus far, you said:
> >That's interesting, since the American War of Independence was in
> >that period, and since the Americans (at least in the standard

(low,

> >Dutch-influenced?) dialect that spread from New York) didn't
> >drop /r/'s.
>
> But New York _does_ drop /r/'s.

Now it does.

>
> And you said:
> >New York was the
> >noveau riche immigrant port in the middle, originally with a Dutch
> >substrate. Amsterdam and Rotterdam Dutch has retroflex r's, as

does

> >Standard American, un[like] New England and Southern.
>
> But Amsterdam Dutch doesn't have retroflex /r/'s.

Reference?

>The "Gooise /r/" is not
> retroflex, but an alveolar continuant (like British RP /r/).

Leiden, and

> to a minor extent, Rotterdam, do have retroflex /r/, but, as

mentioned in

> the text I quoted earlier, retroflex /r/ is very recent there.

>A special
> pronunciation of /r/ in Leiden is first mentioned in the 19th.

century (and

> it wasn't retroflex then[*]),

Argumentum e silentio.

>so it has no bearing on 17th. century Dutch,
> which is perhaps best preserved in Afrikaans, which has
>rolled/flapped r's.

And perhaps not. How do you know?


Torsten