--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> >
> Joan and Mirren are not Dutch names. I figured they were Scottish or
> English in relationship with Dutch guys. I was one generation off.
> Pretty obvious there was some kind of collision of incompatible
> Weltanschauungen, or they wouldn't be so funny.
>
>
[Stretching this thread to its limits] Actually, I've begun to think
that maybe you were the right one on this debate, Torsten, because I
claimed that they were not native English speakers. But with a
Scottish mother (as is mentioned either on Myspace or Youtube), they
probably are in fact native English speakers, at least originally, but
their native English pronunciation has been much modified by their
being in the Netherlands all their lives (at least Mirren's
pronunciation), so much so that Mirren's pronunciation appeared
completely foreign to me. Then again who knows how much English they
spoke at home -- but I would say that English speakers (in this case
the mother) tend to assert their language in such situations because
they are aware of the status of their language in the world and feel
entitled to speak it and indirectly promote it. So I would guess that
at least when they were young our protagonists Joan and Mirren learned
English natively, perhaps equally with Dutch. So my claim that they
are not native speakers of English must then be considered false, even
though they may be equally native speakers of Dutch (from their
father). Perhaps Mirren followed her father more, while Joan followed
her mother more. Perhaps this debate ultimately leads to a stalemate,
because of equal parts native English and native Dutch. I was too
eager to claim victory, as most people are, I would say.
Andrew