Re: Saying "Thank you."

John Cowan wrote:

> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
>
> > As he said, it does indeed arise from external borrowing. IIRC, the only
> > known cases of a fricative to stop shift occur in Papua New Guinea.  It is
> > at any rate an extremely rare type of sound change.
>
> It has also happened on de obscure island of Brooklyn.  Yiz got a problem
> wit dat?
I've read claims that this results from a Dutch substratum there.  This implies
(a) that that feature of Brooklyn's speech is very old, and (b) that the Dutch
were not more or less immediately swamped by anglophone settlers.  I don't
know of any studies that have investigated either question, but the latter seems
to me to be prima facie correct.  New York City's official records were maintained
in both Dutch and English until about the 1830s, and one famous member of the
elite of Dutch descent, Van Buren, eventually became U.S. President (I seem to
remember he lived in a Dutch speaking community along the Hudson).  I don't
know how much of that can be used to make judgements about (a), however.

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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