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From: brg@netcom.com (Bruce R. Gilson)
Subject: Re: Scots and English (was: Re: Flemish and Dutch)
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References: <3nqtn1$b7v@bertha.gssec.bt.co.uk> <17MAY199508184980@cc.weber.edu> <D8rGGz.5FM@midway.uchicago.edu> <18MAY199511581358@cc.weber.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 11:57:53 GMT
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In article <18MAY199511581358@cc.weber.edu>,  <helliott@cc.weber.edu> wrote:
>In article <D8rGGz.5FM@midway.uchicago.edu<, deb5@midway.uchicago.edu writes...
><In article <17MAY199508184980@cc.weber.eduall<,  <helliott@cc.weber.edu< wrote:
><[some deleted]
>
>I was not talking about spoken Dutch.  I only made reference
>to Dutch natives speaking English (and speaking it quite well).
>The accent I am referring to is so slight that it is the
>only one I have heard that can be misinterpreted as a
>regional varient of native American English, rather than as
>a "foreign accent" of a non-native speaker.
>
>
><People in the States are most likely to mistake a Dutch accent for a
><Southern English one.
><-- 
><	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\     
>
>
>Haven't heard that one before, and I can't say I have
>noticed any similarity.  Also, very few Americans can
>distinguish between regional accents in Britain.
>
>HME
>
>
>


I think he meant, by Southern British,
th standard (RP) that most Americans
think of simply as "British" which of
course is based on a Southern British
model. 

In fact, I once made just that mistake
when I was in graduate school. There
was someone I knew slightly (because
he and I both hung around the computer
center a lot) with what I took for a
British accent. As I got to know him,
I found out his name was Eelco Gerlings
and he was Dutch. And it only became
apparent to me when he pronounced the
name of the computer language Algol,
which he did with the Dutch "g".

