"Eerian": Detroit Polish/Italian contact vernacular

[Mark.Mandel at LHSL.COM]

In an off-topic discussion of accents on a newsgroup I follow,
rec.music.filk*, another participant (bcc'ed on this posting) posted:

>>>
    Want to hear a really weird one?  My college roommate, in Michigan,
came
from a part of Detroit occupied by recent immigrants from Poland and Italy.
Between them, they put together a weird Polish/Italian mix which they
called
"Eerian".  Why?  "Bicause dat's what we spik in dis eeria."
<<<

I asked her permission to pass it on to this list, and she replied:

>>>
         Sure thing.  This was spoken in the poor Italian/Polish
neighborhood of Detroit during the early 1960s.  I heard it spoken a couple
of times, and it sounded oddly poetic -- rather like Romansch, although the
meanings were totally different.  There may still be some Eerian speakers
in that part of Detroit, if you can find them.
<<<

N.B. that this "Eerian" isn't the accent suggested in the quote but a
contact vernacular. The obvious interpretation of the name -- < [Lake] Erie
-- is probably the real etymology, with the "explanation" a post-facto
joke.

-- Mark A. Mandel, the Filker With No Nickname
   * http://world.std.com/~mam/filks/filks.html

                    [professionally passing as:]

                  Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist
 Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company : speech recognition
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com