Non native speaker?

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:04 AM -0400 10/24/02, David Bergdahl wrote:
>Now that the pair in custody are black males, where does that leave the NBC
>"expert"?

The stepson, who's Jamaican, apparently wrote some of the letters,
using what are now (on CNN) described as references to Jamaican
locutions ("word is bond").  (There were also repetitions of *****, a
reference to a Jamaican reggae group of that name, I understand.)
Maybe this struck earlier analysts as Hispanic?  As for accent, hard
to reconcile.  Of course, there's the stepfather, John Muhammad (ne
Williams), US born and bred, a Gulf War vet, as well as the stepson,
either of whom could have been making the phone calls.  We'll know
more (or at least be told more), I suspect.

L

>
>--On Thursday, October 24, 2002 9:56 AM -0400 "THOMAS M. PAIKEDAY"
><t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:
>
>>Last  night NBC Nightly News reported that it had been determined that the
>>sniper is a "native speaker" of English, probably a Caucasian, with an
>>accent suspected to be Hispanic. The above judgement seems to have been
>>based on the sniper's written rather than spoken English. There is a kind
>>of verba volant (words fly) quality to the spoken evidence. But a
>>recording may be available.
>_________________________________________
>"We are all New Yorkers"
>       --Dominique Moisi