Origins of the Brooklyn Accent and mis-information. Help needed.

[Sam Clements]

Over at the Straight Dope, a question was asked about the origins of the
stereotypical "Brooklyn accent."  Not being a linguist, I couldn't help the
person much, but a well-meanng responder offered a website
(http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects.ht
m
which included some of the worst examples of false phrase origins I've ever
encountered.  I truly felt that I was reading something written by the
author of "Life in the 1500's.

That site said

" New York English, as a special variety of general New England speech,
developed after the British took possession of the Dutch colony of Nieuw
Amsterdam in 1664, leading to the rapid conversion of Dutch speakers to
English. Dutch left a strong phonetic substrate, however, which sets
Brooklyn speech apart from other northern dialects."  <snip>  Main features
deriving from the Dutch influence:

--interdentals become t,d.  For instance, them, these, that become: dem,
dese, dat (since Dutch has no interdentals)

The link to the thread at the Straight Dope is
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196623#newpos
t

If any linguist on here happens to post to that board, I'd be grateful.
Alternatively, I'll repost any replies here to that thread, assuming no one
objects.

Sam Clements