origin of dese dem dose in NYCE

[James A. Landau <JJJRLandau@netscape.com>]

On Sunday 12 Feb 2012 08:23:07 +0100  Michael Newman <michael.newman at QC.CUNY.EDU>
wrote:

Thanks for all that responded so far. As for Dan's comment, that's what
I am trying to determine. After all, correlation is not causality, and
1) I can find no other non-lexical feature surviving from Dutch in NYCE
 <snip>

There is a stereotype that people from Brooklyn pronounce /@r/ as /oi/ or /ui/.
("toidy-toid and toid avenue").

Could this be, contrary to your statement above, a holdover from Dutch?

There is a "Spuyten Duyvil Creek" in New York City which appears to have two occurrences of /ui/.

Also, circa the Civil War, German immigrants were frequently referred to as "Dutch".  Seee for example any history of the Civil War which discusses XI Corps of the Union Army of the Potomac, which had a large number of German immigrants in the ranks and was commonly considered to be "Dutch".

It is possible that the /d/ for /th/ is due to influence from German speakers who were, however, identified as "Dutch", thus starting the legend that /d/ for /th/ is from Dutch.  I state this as a possibility.

    - James A. Landau

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