for distribution to the list

[Anthea Fraser Gupta]

One thing Logan could do is to post a query on 'Ask-a'linguist', a
service provided by the Linguist List (linguistlist.org).

I don't know how Jester Schmitt got this message from Logan, but Jester,
or one of Logan's teachers, might want to help with the wording of the
question. Am I right in thinking a 5th grader would be aged about 11
years?  It's hard for me (as someone not from the US) to know what a
child of this age could be expected to know. I hope what follows is
useful:

--------------------------

There is quite a nice webpage about the 13 colonies:

http://www.timepage.org/spl/13colony.html

They're called colonies because they were settled by people from Europe.
The two largest groups of Europeans to settle in the 13 colonies were
the Dutch (speaking Dutch) and the British (nearly all of them
English-speaking).  The area was not uninhabited before these people
came.  There were many groups of what we would now call Native
Americans, who spoke many different languages.  When the European
colonists began bringing slaves across from Africa, the Africans brought
many languages with them.

The 13 colonies at all stages were multilingual, and there were
differences between one region and another.  But the most prominent
European languages would have been English and Dutch in the early years,
with Dutch being spoken by a lower proportion of the inhabitants as time
went on.

Anthea

------------------------

*     *     *     *     *
Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
<www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
NB: Reply to a.f.gupta at leeds.ac.uk
*     *     *     *     *

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harold F. Schiffman [mailto:haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu]
> Sent: 28 November 2003 13:17
> To: Language Policy-List
> Subject: for distribution to the list
>
>
> Can anyone help this young person? jesterschmitt at juno.com
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 22:23:29 EST
> From: JoshuaAFishman at aol.com
>
> >  My name is Logan and I am a 5th grader in Oregon I am
> doing a project
> > on the Thirteen Colonies and I have been going into different web
> > sites trying to find out what the Languages the 13
> colonists spoke.  I
> > came across your web page but still I can not find this information
> > anywhere. Would you have any ideas at where I could get this
> > information?
> >
> > I would appreciate any help at all
> >
> > Thank you for your time
> > Logan Schmitt
> >
> > jesterschmitt at juno.com
>
>