LL-L "Language varieties" 2011.06.23 (05) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 23 June 2011 - Volume 05
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>

Subject: Language varieties


Dear Lowlanders,

Some of you might be interested in this video about the supposedly last
native speaker of Berbice Creole Dutch in Guyana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PH1TvEE8Vw

The video is pretty well presented and is interesting to me. What a
privilege to meet that 103-year-old lady!

Wouldn't it be great if we could still listen to Mohawk Dutch, Albany Dutch,
and Jersey Dutch? Albany Dutch (of Albany, New York) might still have a few
elderly speakers. It must be distinguished from Mohawk Dutch, once spoken in
pretty much the same location.

Skepi, another Dutch-based creole of Guyana, has been extinct since 1989.
"Negerhollands" appears to have become extinct in 1987. Are there any
recordings of them?

When I trekked around the island of Java in 1982 (on foot and via public
transport), locals told me that speakers of Javindo, a Dutch-Javanese
creole, could still be found in places, though I found none of them.
Similarly, I did not find speakers of Petjo, a Dutch-Indonesian (i.e.
Dutch-Malay) creole, though I am told that there are still some in the
Netherlands and possibly Western Australia. In the first couple of years of
Lowlands-L (1995-1996) we had a Petjo-speaking member in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately, he left us before we could get any significant information
about his home language out of him. However, in Indonesia I did find a few
older Indonesians (mostly Sundanese and Javanese) who remembered their
locally colored Dutch. If this happened in public, they would whisper while
talking in Dutch.

Rumor has it that there are a few remaining speakers of so-called "Ceylon
Dutch" in Sri Lanka and possibly Australia, in the so-called "Burgher"
community of Sri Lanka. These are predominantly Christian Sri Lankans with
more or less Dutch ancestry. I have known a few Burghers in Australia and
the USA, but never any that spoke the old language.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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