(urth) On Blue's Waters (Initial thoughts)

[David Stockhoff]

On 1/10/2012 9:52 AM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>
>>> The character on Blue who simply had the order of words in his
>>> sentences changed up clearly didn't have the same amount of work put
>>> into him.
>>>
>>> Arrghhhhh!!!! NO, NO, NO, NO! He's DUTCH! It's a masterly rendering of
>>> Dutch that Wolfe does there! PLEASE, folks, wait a little before you
>>> form your conclusions!
>>
>> Wikipedia says, "Dutch exhibits subject–object–verb word order, but in
>> main clauses the conjugated verb is moved into the second position in
>> what is known as verb second or V2 word order."
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language#Word_order
>>
>> However, the dialect of Dorp has object-subject-verb order, with the
>> conjugated verb never moved that I've noticed.  "Another Main you got.
>> Maybe a name it's got."  (OBW, Chapter 4.)
>>
>> I looked at /Ik heb altijd gelijk/, a novel by Willem Federik Hermans,
>> which seems to confirm Wikipedia's description.
>>
>> "'Ik ben bedrogen!  Ik heb mij laten belazeren!  Dat is nog het 
>> besten om
>> ervan te zeggen!'"
>>
>> Compare Wijzer's "That I see," "This I hear," "It you must finish," etc.
>> (ibid).
>
> You are right. Dorp's word order is not the same as Dutch. Not only 
> the most usual order isn't the same, Dorp's is quite consistent 
> whereas modern Dutch's is more complex than just SOV/V2. However, to 
> me as someone who's been learning Dutch, Dorp's english evokes just 
> the right feeling of dutchness. 

Sounds to me more like Pennsylvania Dutch. Which is to say some kind of 
German attempt to speak English.