It was also spoken in the Ramapo Mountains into the 1930's according to - if memory serves me - "The Ramapo Mountain People" by David Steven Cohen, Mike On Tue, 12 Nov 2002, Bob Arnold wrote: > When I was a little boy in the early 1950's, in one of the hill towns of Albany County, there was a vigorous old farmer who still spoke Dutch, learned from his family, who were among the early 17th century settlers in New Netherlands. There are also some Dutch borrow-words peculiar to the hilltowns and Schoharie County. > > >>> [log in to unmask] 11/07/02 06:01PM >>> > The message below was sent to the Mountain Top Historical Society in Haines > Falls (Greene County, NY) and subsequently forwarded to me, requesting that I > pass it along to someone who might be able to help this gentleman. Please > contact him at <[log in to unmask]> if you can help. Thanks. Patricia > Morrow, Windham Town Historian > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > -------------------------------------------------- > Delivered-To: [log in to unmask] > From: "Marco Evenhuis" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 > > Hi, > > I am interested in the remains of the Dutch language as a language of > colonists abroad. I visited your website and thought that maybe your society > could help me find some more information about the linguistic heritage in the > Catskill region. > > A friend of mine wrote me the following: "I used to own a house on a > mountaintop in the Catskills and several of my neighbors who were born just > before or after WW II told me that Dutch was spoken in their homes as a daily > language when they were growing up." > > Since Dutch linguists never did any research in the area that was once the > colony of New Netherland, they assumed and still assume that what a few local > scholars wrote them, was correct: "The Dutch dialects of Jersey Dutch, Albany > Dutch and Mohawk Dutch, spoken in NJ en NY State, died out around 1900. There > are no speakers left." > > I find that this statement, that has been copied over and over again into all > popular and scientific publications about the Dutch language in America, is > incorrect and needs to be refined. Almost without any effort, I already found > some people who claim that a family member still spoke Dutch in the 1950s and > 60s. > > The reason that I write you this e-mail is to see if you can help me with the > following question: do you have any idea untill when (colonial) Dutch was the > home language for a significant part of Dutch descended families in the > Catskills region and do you know if there might still be some people around > that maybe still know (some of) the language? The latter sounds more far > sought then it actually is given the information that my friend came up with > as well as the fact that in 1998 I found a handful of speakers of Berbice > Creole Dutch in Guyana, a language that was considered to have already died > out in the 1880s or 90s. > > If you cannot help me answer these questions, maybe you know someone who can > help me. I am not really interested in the help of 'professional linguists', > because they tend to follow the general assumption the language already died > out a century or at least half a century ago without any further research. > > Greetings from the Netherlands! > > Marco Evenhuis >