The linguist I talked to said that the big split happened with the 
Norman invasion. However, it is really interesting to notice the very 
strong relationships between Dutch and English even today. When I was 
researching my pipe organ to be, I had to learn a little Dutch 
because there are so many of the top historical instruments in 
Holland and Belgium, and there are quite a number of deep sources 
about historical organs in Dutch -- especially about cabinet and 
other home organs (which were a Dutch tradition for many years).

Cheers,

Alan

----

At 5:57 PM +0100 2/4/02, G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl wrote:
>This professor was a "Fries", so he did also the "Fries" part in the
>research...
>
>But I thought that you thougth that you had connections with the pelgrim
>fathers: that is a complete other part from The Netherlands (Leiden?) with
>another language: normal Dutch.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Alan Kay [mailto:Alan.Kay at squeakland.org]
>Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 5:50 PM
>To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>Subject: RE: Toch weer antwoord: RE: Antwoord: Squeak
>Internationalization (vo orheen: Re: AW: AW: -- Whats this 'AW:' mean?)
>
>
>Good point Bob --
>
>English itself is a Creole (from various invasions, especially the
>Norman Conquest), and I'm told by linguists that if not for this that
>our language would be very much like Frieslandisch (a regional
>dialect of Dutch).
>
>So absorbing words from elsewhere is one of the reasons that English
>thrives (including its very forgiving grammar (or almost lack of one
>altogether)).
>
>Cheers,
>
>Alan
>
>----At 11:30 AM -0500 2/4/02, Jarvis, Robert P. (Contingent) wrote:
>>   > From: G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl
>>>   I think that I even can remember one Dutch word that could
>>>   not be translated
>>>
>>>   in American English: gezellig.
>>
>>The obvious thing would be for English speakers to adopt "gezellig" into
>the
>>language.  In that vein, can you give us some idea of what "gezellig"
>means?
>>Does it have a counterpart in German or French?  (I'm not trying to be a
>>smart-ass here, just trying to understand).
>>
>>Bob Jarvis
>>Compuware @ Timken
>>
>>
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>
>
>--


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