Robert Clements:

>Clearly hasn't reached the US, which no doubt has its own equivalent...
>wasn't the term _barbarian_ originally derived from the alleged sound of
>a foreign language?

I heard this, too, but I'm more and more convinced this is a folk
entymology - supposedly coined from the Greek, meaning those who make the
sounds of sheep (ie, don't speak Greek).  I doubt this, since I've never
come across the derivation in print, and, in any case, the Latin "barbarus"
means "bearded." If any of you are Asterix fans, the Gauls are usually
bearded or moustachio'd, and the Goths even more so.

But I'm interested in the "double Dutch" expression.  In lots of English
Tudor and shortly thereafter plays and songs, there are comic Dutchmen who
murder the English language - just as Shakespeare's Dr. Caius and Princess
Catherine (Henry V) do.  There's a wonderful little glee called "Hoyda,
Jolly Rutterkin" that once appeared on a NY Pro Musica lp, the relevant
verse beginning "Rutterkin does not speak English," and the whole text done
in a "comic" dialect, supposedly the sound of Netherlanders trying to speak
English.  John Skelton has a Rutterkin as well, set in Vaughan Williams's
spiffy oratorio "Five Tudor Portraits."

Of course, this is a huge libel on the Dutch.  I've found that most of the
native Dutch speakers I've met sound like Americans (ie, have no accent at
all).

Steve Schwartz, who wishes he could live in Amsterdam