IF IT weren’t for the fact that the R starts so far back in the American oral cavity, and that the L makes a detour along their palate. Moreover, the tip of their tongue does something to the TH, and they don’t have a Dutch G. But otherwise American English would have sounded pretty much like Dutch.
You can easily see how it started, with ‘naval’ words. Dutch water in English is also water, dam is dam and land is land. Zee is sea, pomp is pump, gras is grass, zand is sand and boot is boat. Schipper returns in English as skipper, the kiel of a ship is called keel, therefore kielhalen automatically became keelhauling. Dek is deck, cruising was originally kruisen, a sloop is what the Dutch have been calling a sloep for centuries, and for those who get thirsty there is gin, derived from the “jen-” in jenever. Brandy is short for brandewijn.
From there it expanded rapidly: Konijnen Eiland just outside Manhattan became Coney Island, hunkering became hankering, landschap landscape, and a jacht became a yacht. Grandma’s koolsla became coleslaw, wagen a wagon, and tulp – which the Dutch often pronounce with two syllables: tullup – became tulip.
ENGLISH IN America is often plain Dutch with a heavy accent: from boss (baas) to bush (bos), from cashier (kassier) to cookie (koekje), dock (dok) to decoy (de kooi), freight (vracht), grab (grijp), golf (kolf), pickle (pekel) and pinkie (pink). From luck (geluk) to leak (lek), etch (ets) to sketch (schets), cow (koe) to puss (poes). And don’t forget the daalder.
Because even the Yankee dollar is simply Dutch.
