alternatehistory.com

I've never understood why Amerikaans became a separate language from Dutch. My girlfriend from New Amsterdam claims that she can understand Dutch without much difficulty, the only real difference being the conjugation system and some orthographic details. (And obviously the large number of Algonquian loanwords in Amerikaans.) If there was never a serious barrier to communication, it seems strange that Amerikaners split off and formed their own standard while English-speaking Americans remained... well... English-speaking. How could the Amerikaans-Dutch split have been prevented?
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