--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anonymousff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "L B Shriver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > ******** > > > > According to Dr Kissinger, POWER is the greatest aphrodisiac. > > > > L B S > > >
> Add to it a German accent that's pure affectation. Henry's brother > has no accent. I know a guy who went from talking like a Damned > Yankee to a Texan in just a few years but Henry hasn't learned to talk > like a Georgetown resident in 70 years. > ********************************* Henry Kissinger was born in Germany in 1923 and only learned English when he moved to New York in 1938 [ http://partners.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/isaacson- kissinger.html ]. Numerous studies have persuaded linguistic researchers that acquisition of a second language after the age of 15 means that one is unlikely to acquire mastery (especially in terms of pronunciation -- the brain has less flexibility after the age of 15), although there are certainly individual variations: http://tinyurl.com/a322s "learning before the age of 7 yields perfect command learning between the ages of 8 and 15 yields progressively less perfect command learning at a greater age includes no advantage for relative youth" I don't know how old Walter Kissinger was when he landed in New York with Henry, but if he was even a little younger, that would explain his superior command of English pronunciation. If Walter was older than Henry, then it's just a matter of individual variation -- everybody, not just linguistic professionals, has met people who have never lost their home country accent, so it strains credulity to say that Henry would have wasted his name affecting an accent for all these years, when a more reasonable explanation is just that he was too old to acquire the pronunciation pattern of a native speaker of American English. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Dying to be thin? Anorexia. Narrated by Julianne Moore. http://us.click.yahoo.com/abEMxA/sbOLAA/d1hLAA/0NYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
