Welke Taal Spreek Je?..deel 2

Three times a week I subject myself to a trip to the bakkers. The Belgians love their bakers. Within 5 minutes walk of our appartment you will find 5 bakkers and on a sunday morning you will usually find people queueing outside, such is the popularity of the pistolet, an airy, slightly crusty bread roll. I tend to use the same 2 bakkers based on the mistaken idea that repeated visits would gradually make me less like a mental alien with a speech impediment and more like a normal regular customer. I was fully aware that this would take a bit of time, but 2 years later it's beginning to wear a bit thin.
Maybe they just like to hear me say "abdij".
Anyone who read abdij as abdidge would be wrong. The letters ij are used a hell of a lot in Dutch and are in fact pronounced as "ay" or as near as dammit. Personally I'm all for using the less popular letters from the alphabet for some words but please, abday works just as well.
This particular bakker has a seemingly endless line of staff out at the back of the shop and everytime I visit, a new one gets pushed out to serve me with the rest sniggering behind the door. Last sunday I had a bigger than usual order. I asked for abdij brood, the words left my mouth as abdij brood but somewhere in the ether between my mouth and the shop assisitant's ears it turned into gibberish. I'm aware that I speak Dutch with a Cockney accent (Cockney is a term used to describe a Londoner, but is particular to the East End), in fact I'm probably the only person in the world who speaks Dutchney, but why do my words sound so different? I'm possitive I say the word properly. It has 2 syllables and just 5 letters, what could go wrong?
After repeating the word three times and pointing at the bloody thing the penny finally dropped and the bread was cut and packed for me.
My next problem was that I wanted 2 croissants. Did I ask for the croissants in Dutchney or should I speak with a French accent? The English are pretty good at French accents. This could possibly have something to do with watching too many repeats of Peter Sellars in the Pink Panther movies over the years, or maybe William the Conqueror's visit in 1066 has something to do with it. Incidently, I was intrested to read recently that the Flemish played a big part in his army. Ironically they had the same problem trying to buy bread from the Anglo Saxons that I have today...
I settled for Dutchney, the shop was full and I was positive that every pair of eyes were burning into the back of my neck, their owners thinking,"who's the alien...?"