I have just finished the popular survey of trade in the seventeenth century, particularly trade between Holland and China, in the book "Vermeer's Hat." The title refers to a hat in Vermeer's painting "The Laughing Girl." If you know Dutch, can you tell me whether the Dutch language follows the German pronunciation of initial "v" as "w"? How would one write Vermeer's name phonetically in Dutch? Just curious. Many thanks John Robin Allen Priddis, Alberta [log in to unmask] *********************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning Technology (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) ***********************************************