The English language has been present in the Caribbean since the beginning of British involvement with this part of the world at the beginning of the 17th century. It began on the small island of Barbados in the south-east but spread during the century to other parts of the Caribbean above all to Jamaica where English became established and developed into a creole within a few generations from an earlier pidgin (a makeshift language which arose between non-Europeans and their colonial masters in the context of slavery). The Caribbean retained its significance as a source of tobacco and sugar and was the transit area for the African slave trade, especially for those who were transported to the south-east of the later United States. Because of this, forms of Caribbean English are associated with African American English, especially with the Sea Island creole known as Gullah. Today English is found in many islands of the Caribbean from Trinidad and Tobago in the south to the Bahamas in the north. It is also spoken on the Caribbean rim, for instance on the Miskito Coast of Nicaragua and in Guyana and Suriname on the northern coast of South America. These forms of English, their history and their contemporary varieties, will be the topic of this seminar.
Recommended literature
Aceto, Michael and Jeffrey P. Williams (eds) 2003. Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Allsopp, Richard. 1996. A Dictionary of Caribbean English usage. Oxford: University Press.
Dalphinis, M. 1985. Caribbean and African languages. Social history, language, literature and education. London: Karia Press.
Görlach, Manfred and John Holm (eds) 1986. Focus on the Caribbean. Varieties of English around the World, General Series, Vol. 8. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Holm, John (ed.) 1983. Central American English. Varieties of English around the World, Text Series, Vol. 2. Heidelberg: Groos.
Le Page, Robert B. and Andrée Tabouret-Keller 1985. Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: University Press.
Mufwene, Salikoko S. (ed.) 1993. Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Athens/London: University of Georgia Press.
Patrick, Peter 1999. Urban Jamaican creole. Variation in the mesolect. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Roberts, Peter A. 1988. West Indians and their language. Cambridge: University Press.
Spears, A. K. and Donald Winford (eds) 1997. Pidgins and creoles. Structure and status. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Taylor, D. 1977. Languages of the West Indies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. |
