Caribbean English

Last updated

Caribbean English
Region Commonwealth Caribbean
Native speakers
1,824,960 (200121) [1] [note 1]
L2: 540,200 (200320) [1] [note 2]
Early forms
Standard forms
  • Caribbean Standard English [2]
Dialects
Latin (English alphabet)
Official status
Official language in
Commonwealth Caribbean [1]
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-3
IETF en-029
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Caribbean English (CE, CarE) is a set of dialects of the English language which are spoken in the Caribbean and most countries on the Caribbean coasts of Central America and South America. Caribbean English is influenced by but is distinct to the English-based creole languages spoken in the region. Though dialects of Caribbean English vary structurally and phonetically across the region, all are primarily derived from British English and West African languages. In countries with a plurality Indian population, such as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, Caribbean English has further been influenced by Hindustani and other South Asian languages. [3] [4] [5] [note 3]

Contents

Overview

However, the English that is used in the media, education, and business and in formal or semi-formal discourse approaches the internationally understood variety of Standard English (British English in all former and present British territories and American English in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) but with an Afro-Caribbean cadence (Spanish cadence in Puerto Rico and the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina).

Dialects

The first-order dialects deemed constituent of Caribbean English vary within scholarly literature.[ citation needed ] For instance, the Oxford English Dictionary includes only 'the forms of English as spoken in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Belize, the Bahamas and Barbados, as well as in some of the smaller Eastern Caribbean nations' in deriving its phonetic transcriptions. [6] The Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage further includes the dialects of Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, and the Turks and Caicos. [7]

Caribbean English-based creole languages are commonly (in popular literature) or sometimes (in scholarly literature) considered dialects of Caribbean English.[ citation needed ] [note 4]

History

The development of Caribbean English is dated to the West Indian exploits of Elizabethan sea dogs, which are credited with introducing to England names for new-found flora and fauna via, for instance, Hakluyt's Principall Navigations of 1589 and Raleigh's Discoverie of the Empyre of Guiana of 1596. [8] As English settlements followed shortly thereafter, Caribbean English has been deemed 'the oldest exportation of that language from its British homeland.' [9]

Two sorts of anglophone immigrants to the seventeenth-century West Indies have been described in literature – the first, consisting of indentured servants and settlers mainly from southwestern England, predominantly speaking non-standard vernaculars of English; the second, consisting of colonial administrators, missionaries, and educators, predominantly speaking more standard forms of the language. [10] The former, along with African slaves, are credited with the development and spread of [non-standard-] English-derived creole languages, while the latter are noted as frequent sources of derision of such speech. [10]

Features

Caribbean English accents and pronunciation are variable within and across sub-dialects. For instance, Barbadian English is fully rhotic, while Jamaican English is not. [11] Further, within Jamaican English, h-dropping is common in some social classes, but uncommon in others. [12] Additionally, in territories with English-derived creole languages, the phonetic distinction between English and creole is thought to be continuous rather than discrete, with the creole acrolect differing 'only trivially' from English. [13] [note 5]

Nevertheless, there is thought to be 'a general sense in which a "West Indian accent" is distinguishable as such anywhere in the world.' [14] Likely reasons for this have been described as 'the general quality of CE [Caribbean English] vowels, the sharp reduction in the number of diphthongal glides and, the most distinguishing feature of all, the phrasal intonation [and] separation of syllabic pitch and stress in CE.' [14] Broadly, the middle-register of Caribbean English is thought to contain eight fewer phonemes than Received Pronunciation. [15] [note 6]

The lexicon of Caribbean English varies, to an extent, across and within sub-dialects. [16] '[T]he bulk of the vocabulary,' however, has been described as 'identical' across the region. [17] Additionally, in territories with English-derived creole languages, the lexical distinction between English and creole is thought to be continuous rather than discrete, such that 'structurally it is impossible to draw exact lines between them.' [17]

Tables

Sample of phonetic features distinctive of lower-to-upper-register Caribbean English as used in at least some territories.
FeatureGlossNotes
th-stopping /θ/ pronounced as /t/ (e.g. /tiŋk/ (think) or /tri/ (three)); /ð/ pronounced as /d/ (e.g. in /dɪs/ (this) or /dæt/ (that))varies by class; cf [18] [19] [15] [20]
h-dropping Initial /h/ deleted (e.g. /æpi/ (happy) or /aʊs/ (house))varies by class; may vary within CarE; cf [18] [12] [21]
consonant cluster reduction Consonant clusters are simplified, namely in the coda (e.g. /bɛst/ > /bɛs/ (best), /ɹɪ.spɛkt/ > /ɹɪ.spɛk/ (respect), or /lænd/ > /læn/ (land))varies by class; cf [18] [22] [23]
rhoticity <Vr> is pronounced using /ɹ/ (e.g. /ɑɹd/ (hard) or /kɔɹn/ (corn))varies within CarE; cf [18] [24] [25] [6]
unreduced vowel in weak syllables vowels in unstressed syllables not reduced e.g. /a/ in about or bacon, or e.g. /of/ in lot of work or /a/ in in a few daysmay vary by class; cf [18] [26] [27]
FACE vowelidiosyncratic phoneme e.g. in game, tray, plain, greatvaries by class; cf [18] [28]
GOAT vowelidiosyncratic phoneme e.g. in home, show, boat, toevaries by class; cf [18] [28]
L consonantidiosyncratic /l/ phoneme e.g. in milkcf [29]
W consonantidiosyncratic /w/ phoneme e.g. in week or wetcf [29]
glide cluster reduction /h/ in /wh/ not pronounced e.g. in whinemay vary by class; cf [11] [25]
stress shift idiosyncratic prosody of words e.g. in rea-LISE, ce-le-BRATE, a-gri-CUL-turecf [30] [31]
fronting idiosyncratic prosody of phrases e.g. in is BORROW she borrow itcf [32]
Sample of grammatical features distinctive of lower-to-upper-register Caribbean English as used in at least some territories.
FeatureGlossNotes
zero indefinite article indefinite articles [occasionally] omitted e.g. in in _ couple of dayscf [33]
zero past tense markerverbs left unmarked for tense e.g. in I work_ a few monthscf [33] [34]
zero plural markernouns left unmarked for plurality e.g. in my relative_ werecf [33]
functional shift part-of-speech and sense of words shifted e.g. noun to verb shift of rice in to rice somebodycf [35]
zero subject–verb inversion subject-verb order not inverted in questions e.g. in You going back?cf [32]
reduplication emphatic repetition of words or phrases e.g. in fool-fool, big big bigcf [32]
Lexical sets of upper-register Caribbean English as used in select territories. [36] [note 7]
SetCarEBrEAmENotes
kitɪ
dressɛ
trapa
bathɑː + aæ
lotɑɒ
clothɔːɒɔ + ɑ
strutʌə
footʊ
fleecei
gooseu
palmɑːɑ
start / aːrɑːɑr
nurseɜː / ɜːrəːər
north / oːrɔːɔr
force / oːrɔːɔr
thoughtɔː + ɔːɔ + ɑ
near / eː rɪəɪr / ɪər
square / eː rɛːɛr / ɛər
cure / oːrʊə + ɔːʊr / ʊər
face
prideaiʌɪ
voiceɔi + aiɔɪɔɪ
mouth + ɔʊ
goatəʊ
happyi
letteraəər
rabbitɪ
addedɪə
beautifulʊə
pianoiɪ
agoaəə
becauseiə + i
Consonant phonemes of upper-register Caribbean English as used in select territories. [37] [note 8]
UnitCarEBrEAmENotes
b×××
d×××
×××
ð××
f×××
g×××
h×××
j×××
k×××
l×××
m×××
n×××
ŋ×××
p×××
r×××
s×××
ʃ×××
t×××
×××
θ××
v×××
w×××
z×××
ʒ×××
x××
ɬ×

Standardisation

The standardisation of Caribbean English is thought to have begun upon the advent of government-funded public education in the West Indies in 1833. [38] Notably, the earliest public teachers, credited with first developing Standard Caribbean English, had been 'imported direct from Britain, or recruited from among the "coloured" class on the islands who had benefited from their mixed parentage by receiving the rudiments of education.' [38] Linguistically, however, the growth of public education in said standard register resulted in 'a practical bilingualism' that has been described as a typical example of diglossia. [39] By the late twentieth century, as most territories transitioned to sovereignty and adopted English as their official language, 'efforts were made to define norms for Caribbean English usage in public, formal domains, and more specifically examination settings.' [40] These are thought to have culminated in the 1996 publication of the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, commonly deemed the authority on Standard Caribbean English, with the former defining the latter as 'the total body of regional lexicon and usage bound to a common core of syntax and morphology shared with [non-Caribbean forms of standardised English], but aurally distinguished as a discrete type by certain phonological features.' [41] [42] [note 9]

Study

The earliest scholarly dictionary of Caribbean English is thought to have been the 1967 Dictionary of Jamaican English . [43] During Easter of that same year, the Caribbean Association of Headmasters and Headmistresses resolved –

Be it resolved that this Association request the appropriate department of the University of the West Indies to compile a list of lexical items in each territory and to circulate these to schools for the guidance of teachers.

Resolution 6 of the CAHH Conference of Easter 1967. [44]

Said resolution was promptly forwarded to Richard Allsopp, who by mid-1967 'already had some ten shoe-boxes each of about 1,000 6 × 4 cards and many loose unfiled cuttings, notes and other material [from Guyana, the Lesser Antilles, Belize, Jamaica, and Trinidad].' [45] In 1971, Allsopp introduced the Caribbean Lexicography Project as 'a survey of [English] usage in the intermediate and upper ranges of the West Indian speech continuum.' [45] [46] This set the stage for the seminal Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, first published 1996. [47] [note 10]

Samples

Standard English: Where is that boy? /hwɛərɪzðætbɔɪ/

The written form of the English language in the former and current British-controlled Caribbean countries conforms to the spelling and the grammar styles of Britain and in Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands conforms to the spelling and the grammar styles of United States.

See also

Notes and references

Explanatory footnotes

  1. Including only seventeen countries and territories listed in Allsopp 2003, pp. xii–xvi, ie Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, British and US Virgin Islands.
  2. Including only seventeen countries and territories listed in Allsopp 2003, pp. xii–xvi, ie Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, British and US Virgin Islands. L2 data missing for some countries or territories in Eberhard, Simons & Fennig 2022, digest on English.
  3. The CE abbreviation is used in Allsopp 2003, p. lxx.
  4. For instance, the first sentence in Robinson 2007 describes the ensuing content as including information 'about the history of English in the Caribbean,' but then goes on to only cover the history of English-based creole languages. Further, Allsopp 2003, pp. xxvi–xxvii include creole entries in their dictionary, noting the frequent inclusion of creole words, phrases, and dialogue in English literature of the region, and further stating that 'creole dialects are a pan-Caribbean reality which no professional lexicography, whatever be its mandate, can simply ignore.' Additionally, OED 2022, model for CarE included aspects of various creoles in its production of a pronunciation key and model for Caribbean English.
  5. The OED 2022, model for CarE recently noted –
    Of all [sixteen] World English varieties currently addressed by the OED, delineating a ‘Caribbean English’ provides the greatest challenge [as t]here is vast phonetic and phonological diversity across this region[.]
  6. That is, ten, four, and twenty-one vowels, glides, and consonants, respectively, compared to eleven, eight, and twenty-four in Received Pronunciation as represented in Gimson 1980 (Allsopp 2003, p. xlvi).
  7. Note BrE, AmE stand for British English, American English. Phonemes with CarE–BrE or CarE–AmE differences are recorded in red. In columns BrE, AmE, en dashes (–) stand for phoneme is the same as that in CarE. In the Notes column, en dashes represent missing or null values. CarE dialects sampled for these data were those of the Bahamas, Guyana, Jamaica (OED 2022, model for CarE). Additionally, English creoles of Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago were sampled (OED 2022, model for CarE). CarE dialects or English creoles of Barbados, Belize, and the Lesser Antilles may have been, to a lesser extent, sampled (OED 2022, model for CarE).
  8. Note BrE, AmE stand for British English, American English. Phonemes with CarE–BrE or CarE–AmE differences are recorded in red. In columns CarE, BrE, AmE, multiplicaiton signs (×) stand for phoneme is present while en dashes (–) stand for phoneme is absent. In the Notes column, en dashes represent missing or null values. CarE dialects sampled for these data were those of the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and some of the Lesser Antilles (OED 2022, key for CarE).
  9. Though Allsopp 2003, p. lv first glosses Caribbean Standard English as the 'conglomerate of [the] several Standard Englishes [of] the nations and states of the former British West Indian colonies.'
  10. Allsopp 2003, p. xxxi likens the publication to that of Webster's in 1828, the Dictionary of Canadian English in 1967, and the Australian National Dictionary in 1988.

Short citations

  1. 1 2 3 Eberhard, Simons & Fennig 2022, digest on English.
  2. Allsopp 2003, pp. liv–lvi.
  3. Mahabir 1999, p. ???.
  4. Holbrook & Holbrook 2001, p. ???.
  5. SC nd, ???.
  6. 1 2 OED 2022, key for CarE.
  7. Allsopp 2003, pp. xii–xvi.
  8. Allsopp 2003, p. xl.
  9. Allsopp 2003, pp. xl–xli.
  10. 1 2 Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, pp. 86–88.
  11. 1 2 Wells 1982, p. 570.
  12. 1 2 Wells 1982, pp. 568–569.
  13. Wells 1982, p. 564.
  14. 1 2 Allsopp 2003, p. xliv.
  15. 1 2 Allsopp 2003, pp. xlv–xlvi.
  16. Allsopp 2003, pp. li–lii.
  17. 1 2 Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, p. 92.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Robinson 2007, sec. 'Caribbean English phonology'.
  19. Wells 1982, pp. 565–566.
  20. OED 2022, key to CarE.
  21. Allsopp 2003, p. xlvii.
  22. Wells 1982, pp. 566–567.
  23. Allsopp 2003, pp. xlvi–xlvii.
  24. Wells 1982, pp. 570–572.
  25. 1 2 Allsopp 2003, p. xlvi.
  26. Wells 1982, pp. 570–571.
  27. Allsopp 2003, p. xlv.
  28. 1 2 Wells 1982, p. 571.
  29. 1 2 Wells 1982, pp. 569–570.
  30. Wells 1982, pp. 572–573.
  31. Allsopp 2003, pp. xliv–xlv.
  32. 1 2 3 Allsopp 2003, p. xlix.
  33. 1 2 3 Robinson 2007, sec. 'Caribbean English grammar'.
  34. Allsopp 2003, pp. xlvii–xlix.
  35. Allsopp 2003, pp. xlvii–xlviii.
  36. OED 2022, models for CarE, BrE, AmE.
  37. OED 2022, keys for CarE, BrE, AmE.
  38. 1 2 Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, p. 88.
  39. Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, p. 89.
  40. Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, p. 90.
  41. Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, pp. 90–91.
  42. Allsopp 2003, p. lvi.
  43. Allsopp 2003, p. xx.
  44. Allsopp 2003, pp. xx–xxi.
  45. 1 2 Allsopp 2003, p. xxi.
  46. Ammon et al. 2006, p. 2088.
  47. Allsopp 2003, pp. catalogue page, xxii.

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Virgin Islands Creole, or Virgin Islands Creole English, is an English-based creole consisting of several varieties spoken in the Virgin Islands and the nearby SSS islands of Saba, Saint Martin and Sint Eustatius, where it is known as Saban English, Saint Martin English, and Statian English, respectively.

Guyanese English Creole is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century English and has loan words from West African, Indian-South Asian, Arawakan, and older Dutch languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belizean Creole</span> English-based creole language

Belizean Creole is an English-based creole language spoken by the Belizean Creole people. It is closely related to Miskito Coastal Creole, San Andrés-Providencia Creole, and Jamaican Patois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caribbean Hindustani</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Caribbean

Caribbean Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbeans and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. It is a koiné language mainly based on the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialects. These Hindustani dialects were the most spoken dialects by the Indians who came as immigrants to the Caribbean from India as indentured laborers. It is closely related to Fiji Hindi and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius and South Africa.

Bahamian Creole, also described as the Bahamian dialect, is spoken by both white and black Bahamians, although in slightly different forms. Bahamian dialect also tends to be more prevalent in certain areas of the Bahamas. Islands that were settled earlier or that have a historically large Afro-Bahamian population have a greater concentration of individuals exhibiting creolized speech; the dialect is most prevalent in urban areas. Individual speakers have command of lesser and greater dialect forms.

The languages of North America reflect not only that continent's indigenous peoples, but the European colonization as well. The most widely spoken languages in North America are English, Spanish, and to a lesser extent French, and especially in the Caribbean, creole languages lexified by them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caribbean</span> Region to the east of Central America

The Caribbean or West Indies is a subregion of the Americas that includes the Caribbean Sea and its islands, some of which are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some of which border both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean; the nearby coastal areas on the mainland are often also included in the region. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.

Belizean English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Belize and by members of the Belizean diaspora.

The term Caribbean culture summarizes the artistic, musical, literary, culinary, political and social elements that are representative of Caribbean people all over the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of the Caribbean</span> Languages of the region

The languages of the Caribbean reflect the region's diverse history and culture. There are six official languages spoken in the Caribbean:

The distinction between rhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in which varieties of the English language are classified. In rhotic accents, the sound of the historical English rhotic consonant,, is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, in isolation, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words hard and butter as /ˈhɑːrd/ and /ˈbʌtər/, but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the sound and pronounces them as /ˈhɑːd/ and /ˈbʌtə/. When an r is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "better apples," most non-rhotic speakers will pronounce the in that position since it is followed by a vowel in this case.