Liberian English

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Liberian English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Liberia. Four such varieties exist:

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Prior to the twenty-first century, Liberians referred to all these varieties simply as "English." In the present century, however, the term "Kolokwa" (from the English word "colloquial") has become widely used.

The sound system of English in Liberia

The vowel system is distinct from that found in other West African variants; Standard Liberian English distinguishes [i] from [ɪ], and [u] from [ʊ], and uses the diphthongs [aɪ], [aʊ], and [əɪ]. Vowels can be nasalized. The final vowel of happy is [ɛ]. It favors open syllables, usually omitting syllable-final [t], [d], or a fricative. The interdental fricatives [θ,ð] appear as [t,d] in syllable-initial position (such as thing and this having respective pronunciations of ting and dis), and as [f,v] finally. The glottal fricative [h] is preserved, as is the voiceless labio-velar fricative [ʍ] (in such words as whit and which in contrast to voiced [w] in wit and wish). Except in word-initial position, affricates have lost their stop component, thus [tʃ] > [ʃ]. The liquid [r] is not pronounced at the end of a word or before a consonant, making Standard Liberian English a non-rhotic dialect. [2]

Additionally, English in Liberia includes particles that occur at the end of a clause that amplify the purpose of the clause, [3] The most commonly occurring particle is o, which is a feature generally of Kru and Kwa languages but shows up in other neighboring Niger-Congo languages as well as in West African varieties of English more generally, including pidgins and creoles. In Liberian English (and in the other languages of the region), o emphasizes that a proposition is of current relevance to the speaker and hearer. Beyond its use to mark emphasis, o frequently occurs to correct a hearer's mistaken assumption or to indicate what will happen next. [4]

Kru Pidgin English

Kru Pidgin English is a moribund variety that was spoken by Krumen. These were individuals, most often from the Klao Bassa people and Grebo ethnic groups, who worked as sailors on ships along the West African coast and also as migrant workers and domestics in such British colonies as the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Nigeria. The Krumen tradition dates back to the end of the eighteenth century. With the end of the British colonial presence in West Africa in the mid-twentieth century, however, the tradition came to an end, and with it the ongoing use of Kru Pidgin English. [5]

Kru Pidgin English is quite distinct from other forms of English in Liberia and has numerous unique traits. Plural marking, for instance, is done solely by the suffixal -z, while other variants will also integrate a postponed den as another plural marking form. Another feature of Kru Pidgin English, perhaps one of the most distinct, is the lack of tense-marking that even often extends to copulas in many cases. An example of the lack of tense marking is "he feel hot" instead of "he had felt hot." When it comes to other markers, Kru Pidgin English almost exclusively has de to mark aspect, such as in the statement "we de go na" in the place of "we had gone to." [1]

Kolokwa

Prior to the twenty-first century, Liberians used the term "English" for all Liberian varieties with an English lexicon. However, linguists used the term "Vernacular Liberian English" for the variety that was generally spoken. Now Kolokwa has become the general term for this variety. Kolokwa developed from the West African Pidgin English spoken all along the West African coast. It has been significantly influenced by Liberian Settler English, the variety that African American immigrants brought to Liberia in the nineteenth century and is spoken today by the immigrants' descendants. Kolokwa phonology owes much to the Niger-Congo languages, especially those spoken along the coast, primarily such Kru languages as Bassa and Klao but also the Mande language Vai. Kolokwa has been analysed as being a post-creole continuum. As such, the term "Kolokwa" covers a range of ways of speaking, from quite distinct from International English to much closer to it. [1]

Role of English in Liberia

From its emergence at the beginning of the 18th century, a primary motivator for using an English-lexifier variety was its use in maritime trade. Once the Settlers arrived and asserted political dominance, English/Kolokwa attained a central role in the governance of the country and provided Liberians who did not share a Niger-Congo language with a medium for interaction. The widespread displacement of Liberians during the civil war increased the probability that individual Liberians needed to interact with other Liberians with whom they had no other language in common. Thus, the civil war can be seen to have promoted the use of English/Kolokwa.

English has historically been central to the overall development of the country. When the Settler governments prevailed, the Department of Education adopted a policy to provide education in English. This policy was not unpopular. People wanted their children to acquire English in order to have access to the economic benefits associated with it. One adverse effect of the English-only policy was that knowledge of local languages was not prized. Individuals were assessed strictly on their ability to speak English.

A 1999 study found that of Liberian immigrants across the United States, nearly 73 percent spoke English at home, and many children did not speak any other language. [6] There are a few reasons attributed to this trend. Two main reasons are intertribal marriages inspiring people across tribes to have a common way to communicate and parents wanting their children to be proficient in English, especially those parents who are educated themselves. There are currently some pushing for native languages to be taught in schools as a way to preserve the culture, but these tribes do continue to have their own impact on how English is spoken across the country.

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In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majority of consonants are oral consonants. Examples of nasals in English are, and, in words such as nose, bring and mouth. Nasal occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds of nasal consonants in some languages.

In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩ in the Latin script and ⟨Р⟩, ⟨p⟩ in the Cyrillic script. They are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by upper- or lower-case variants of Roman ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩: ⟨r⟩, ⟨ɾ⟩, ⟨ɹ⟩, ⟨ɻ⟩, ⟨ʀ⟩, ⟨ʁ⟩, ⟨ɽ⟩, and ⟨ɺ⟩. Transcriptions for vocalic or semivocalic realisations of underlying rhotics include the ⟨ə̯⟩ and ⟨ɐ̯⟩.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kru languages</span> Language family of Liberia and Ivory Coast

The Kru languages are spoken by the Kru people from the southeast of Liberia to the west of Ivory Coast.

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Papiamento or Papiamentu is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the ABC islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kru people</span> Ethnic group in West Africa

The Kru, Krao, Kroo, or Krou are a West African ethnic group who are indigenous to western Ivory Coast and eastern Liberia. European and American writers often called Kru men who enlisted as sailors or mariners Krumen. They migrated and settled along various points of the West African coast, notably Freetown, Sierra Leone, but also the Ivorian and Nigerian coasts. The Kru-speaking people are a large ethnic group that is made up of several sub-ethnic groups in Liberia and Ivory Coast. In Liberia, there are 48 sub-sections of Kru tribes, including the Jlao Kru. These tribes include Bété, Bassa, Krumen, Guéré, Grebo, Klao/Krao, Dida, Krahn people and Jabo people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antillean Creole</span> French-based creole of the Antilles

Antillean Creole is a French-based creole that is primarily spoken in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary include elements of French, Carib, English, and African languages.

Liberian Kreyol is an Atlantic English-based creole language spoken in Liberia. It was spoken by 1,500,000 people as a second language at the 1984 census which accounted for about 70% of the population at the time. It is historically and linguistically related to Merico, a creole spoken in Liberia, but it is grammatically distinct from it. There are regional dialects such as the Kru and Kpelleh kolokwa English used by the Kru fishermen.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krio language</span> English-based creole spoken in Sierra Leone

The Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an English-based creole language that is the lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population, and it unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other. Krio is the primary language of communication among Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad, and has also heavily influenced Sierra Leonean English. The language is native to the Sierra Leone Creole people, or Krios, a community of about 104,311 descendants of freed slaves from the West Indies, Canada, United States and the British Empire, and is spoken as a second language by millions of other Sierra Leoneans belonging to the country's indigenous tribes. Krio, along with English, is the official language of Sierra Leone.

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

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krumen people</span> Ethnic group of coastal Liberia and Côte divoire

The term Krumen refers to historical sailors from the Kru people group living mostly along the coast of Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire. One theory, advanced in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, was that the term Kru or Krumen derived from Klao, which is the name of the Kru in their language. Their numbers were estimated to be 48,300 in 1993, of whom 28,300 were in Côte d’Ivoire. They are a subgroup of the Grebo and speak the Krumen language.

West African Pidgin English, also known as Guinea Coast Creole English, is a West African pidgin language lexified by English and local African languages. It originated as a language of commerce between British and African slave traders during the period of the transatlantic slave trade. As of 2017, about 75 million people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea used the language.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klao language</span> Kru language spoken in Liberia

Klao, or Kru, is a Kru language of the Niger–Congo language family, spoken primarily in Liberia, with some speakers also in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Guinea. It uses SVO word order for main clauses and SOV for embedded clauses. A Klao translation of the Bible by missionary Nancy Lightfoot was released in 2000. The language has Western, West Central, Central, and Eastern dialects.

Krumen is a dialect continuum spoken by the Krumen people of Liberia and Ivory Coast. It is a branch of the Grebo languages, a subfamily of the Kru languages and ultimately of the Niger–Congo languages. It had 48,300 speakers in 1993. The main varieties are:

Grebo is a Kru language of Liberia. All of the Grebo languages are referred to as Grebo, though in Ivory Coast, Krumen is the usual name. The Grebo people live in the extreme south-west of Liberia, both on the coast and inland, between the rivers Cavally and Cess.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghanaian Pidgin English</span> Pidgin language

Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhaPE) is a Ghanaian English-lexifier pidgin also known as Pidgin, Broken English, and Kru English. GhaPE is a regional variety of West African Pidgin English spoken in Ghana, predominantly in the southern capital, Accra, and surrounding towns. It is confined to a smaller section of society than other West African creoles, and is more stigmatized, perhaps due to the importance of Twi, an Akan dialect, often spoken as lingua franca. Other languages spoken as lingua franca in Ghana are Standard Ghanaian English (SGE) and Akan. GhaPE cannot be considered a creole as it has no L1 speakers.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Singler 1997.
  2. ↑ Brinton, Laurel J.; Arnovick, Leslie K. (2006). The English language: A linguistic history. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-542205-4.
  3. ↑ Doucleff, Michaeleen (November 7, 2014). "From 'Big Jues' To 'Tay-Tay Water,' A Quick Guide To Liberian English". NPR.
  4. ↑ Singler, John Victor (1988). "The story of o". Studies in Language. 12 (1): 123–124. doi:10.1075/sl.12.1.06sin.
  5. ↑ Singler 1997, pp. 208–209.
  6. ↑ Ngovo, Bernard L. (1999). "The dominance of English among Liberian children". English Today. 15 (4): 44–48. doi:10.1017/S0266078400011263.

Bibliography

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