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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 some 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.

Overview

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• The daily-used English in the Caribbean has a different set of pronouns, typically me, meh or mi, you, yuh, he, she, it, we, wi or alawe, wunna or unu, and dem or day. Central Americans use I, mi, my, he, she, ih, it, we, wi or alawe, allayu or unu, and dem, den, deh.
• Consonant changes like h-dropping or th-stopping are common.
• Some might be "sing-songish" in Trinidad and the Bahamas.
• Rhotic: Bajan (Barbadian), Guyanese
• Influenced by Irish English: Jamaican, Bajan
• Influenced by any of the above, as well as Spanish and indigenous languages: Central American English dialects like the Belizean Creole (Kriol), or the Mískito Coastal Creole and Rama Cay Creole spoken in Nicaragua

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. 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. 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.

Caribbean English-based creole languages are commonly (in popular literature) or sometimes (in scholarly literature) considered dialects of Caribbean English.

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. As English settlements followed shortly thereafter, Caribbean English has been deemed 'the oldest exportation of that language from its British homeland.'

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. The former, along with African slaves, are credited with the development and spread of English-derived creole languages, while the latter are noted as frequent sources of derision of such speech.

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. Further, within Jamaican English, h-dropping is common in some social classes, but uncommon in others. 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.

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

The lexicon of Caribbean English varies, to an extent, across and within sub-dialects. 'he bulk of the vocabulary,' however, has been described as 'identical' across the region. 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.'

Tables

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. 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.' 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. 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.' 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 , but aurally distinguished as a discrete type by certain phonological features.'

Study

The earliest scholarly dictionary of Caribbean English is thought to have been the 1967 Dictionary of Jamaican English. 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.

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 .' In 1971, Allsopp introduced the Caribbean Lexicography Project as 'a survey of usage in the intermediate and upper ranges of the West Indian speech continuum.' This set the stage for the seminal Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, first published 1996.

Samples

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Standard English: 'Where is that boy?' /hwɛər ɪz ðæt bɔɪ/

• Barbados: 'Wherr dah boi?' (spoken very quickly, rhotic with glottal stops).
• San Andrés and Providencia: 'Weh dah boi deh?'
• Jamaica: 'Weh dah bwoy deh?' (sporadic rhoticity from Irish and Scottish influence); or 'Wey iz dat boi?' (non-rhotic and similar to the accents of southwestern England and Wales).
• Belize: 'Weh iz dat bwoy deh?' (British and North American influence but deeper in tone).
• Trinidad: 'Wey dat boy deh?'
• Bahamas: 'Wey dat boy iz?' (some would more likely say "bey" instead of "boy").
• Guyana and Tobago: 'Weyr iz daht boy/bai?' often in urban regions, or 'Wey dat boy dey?' in rural regions (many variations depending on region or descent of speaker, and competency in standard English; sporadic rhoticity).
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 'Wey dah boy deh deh?' (non-rhotic).
• Belize, Bluefields, Pearl Lagoon, Corn Islands, Bay Islands Department, Limón, Bocas del Toro Province, Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands and the Virgin Islands: 'Wehr iz daht booy?' (distinct, sporadic rhoticity, pronunciation becomes quite different from Creole pronunciation).
• Dominica: 'Weh dat boy (be) nuh?' (spoken harshly and with a deep tone).

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

• Anguillan Creole
• Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
• Bajan Creole
• Bajan English
• Bahamian Creole
• Bahamian English
• Bay Islands English
• Belizean Creole
• Belizean English
• Bermudian English
• Bocas del Toro Creole
• Cayman Islands English
• English-based creole languages
• Grenadian Creole English
• Guyanese Creole
• Jamaican English
• Jamaican Patois
• Limonese Creole
• Miskito Coast Creole
• Montserrat Creole
• Puerto Rican English
• Rama Cay Creole
• Regional accents of English speakers
• Saban English
• Saint Kitts Creole
• Samaná English
• San Andrés–Providencia Creole
• Tobagonian Creole
• Turks and Caicos Creole
• Trinidadian Creole
• Trinidadian and Tobagonian English
• Vincentian Creole
• Virgin Islands Creole
• American and British English spelling differences

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. Others may use it for Canadian English.
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 World English varieties currently addressed by the OED, delineating a ‘Caribbean English’ provides the greatest challenge 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 several Standard Englishes 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. ^ 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. ^ OED 2022, key for CarE.
7. Allsopp 2003, pp. xii–xvi.
8. Allsopp 2003, p. xl.
9. Allsopp 2003, pp. xl–xli.
10. ^ Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, pp. 86–88.
11. ^ Wells 1982, p. 570.
12. ^ Wells 1982, pp. 568–569.
13. Wells 1982, p. 564.
14. ^ Allsopp 2003, p. xliv.
15. ^ Allsopp 2003, pp. xlv–xlvi.
16. Allsopp 2003, pp. li–lii.
17. ^ Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2016, p. 92.
18. ^ 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. ^ Allsopp 2003, p. xlvi.
26. Wells 1982, pp. 570–571.
27. Allsopp 2003, p. xlv.
28. ^ Wells 1982, p. 571.
29. ^ Wells 1982, pp. 569–570.
30. Wells 1982, pp. 572–573.
31. Allsopp 2003, pp. xliv–xlv.
32. ^ Allsopp 2003, p. xlix.
33. ^ 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. ^ 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. ^ Allsopp 2003, p. xxi.
46. Ammon et al. 2006, p. 2088.
47. Allsopp 2003, pp. catalogue page, xxii.

Full citations

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4. Allsopp, Jeannette; Furiassi, Cristiano (2020). "Caribbean English Phraseology in the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage: Reflections of an African Worldview". TEXTUS: English Studies in Italy. XXXIII (1): 107–125. hdl:2318/1742260.
5. Allsopp, Jeannette; Siegel, Jason F. (November 2016). "The work of the Caribbean Lexicographic Center: Past, present and future". 40 (suppl. 1): 15–22. doi:10.15517/rk.v40i3.28590. S2CID 164845876. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
6. Allsopp, Richard, ed. (2003). Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 9789766401450. ProQuest 2352573179.
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8. Ammon, Ulrich; Dittmar, Norbert; Mattheier, Klaus J.; Trudgill, Peter, eds. (2006). Sociolinguistics : An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Sciences ; 3.3. Vol. 3 (2nd completely revised and extended ed.). Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110184181.3. ISBN 9783110199871. OCLC 174262379.
9. Blench, Roger (15 March 2013). A Dictionary of Belize English. Draft circulated for comment. Archived from the original on 29 January 2022.
10. Brunn, Stanley D.; Kehrein, Roland, eds. (2020). Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-02438-3. ISBN 9783030024383.
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12. Collins, Peter, ed. (2015). Grammatical change in English world-wide. Studies in Corpus Linguistics; v. 67. Vol. 67. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co. doi:10.1075/scl.67. ISBN 9789027268907.
13. Deuber, Dagmar; Hackert, Stephanie; Hänsel, Eva Canan; Laube, Alexander; Hejrani, Mahyar; Laliberté, Catherine (1 August 2022). "The Norm Orientation of English in the Caribbean: A Study of Newspaper Writing from Ten Countries". American Speech. 97 (3): 265–310. doi:10.1215/00031283-8791736. S2CID 233704226.
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External links

• Linguistic map of Caribbean English dialects from Muturzikin.com
• Cross-Referencing West Indian Dictionary
• Bajan (Barbadian) dialect in NYC at the Wayback Machine (archived July 9, 2011)

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15°11′14″N 75°10′31″W / 15.187142636713544°N 75.17538720089601°W / 15.187142636713544; -75.17538720089601

• Caribbean English