Islands in Between 2010 – Abstracts 1
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The Creole Origins Hypothesis
OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Tue Jan 20 2015, NEWGEN Chapter 2 The Creole Origins Hypothesis JOHN R. RICKFORD 2.1 Introduction In a rarely cited introduction1 to a reprint of his two classic creolist articles (Stewart 1967, 1968), Stewart (1970) noted that a “disagreement” had surfaced among participants at a Conference on Social Dialects and Language Learning held in Bloomington, Indiana, in summer 1964:2 Beryl L. Bailey and the author took the position that American Negro dialects prob- ably derived from a creolized form of English, once spoken on American plantations by Negro slaves and seemingly related to creolized forms of English which are still spoken by Negroes in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean. Bailey and the author held the opinion that, although most American Negro dialects have now merged enough with white speech to preclude their still being considered truly creole dialects, the apparent survival of some creole features in many of them was a likely explanation of their more unique (vis-à-vis white speech) structural characteristics. … [But] some of the participants had already come to a quite different set of conclusions.… In their view, there never was any pidgin or creole stage through which the English spoken by early American Negro slaves might have passed. Instead, the acquisition of colonial English by Negro slaves on the early North American plantations was believed to have been both rapid and successful, so that within one or two generations American Negro speech evidenced the same inventory of structural features as white speech. (1970, 352; emphasis added) This is probably the earliest documented evidence we have of a creolist/Anglicist con- troversy among linguists about the origins of African American Vernacular English (AAVE),3 with their respective positions summarized in the italicized parts of Stewart’s quotation. -
Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in Writing
Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in writing Bettina Migge & Susanne Mühleisen University College Dublin/University of Bayreuth In research on Creoles, historical written texts have in recent decades been fruitfully employed to shed light on the diachronic development of these languages and the nature of Creole genesis. They have so far been much less frequently used to derive social information about these communities and to improve our understanding of the sociolinguistics and stylistic structure of these languages. This paper surveys linguistic research on early written texts in the anglophone Caribbean and takes a critical look at the theories and methods employed to study these texts. It emphases the sociolinguistic value of the texts and provides some exemplary analyses of early Creole documents. 1. Introduction Research on Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles has made use of early textual docu- ments collected by missionaries (cf. for instance, Oldendorp 1996 [1767–1768], 2000 [1777]; cf. also Mühlhäusler 2001), planters (e.g. Leslie 1740; Lewis 1834; Long 1970 [1774]), travellers (e.g. Nugent 1907 [1802]; Sloane 1707) or fictional accounts by writ- ers (e.g. Scott 1833). Historical written texts continue to be an important source for shedding light on earlier stages of creolization (e.g. Arends 1995a, 1995b; Arends & Perl 1995; Baker & Bruyn 1999), the diachronic development of Creoles as well as on structural features and variation within a particular variety. The size of text cor- pora varies greatly within the Caribbean: while there is a very substantial collection of earlier texts on Sranan Tongo, Saamaka and Negerhollands (cf. Arends 2002: 50). Textual documentation of other early Caribbean Englishes and Creoles is less prolific and consists of diverse text types – from short quotations of speech contained within travel accounts of outsiders to whole texts written in Creole by insiders. -
12 English Dialect Input to the Caribbean
12 English dialect input to the Caribbean 1 Introduction There is no doubt that in the settlement of the Caribbean area by English speakers and in the rise of varieties of English there, the question of regional British input is of central importance (Rickford 1986; Harris 1986). But equally the two other sources of specific features in anglophone varieties there, early creolisation and independent developments, have been given continued attention by scholars. Opinions are still divided on the relative weight to be accorded to these sources. The purpose of the present chapter is not to offer a description of forms of English in the Caribbean – as this would lie outside the competence of the present author, see Holm (1994) for a resum´ e–b´ ut rather to present the arguments for regional British English input as the historical source of salient features of Caribbean formsofEnglish and consider these arguments in the light of recent research into both English in this region and historical varieties in the British Isles. This is done while explicitly acknowledging the role of West African input to forms of English in this region. This case has been argued eloquently and well, since at least Alleyne (1980) whose views are shared by many creolists, e.g. John Rickford. But the aim of the present volume, and specifically of the present chapter, is to consider overseas varieties of English in the light of possible continuity of input formsofEnglish from the British Isles. This concern does not seek to downplay West African input and general processes of creolisation, which of course need to be specified in detail,1 butrather tries to put the case for English input and so complement other views already available in the field. -
Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in Writing Bettina M Migge, Susanne Muehleisen
Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in Writing Bettina M Migge, Susanne Muehleisen, To cite this version: Bettina M Migge, Susanne Muehleisen,. Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in Writing. Hickey, Raymond. Varieties in writing: The written word as linguistic evidence, John Benjamins, pp.223-244, 2010. halshs-00674699 HAL Id: halshs-00674699 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00674699 Submitted on 28 Feb 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Earlier Caribbean English and Creole in writing Bettina Migge Susanne Mühleisen University College Dublin University of Bayreuth Abstract In research on Creoles, historical written texts have in recent decades been fruitfully employed to shed light on the diachronic development of these languages and the nature of Creole genesis. They have so far been much less frequently used to derive social information about these communities and to improve our understanding of the sociolinguistics and stylistic structure of these languages. This paper surveys linguistic research on early written texts in the anglophone Caribbean and takes a critical look at the theories and methods employed to study these texts. It emphases the sociolinguistic value of the texts and provides some exemplary analyses of early Creole documents. -
Identity Among Barbadian University Students and Their Attitudes to Migrant Labor
W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 4-2019 Identity Among Barbadian University Students and Their Attitudes to Migrant Labor Daniil Eliseev Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons Recommended Citation Eliseev, Daniil, "Identity Among Barbadian University Students and Their Attitudes to Migrant Labor" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1309. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1309 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LANGUAGE ATTITUDES, IDENTITY, AND MIGRATION 2 Abstract The social, political, and linguistic situations in Barbados specifically and the English- official West Indies generally are marked by the legacy of hundreds of years of colonial rule. Labor flows from poorer countries like Guyana to richer ones like Barbados calcify regional economic hierarchies that replaced regional colonial offices. Regional economic institutions like the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), as described by their Mission and Core Values, were created in part to “affirm the collective identity and facilitate social cohesion of the people of the Community” to enable the new intraregional, no longer colonial, market to take -
Textualevidenceonthena
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 9:2.221-255 (1994). OJohn Benjamins B.V., Amsterdam Not to be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. TEXTUALEVIDENCEONTHENATURE OF EARLY BARBADIAN SPEECH, 1676-1835 John R. Rickford and Jerome S. Handler Stanford University Southern I22inois University On the evidence of textual attestations from 1676-1835, early Barba- dian English is shown to have exhibited many more nonstandard features than is generally recognized. Such features, which are commonly, if not exclu- sively, found in pidgins and creoles, include vowel epenthesis, paragoge and initial s-deletion processes, creole tense-modality-aspect marking, copula absence, the use of invariant no as a preverbal negative and as an emphatic positive marker, the occurrence of one as indefinite article, and a variety of morphologically unmarked pronominal forms. The texts consist of samples of African and Afro-Barbadian speech from historical sources, including ones which linguists have not previously considered. The textual samples are examined century by century, accom- panied by a detailed account of the contemporary sociohistorical setting, and interpreted in terms of known and inferred Caribbean patterns of sociolinguistic variation, both in the present and in the past. It is concluded that while early Barbadian speech comprised a range of varieties, creole- like varieties were undoubtedly a part of that range. 1. Introduction How creole-like is present day Barbadian English? How creole-like was Barbadian speech in earlier times? Both issues have been a matter of contro- versy for over a dozen years, at least since Cassidy (1980:14) suggested that "present day Barbadian English preserves what can hardly be explained otherwise than as a creole residue," and Hancock (1980:22) countered with equal conviction that by 1700, "as now, it was a local metropolitan, rather than creolized, variety of English that was spoken by both Blacks and Whites on the Island." 222 JOHN R. -
Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42864-4 — the Creole Debate John H
Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42864-4 — The Creole Debate John H. McWhorter Index More Information Index Aboh, Enoch, 3–4, 8–9, 16, 25, 35, 69, cycle, 82 130–131, 144, 148 Feature Pool hypothesis and, 43–45, creoles as a product of competition 62, 144 and selection, 121–122 Angloromani, 53 creolization as second-language Ansaldo, Umberto, 8–9, 110, 113, 121, acquisition, 84 137, 143–144 criticism of the Creole conception of creoles, 3–4 Exceptionalism hypothesis, 110, creole analyticity, 123, 130, 148 119–121 Creole Exceptionalism hypothesis as discussion of elision in grammatical Eurocentricity, 105, 122–128 gender, 148 approximations of approximations, Feature Pool hypothesis, 39, 108, 49–51 110–111, 121 Arabic, 23, 40–41, 82 inflectional affixation, 111 Arabic-based creoles, 40–41, 60, 93 inflectional loss and syntax, 112–113 Aramaic, 145 intertwined language, 54 Asia Minor Greek, 124 OV order, 116 Australian Aboriginal languages, 44 response to the Palenquero Australian English, 61 Challenge, 113–115 Australian language groups, 82 Saramaccan derivation, 117–119 Austronesian, 108 second-language acquisition, 129 tone of writing, 137 Bajan creole, 58 Universal Grammar hypothesis, 140 Baker, Philip, 21, 49 verbal reduplication, 116–117 Bakker, Peter, 20, 31, 73, 92, 114–115, Aboriginal English creole varieties, 49 125, 134–137 Abun, 95 Balkan languages, 3, 131 African serial verbs, 44 Bambara, 100 African-American, 48, see also Bantu, 40, 42, 44–45, 53, 55, 82, 139 American Black English “analytic” indigenous, 46 Afrikaans, 106, 138 -
Tense, Aspect and Modality in Bastimentos
TENSE, ASPECT AND MODALITY IN BASTIMENTOS CREOLE ENGLISH A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2019 Heidi Reid School of Arts, Languages and Cultures 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Chapter one: Introduction ............................................................................................ 18 1.1 Aims and scope of this thesis ............................................................................... 18 1.2 Framework and general approach ........................................................................ 23 1.2.1 Tense, aspect, modality .................................................................................... 25 1.2.2 Grammaticalisation: Layering & bleaching ..................................................... 27 1.3 TMA markers in BCE .......................................................................................... 29 1.3.1 Position and syntactic distribution ................................................................... 30 1.3.2 TMA combinations .......................................................................................... 31 1.4 Outline of chapters ............................................................................................... 32 2 Chapter two: Creoles .................................................................................................... 34 2.1 A distinct linguistic group? .................................................................................. 34 2.2 The concept of -
PIECE of the ROCK: an INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY of BLACKS in BERMUDA by IYABO F. OSIAPEM (Under the Direction of Sonja L. Lanehart
PIECE OF THE ROCK: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF BLACKS IN BERMUDA by IYABO F. OSIAPEM (Under the Direction of Sonja L. Lanehart) ABSTRACT This dissertation is the collection of three articles that are the result of my experience with qualitative methodologies, descriptive linguistics, and Bermuda. There are many purposes for this research: (a) to explore aspects of the culture in which the 30 Black Bermudian participants selected for this study live; (b) to question and trouble sociolinguistic interview methodology, and (c) to describe Black Bermudian English (BBE) as used by the participants. In this dissertation, I explore what being Bermudian means to the 30 Black Bermudian participants by analyzing participants’ answers to the primary interview question “What does it mean to be Bermudian?” using grounded theory methodology. I found that both positive and negative identities emerged in the data showing who they think they are and who they think they are not in relation to the Other, the non-Bermudian. I also trouble sociolinguistic data methodologies, particularly the sociolinguistic interview and call for increased examination and critique of the context of the sociolinguistic interview while offering suggestions towards that critique. Since very little research exists on the language of Black Bermudians, I also offer a descriptive analysis of language of the 30 participants by comparing and contrasting the features of BBE with other languages of the African Diaspora. INDEX WORDS: Bermuda, Bermuda History, Bermuda Culture, Bermudian Identities, Bermudian English, Black Bermudian English, Language in the African Diaspora, Qualitative Methods, Sociolinguistic Interview, Phenomenological Interview PIECE OF THE ROCK: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF BLACKS IN BERMUDA by IYABO F. -
Creole Formation As Language Contact: the Case of the Suriname
Creole formation as language contact : The case of the Suriname Creoles Bettina Migge To cite this version: Bettina Migge. Creole formation as language contact : The case of the Suriname Creoles. John Benjamins, 2003. hal-01494340 HAL Id: hal-01494340 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01494340 Submitted on 23 Mar 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Copyright Migge, B.; (2003) Creole formation as language contact : The case of the Suriname Creoles . Amsterdam : John Benjamins. Chapter 1 Introduction 1. Introduction One of the oldest and most vigorously discussed questions in the research on creoles is the origin of these languages. According to McWhorter (1997a:1), “this question can be said to be one of the prime motivations for the conception of creole studies as a distinct subdiscipline.” Despite continuous heated discussions on this topic and the accumulation of a great deal of linguistic and sociohistorical data that bear on the genesis question, disagreement still exists about several pertinent issues: 1. the main linguistic inputs to creole formation, 2. the linguistic processes and mechanisms involved in creole formation, 3. the nature of the linguistic outcome of creole formation. -
BBC Voices Recordings: Reading, Berkshire [Bajan]
BBC VOICES RECORDINGS http://sounds.bl.uk Title: Reading, Berkshire Shelfmark: C1190/06/05 Recording date: 12.08.2004 Speakers: Brome, Lyle, b. 1933 Bridgetown, Barbados; male Brome, Myrtle, b. 1938 Barbados; female Hinds, Jeffrey, b. 1961 Reading; male (father b. Barbados; mother b. Barbados) Hinds, Junior, b. 1953 Barbados; male Vaughan, Kevin, b. 1970 Reading; male (father b. Barbados; mother b. Barbados) The interviewees are married couple, Myrtle and Lyle, brothers, Jeffrey and Junior and friend, Kevin, all of whom have family connections in Barbados. ELICITED LEXIS * see Survey of English Dialects Basic Material (1962-1971) ▲see Dictionary of Jamaican English (1980) ● see Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (1996) ♠ see Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago (2009) ∆ see New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006) ◊ see Green’s Dictionary of Slang (2010) ♦ see Urban Dictionary (online) ⌂ no previous source (with this sense) identified pleased happy; glad (“I’m so glad to see you”); over the moon; delighted (“English”); good (“how are you I good”); pleased (“English”); happy as a lark⌂ tired tired as a dog⌂ (of extreme tiredness, “Bajan”); knackered (“English”); tired as a horse⌂ (used occasionally of extreme tiredness); fagged out (of exhaustion, “you got no breath left”); tired to drop⌂ (of exhaustion, “I was so tired I feel I could drop”) unwell not feeling well; sick (“I was sick last night” used of vomiting, “I feel as sick as a dog”● used to family/friends from Barbados of genuine illness); -
On the Syllable Structure of English Pidgins and Creoles
ON THE SYLLABLE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH PIDGINS AND CREOLES Andrei A. Avram B.A. (Bucharest - Romania) Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics and Modem English Language Lancaster University October 2004 ProQuest Number: 11003561 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11003561 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT This thesis is an optimality-theoretic investigation of syllable restructuring in the Atlantic and Pacific English-lexicon pidgins and creoles, both in their earlier stages and in the modem varieties. The theoretical framework and the methodology are presented in chapter 2. The next three chapters examine the adjustments that occur in the English pidgins and creoles in two syllabic positions: the onset and the coda. Thus, chapter 3 looks into the strategies used to resolve illicit /s/-initial onset clusters. Chapter 4 investigates the fate of obstruent + sonorant onset clusters, to the exclusion of /s/-initial ones. The clusters at issue are of two types: obstruent + glide, and obstruent + liquid.