Language Contact in the Danish West Indies: Giving Jack His Jacket Brill’s Studies in Language, Cognition and Culture Series Editors Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Cairns Institute, James Cook University R.M.W. Dixon Cairns Institute, James Cook University N.J. Enfield Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen VOLUME 1 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/bslc Language Contact in the Danish West Indies: Giving Jack His Jacket By Robin Sabino Auburn University LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 Cover illustration: This drawing of Charlotte Amalie on the cover was presented in the Company Court on 19 November 1734 during a case that addressed a flooding of land belonging to Jan de Windt, near Fort Christian. The original image is held by the Danish State Archives, Vestindisk-guineisk Kompagni, Kompagniretten, box 259. The audio files that accompany the third appendix in the volume are taken from the author’s conversations with the last native speaker of Negerhollands, Mrs. Alice Stevens. To download the files please go to http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004230705. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sabino, Robin. Language contact in the Danish West Indies : giving Jack his jacket / by Robin Sabino. p. cm. — (Brill’s studies in language, cognition and culture; 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-22540-4 (alk. paper)—ISBN 978-90-04-23070-5 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. Creole dialects, Dutch—Virgin Islands of the United States. 2. Languages in contact—Virgin Islands of the United States. 3. Language and languages—Variation. 4. Virgin Islands of the United States— Languages. I. Title. PM7864.V5S34 2012 306.44097297’22—dc23 2012018951 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. ISSN 1897-5412 ISBN 978 90 04 22540 4 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 23070 5 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS List of Tables .................................................................................................... ix List of Illustrations .......................................................................................... xi Abbreviations ................................................................................................... xiii Symbols .............................................................................................................. xv Acknowledgments .......................................................................................... xvii Preface ................................................................................................................ xxi 0 Introduction What’s in a Name? ..................................................... 1 0.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 1 0.1 A Very Brief History of the Term Creole ................................ 2 0.2 Why the Danish West Indies is a Useful Case Study ......... 3 0.3 A Matter of Method ..................................................................... 5 0.3.1 Linguistic Sources ............................................................ 6 0.3.2 Revising the Linguistic History of the Danish West Indies ........................................................................ 7 0.4 Retelling the Colony’s Linguistic Story ................................... 10 1 Hubristic Eurocentricism: Grammar and the Colonial Mindset ... 11 1.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 11 1.1 Eschewing Barbarisms ................................................................. 11 1.2 Developing Europe’s Cultural Lens ......................................... 15 1.3 Cultural Contact in the Caribbean .......................................... 23 1.4 The Intellectual Milieu and Linguistic Analysis .................. 26 1.5 Summary .......................................................................................... 30 2 The Colonial Response: Community Building and Language Creation ..................................................................................................... 31 2.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 31 2.1 Identity and Linguistic Community ........................................ 32 2.2 Ideological Clash in the Danish West Indies ........................ 35 2.3 Building Community .................................................................... 41 2.4 Communal Identity and Language .......................................... 44 2.4.1 The Internal Differentiation of Negerhollands ....... 48 2.5 Summary .......................................................................................... 49 vi contents 3 A History and Demography of the Danish West Indies .............. 51 3.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 52 3.1 Colonization and the Struggle for Survival ........................... 54 3.2 Population Stability and the Emergence of Negerhollands ................................................................................. 59 3.3 What Languages Did the Creators of Negerhollands Speak? 64 3.4 Prosperity and the Emergence of Hoch Kreol ..................... 67 3.5 Territorial Expansion ................................................................... 68 3.6 The Free Afro-Caribbean Population ...................................... 70 3.7 The Shift to English and Virgin Islands English Creole .... 71 3.8 Summary .......................................................................................... 77 4 Virgin Islands Dutch Creole: Documentation and Interpretation 79 4.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 79 4.1 Evangelical Activity and Virgin Island Dutch Creole ......... 80 4.2 Language and the Urban Afro-Caribbean Community ..... 91 4.3 Scholarly Activity and Virgin Island Dutch Creole ............. 92 4.4 Language Death: A Red Herring ............................................... 95 4.5 Abandoning Previous Assumptions ........................................ 96 4.6 Summary .......................................................................................... 98 5 Language Learning and Situational Constraints ............................ 99 5.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 99 5.1 Age of Arrival ................................................................................. 101 5.2 Trauma and Anxiety .................................................................... 106 5.3 Aptitude and Multilingualism ................................................... 109 5.4 Intentionality and Investment .................................................. 110 5.5 Sex ..................................................................................................... 112 5.6 Summary .......................................................................................... 113 6 Deploying Linguistic Resources .......................................................... 115 6.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 115 6.1 Input .................................................................................................. 116 6.1.1 Input Negotiation ............................................................ 120 6.1.2 Input Processing .............................................................. 123 6.2 Output .............................................................................................. 125 6.3 Language Emergence in the Afro-Caribbean Community 125 6.4 Heritage Language Influence ..................................................... 127 6.5 Summary .......................................................................................... 130 contents vii 7 Interlingual Influence: Phonology ...................................................... 133 7.0 Introduction .................................................................................... 133 7.1 Segmental Inventories ................................................................. 135 7.1.1 Negerhollands Vowels .................................................... 136 7.1.2 Negerhollands Consonants ........................................... 139 7.2 Negerhollands Syllable Structure ............................................. 144 7.2.1 Positive Transfer .............................................................. 147 7.2.2 Segmental Reanalysis ....................................................