The daily-used English in the Caribbean has a different set of pronouns, typicallyme, meh ormi,you, yuh, he, she, it, we, wi oralawe, wunna orunu, anddem orday. Central Americans useI, mi, my, he, she, ih, it, we, wi oralawe,allayu orunu, anddem, den, deh.[6]
The first-order dialects deemed constituent of Caribbean English vary within scholarly literature.[citation needed] For instance, theOxford 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.[9] TheDictionary 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.[10]
Caribbean English-based creole languages are commonly (in popular literature) or sometimes (in scholarly literature) considered dialects of Caribbean English.[citation needed][note 4]
The development of Caribbean English is dated to the West Indian exploits ofElizabethan Sea Dogs, which are credited with introducing toEngland names for new-found flora and fauna via, for instance,Hakluyt'sPrincipall Navigations of 1589 andRaleigh'sDiscoverie of the Empyre of Guiana of 1596.[11] As English settlements followed shortly thereafter, Caribbean English has been deemed 'the oldest exportation of that language from its British homeland.'[12]
Two sorts of anglophone immigrants to the seventeenth-century West Indies have been described in literature – the first, consisting ofindentured servants and settlers mainly fromsouthwestern 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.[13] 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.[13]
Caribbean English accents and pronunciation are variable within and across sub-dialects. For instance, Barbadian English is fullyrhotic, while Jamaican English is not.[14] Further, within Jamaican English,h-dropping is common in some social classes, but uncommon in others.[15] 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 creoleacrolect differing 'only trivially' from English.[16][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.'[17] Likely reasons for this have been described as 'the general quality of CE [Caribbean English] vowels, the sharp reduction in the number ofdiphthongal glides and, the most distinguishing feature of all, the phrasalintonation [and] separation of syllabic pitch andstress in CE.'[17] Broadly, themiddle-register of Caribbean English is thought to contain eight fewer phonemes thanReceived Pronunciation.[18][note 6]
Thelexicon of Caribbean English varies, to an extent, across and within sub-dialects.[19] '[T]he bulk of the vocabulary,' however, has been described as 'identical' across the region.[20] 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.'[20]
Thestandardisation of Caribbean English is thought to have begun upon the advent of government-funded public education in the West Indies in 1833.[41] 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.'[41] Linguistically, however, the growth of public education in said standard register resulted in 'a practical bilingualism' that has been described as a typical example ofdiglossia.[42] 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.'[43] These are thought to have culminated in the 1996 publication of theDictionary 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 ofstandardised English], but aurally distinguished as a discrete type by certain phonological features.'[44][45][note 9]
Be it resolved that this Association request the appropriate department of theUniversity 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.[47]
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].'[48] 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.'[48][49] This set the stage for the seminalDictionary of Caribbean English Usage, first published 1996.[50][note 10]
Jamaica: 'Weh dah bwoy deh?'[wehdabwojde] (sporadic rhoticity from Irish and Scottish influence); or 'Wey iz dat boi?'[weɪɪzdætbɔɪ] (non-rhotic and similar to the accents of southwestern England and Wales).
Belize: 'Weh iz dat bwoy deh?'[wehɪzdɑtbɔɪdeɪ] (British and North American influence but deeper in tone).
Bahamas: 'Wey dat boy iz?'[weɪdætbɔɪɪz] (some would more likely say "bey" [beɪ] instead of "boy").
Guyana andTobago: 'Weyr iz daht boy/bai?'[weɪɹɪzdɑtboɪ/baɪ] often in urban regions, or 'Wey dat boy dey?'[weɪɹdætbɔɪdeɪ] in rural regions (many variations depending on region or descent of speaker, and competency in standard English; sporadic rhoticity).
Dominica: 'Weh dat boy (be) nuh?'[wedætbɔɪ(bi)nʌ] (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.
^Including only seventeen countries and territories listed inAllsopp 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.
^Including only seventeen countries and territories listed inAllsopp 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 inEberhard, Simons & Fennig 2022, digest on English.
^For instance, the first sentence inRobinson 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.
Of all [sixteen] World English varieties currently addressed by theOED, delineating a ‘Caribbean English’ provides the greatest challenge [as t]here is vast phonetic and phonological diversity across this region[.]
^That is, ten, four, and twenty-one vowels, glides, and consonants, respectively, compared to eleven, eight, and twenty-four in Received Pronunciation as represented inGimson 1980 (Allsopp 2003, p. xlvi).
^NoteBrE,AmE stand forBritish English,American English. Phonemes with CarE–BrE or CarE–AmE differences are recorded inred. In columns BrE, AmE, en dashes (–) stand forphoneme 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).
^NoteBrE,AmE stand forBritish English,American English. Phonemes with CarE–BrE or CarE–AmE differences are recorded inred. In columns CarE, BrE, AmE, multiplication signs (×) stand forphoneme is present while en dashes (–) stand forphoneme 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).
^ThoughAllsopp 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.'
^Allsopp 2003, p. xxxi likens the publication to that ofWebster's in 1828, theDictionary of Canadian English in 1967, and theAustralian National Dictionary in 1988.
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