Virgin Islands Creole

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Virgin Islands Creole
Spoken in U.S. Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Virgin Islands diaspora
Total speakers >100,000
Language family Creole language
Language codes
ISO 639-1 None
ISO 639-2 none
ISO 639-3 vic

Virgin Islands Creole is an English-based creole spoken in the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.

Virgin Islands Creole is not to be confused with Negerhollands, a Dutch-based creole that was once spoken in the Danish West Indies, now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Contents

[edit] History

Virgin Islands Creole was formed when enslaved Africans, unable to communicate with each other due to being taken from different regions of West Africa with different languages, created a new English-based dialect with West African-derived words and grammatical structure.

St. Thomas and St. John, although Danish colonies, had a European population of mainly Dutch origin, which led to enslaved Africans creating a Dutch-based creole, known as Negerhollands (now an extinct language). Negerhollands was in mainstream usage on St. Thomas and St. John up until the 19th century, when British occupied the Danish West Indies from 1801 to 1802 and 1807 to 1815. In addition, as English became preferred as a trade and business language in the busy port of Charlotte Amalie, it helped establish Virgin Islands Creole over Negerhollands. There was a small but continued use of Negerhollands well into the 20th century.

Unlike the European population of other Danish West Indian islands, that of St. Croix was mostly of English, Irish and Scottish origin, which led to African slaves developing an English-based creole throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. By the 19th century, Virgin Islands Creole was spoken on St. Thomas and St. John, as Negerhollands was fading away. By the end of the 19th century, the English creole completely replaced Negerhollands as the native dialect of the present-day U.S. Virgin Islands.

Virgin Islands Creole had also been developing in the present-day British Virgin Islands. The British took over the islands from the Dutch in 1672. Enslaved Africans were brought to work on plantations on Tortola and Virgin Gorda where they, like those enslaved on St. Croix, also developed an English-based creole.

In one form or the other, Virgin Islands Creole exists today as the native dialect of both the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. Although the two territories are politically separate, they share a common Virgin Islands culture, similar history based on colonialism and slavery, and some common bloodlines. Virgin Islands Creole is spoken with slight variations from island-to-island.

[edit] Language use and perceptions

Virgin Islands Creole does not have the status of an official language. It is strictly informal and is a constantly changing dialect filled with various slang terms and idioms. The language of government, education and the media is American English in the U.S. Virgin Islands and British English in the British Virgin Islands. In the Virgin Islands, a post-creole speech continuum exists, in which there are two extremes — standard English (known as the acrolect) and the creole in its most raw form (known as the basilect). Due to the constant contact between standard English and Virgin Islands Creole in local society, there are many in-between speech varieties as well (known as mesolects). Most native Virgin Islanders can easily maneuver this continuum depending on their mood, subject matter, or their addressee.

Virgin Islands Creole has different forms that vary by the age of the speaker, as many words and expressions are known only by older Virgin Islanders, while there are also relatively newer words and expressions known only to younger Virgin Islanders. The dialect continues to undergo creolization. Its most modern form is mainly derived from traditional Virgin Islands Creole terms, idioms, proverbs and sentence structure, with influences from African-American and Jamaican idioms, due to the permeation of rap, reggae and dancehall music in the Virgin Islander youth culture. The variant of Virgin Islands Creole spoken on St. Croix, known as Crucian, contains many Spanish-derived words due to St. Croix's large ethnic Puerto Rican population.[1]

As in other Caribbean creoles, proverbs are prevalent in Virgin Islands Creole. In 2004, a linguistic study group in cooperation with the University of Puerto Rico’s Rio Piedras campus found that many old proverbs in the Crucian dialect, common among older generations, have faded away among many young Crucians.[2] Many of those Virgin Islanders who migrate to the United States often return with American-influenced speech patterns (colloquially known as yanking) that influence local speech. These changes, as well as a perceived decreolization of the dialect spoken by older Virgin Islanders, have inspired debates on whether the dialect spoken by young Virgin Islanders today is in fact the true Virgin Islands Creole.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, there has been an underlying negative pressure on Virgin Islanders to eliminate their dialect due to Americanization since the United States acquired the islands from Denmark in 1917.[3] Standard American English is associated with social mobility, as it is widely used in business and professional circles. Virgin Islands Creole, although appreciated for its cultural value and widely used informally, is often seen as an impediment to economic and educational progress.

The majority of Virgin Islanders speak Virgin Islands Creole. However, due to immigration from the rest of the Caribbean and the United States, some Virgin Islands residents do not speak the dialect. Most non-native longtime residents can understand spoken Virgin Islands Creole, even if not fluent in speaking themselves.

In the Virgin Islands, the dialect is rarely referred to as a creole, as locally, "creole" (as well as "patois") usually refers to the French-based creoles spoken by St. Lucian, Dominican (Dominica) and Haitian immigrants. Instead, Virgin Islanders tend to refer to the dialect by their native island (i.e. "Crucian dialect", "Thomian dialect", "Tortolian dialect", etc...).

As with other Caribbean creoles, Virgin Islands Creole is generally unwritten. However, local authors often write in the creole, and young Virgin Islanders tend to write in it when communicating over the Internet. Because no standard spelling system exists in Virgin Islands Creole, those who attempt to write it use English orthography.

The prevailing sentiment is that Virgin Islands Creole cannot be learned like a standard language, but acquired only through having spent one's formative years in the Virgin Islands. Attempts by Virgin Islands non-native residents to speak the dialect, even out of respect, are often met with disapproval.

[edit] Grammatical structure and pronunciation

As with other Caribbean creoles, Virgin Islands Creole has a smaller set of pronouns than English, and conjugations occur less often. For example, the English phrase "I gave it to her" would translate to "I give it to she" in mesolectal Virgin Islands Creole or "I gi' e to she" in basilectal Virgin Islands Creole. Another common pattern found in Virgin Islands Creole is the absence of the letter "s" in the plural, possessive and third person present tense.[4]

[edit] Differences from English

The pronunciation differs from Standard English in various ways. Virgin Islands accents are somewhat similar to those of other Caribbean countries, especially those in the Leeward Islands and Belize, but are also unique in many ways.

As in most Anglophone Caribbean dialects, in Virgin Islands Creole, dental fricatives (the "-th" sound) are often omitted from speech, and replaced by dental stops (the "-t" sound). The vowel pronunciation of Virgin Islands Creole can widely differ from Standard English. For example, the suffix "er" in English, /ər/ in Standard English, is pronounced /æ/ (for example: computer is pronounced [kompuːtæ], and never is pronounced [nevæ]). Not all words ending in "er" are pronounced in this way.

[edit] Differences in grammar and speech among islands

Local speech varies on each of the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. It is commonplace for such differences to be pointed out in jest when Virgin Islanders of different islands congregate. For example, the pronunciation of the standard English phrase "come here" would be "come ya" on St. Croix, and "come heh" on St. Thomas, St. John and the British Virgin Islands. This anomaly is due to Irish influence on St. Croix during the Danish colonial period.

Another notable difference is the usage of the term "deh", the Virgin Islands Creole form of the standard English adverb "there". On St. Croix, an extra "deh" is often added, forming the phrase "deh-deh". Such usage is found in several Caribbean islands outside the Virgin Islands, as well. There are many instances where words and phrases (especially slang) that exist on one island may not exist on another. In addition, the Virgin Islands Creole spoken on St. Croix is often described as being more "raw", or distant from standard English, than that of the other Virgin Islands.

[edit] Examples of Virgin Islands Creole Proverbs

  • "Who don't hear will feel."[5]
  • "What yoh do in de dark come out in de light."[5]
  • "Time longer dan twine."[5]
  • "Every skin teeth ain' a grin."[5]
  • "Monkey know wha' kind of tree to clime."[5]
  • "Do for do ain' no obeah"

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "My People … Reflections of the Hispanic Contribution to the Virgin Islands", Virgin Islands Humanities
  2. ^ University of the Virgin Islands Magazine, 2004 Edition
  3. ^ Wiltshire, Shari (January 28-29, 2007). "Crucian: Dialect or a language? Professor at UVI to publish dictionary". St. Croix Avis
  4. ^ [1], Virgin Islands Creole article. St. John Tradewinds (subscription required)
  5. ^ a b c d e [2], Bennerson & Child Rearing

[edit] External links

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Caribbean English-based creole languages
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