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| Berbice Dutch Creole | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Guyana |
| Region | Berbice River |
| Extinct | 2010 |
Creole
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Berbice Dutch Creole (BDC) is a now extinct Dutch-based creole language.[1] It had a lexicon partly based on a dialect of the West African language Ijaw, perhaps the ancestor of the modern Kalabari language.[2][3] In contrast to the widely known Negerhollands Dutch creole spoken in the Virgin Islands, Berbice Creole Dutch and its relative Skepi Creole Dutch were almost unknown to the outside world until Ian Robertson first reported on the two languages in 1975. Dutch linguist Silvia Kouwenberg subsequently investigated the creole language, publishing its grammar in 1993.[3]
History
[edit]The Berbice region was settled in 1627 by the Dutchman Abraham van Peere. A few years later, Suriname was settled by Englishmen Lord Willoughby and Lawrence Hyde under a grant from the English King, Charles II. In the beginning, therefore, Suriname was a British and Berbice a Dutch possession.
On 22 April 1796 the British occupied the territory. On 27 March 1802 Berbice was restored to the Batavian Republic (the then-current name of the Netherlands). In September 1803 the British occupied the territory again. On 13 August 1814 Berbice became a British colony. The colony was formally ceded to Britain by the Netherlands on 20 November 1815.
The Berbice slaves kept speaking a Dutch-based creole among themselves, until the language came in decay in the 20th century. As of 1993 there were some 4 or 5 elderly speakers of the language, although other sources report tens of speakers.[citation needed]
Berbice Creole Dutch was, just as Negerhollands and Skepi Creole Dutch <>, not based on Hollandic dialect of Dutch (the dialect that is closest to the modern standard of the Dutch Language Union), but on Zeelandic.
The last speakers of this language were found in the 1970s by Professor Ian Robertson of the University of the West Indies. These speakers were living on the upper reaches of the Berbice Riverin and around the area of the Wiruni Creek. The last known Berbice Dutch Creole speaker is Bertha Bell, who was 103 years old when last interviewed by Ian Robertson and a UWI linguistics research team in March 2004.
In February 2010, the language was declared officially extinct, according to an article in the upcoming March issue of the Dutch edition of National Geographic magazine. In the 80's there was still a small number of Berbice speakers in Guyana but, since was discovered that the last speaker died in 2005, the authoritative international language database Ethnologue had declared it extinct.[4]
BDC survived on the upper reaches of the Berbice River, the areas around which the old Dutch colony of Berbice was concentrated prior to a shift to the coast in the late 18th century. One-third of the basic words in Berbice Dutch Creole, including words for 'eat', 'know', 'speak' are of Niger–Congo origin in West Africa, from a single language-cluster, the Eastern Ijaw languages.[citation needed]
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]Berbice Dutch Creole has six vowels. /e/ and /ɛ/ are almost in complementary distribution, and were probably allophones at an earlier stage of the language.[3]: 277
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| ɛ | ||
| Low | a | |
[the above chart is from the original wiki page; LMK & I determined it's better to keep the original instead of the one I made]
There is a large degree of free variation in the vowels, with the range of realizations of the phonemes overlapping.
Consonants
[edit]Berbice Dutch Creole has fourteen consonants. Though included on the chart, the consonants in parenthesis have various explanations for not being considered part of the consonant inventory:[3]: 283–284
- /v/ and /z/ occur only in loanwords from Guyanese Creole.
- /ç/ and /x/ exist only in the first person plural form of the Wiruni Creek dialect. For speakers of the Wiruni creek dialect, [ç] and [x] are considered allophones of /ʃ/.
- [w] and [j] are allophones of /u/ and /i/.
- [ʃ] is usually in complementary distribution with [s], occurring only before /i/, but there are a handful of exceptions.[citation needed]
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Palato-alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | k | |||
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Fricative | Voiceless | f | s | (ʃ) | h | ||
| Voiced | (v) | (z) | |||||
| Approximant | Central | ɹ | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
[the consonant chart is also from the original wiki page]
Stress
[edit]There are some stress patterns in BDC, although not many.
Non-derived words
[edit]For monomorphemic non-derived words, stress falls on the penultimate syllable. Stress is assigned to every other syllable in polysyllabic words, and most exceptions to this rule occur within trisyllabic words. For example, many three-syllable words have stress on the first syllable, such as opropo (pig), or potoko (mud). All three-syllable words ending in /ingi/ have stress on the first syllable, including palinggi (eel), and stelinggi (landing).[3]: 289
Syllable Structure
[edit]Syllables in Berbice Dutch Creole can have onsets and codas, but they are not required. While codas cannot have more than one consonant, onset may have up to two. Syllables can also have CVV construction.[3]: 293–294
| Syllable type | Example | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| V | o | he/she[3]: 313 |
| CV | di | "the"[3]: 312 |
| CCV | bwa | foot/leg[3]: 540 |
| CVV | gui | "throw"[3]: 293 |
Morphology
[edit]As most creole languages, Berbice Dutch Creole makes heavy use of reduplication and category conversion, instead of derivational and affixational morphology.[3]: 229
Category Conversion
[edit]Nominalization
[edit]The nominalizing -jɛ acts as a suffix, and can apply to adjectives or nouns.
Somtiti
Perhaps
di
the
doto-jɛ
dead-NOM
bif-tɛ
speak-PF
mɛtɛ
with
di
the
lefu-jɛ
life-NOM
"Perhaps the dead one has spoken with the living one..." [3]: 235
In the above example, "dead" is nominalized to mean "dead one," and "life" is nominalized to mean "living one."
Pluralization
[edit]The pluralizing suffix -apu can be added to nouns or pronouns, alone or with other affixes.
Musu
Many
kɛnapo
person-PL
dotɛ
die-PF
lahanteni
leave-PF=3pl
kalkali
small-small
bebjapu
baby-PL
"Many people died (and) left their little babies." [3]: 158
Didap
That-PL
da
be
di
the
kalijapjɛ
small-NOM-PL-NOM
"Those are the small ones'." ("those are the ones that belong to the small ones.") [3]: 237
Reduplication
[edit]Reduplication is used to several ends in verbs, adverbs, and adjectives in Berbice Dutch Creole, but rarely used in nouns.[3]: 240–245
Adjectives
[edit]Adjectives in BDC can receive various types of reduplication, including:
- Intensifying reduplication
aʃ
if
ɛkə
1sg
leʃa
read-IPF
di
the
wotap
word-PL
draitɛ
turnPF
sa
so
kalkali
small-small
fi
for
ɛkɛ
1sg
"When I am reading, the words become so tiny for me." [3]: 241
- Emphatic reduplication
da
be
ɛkɛ
1sg
eʃti,
first
eʃti-eʃti
first-first
mantoko
man=child
dida
that
"(He) is my first, very first son, that one." [3]: 241
- Distribution reduplication (distributing “old” across all the people it describes; only relevant for PL nouns.)
Reduplication of verbs can receive the following types of reduplication:
- Iteration (something carried out habitually)
tito
time+3sg
kikt..
see-PF
ɛkuma
1sg=come-IPF
hiso
here=so=3sg
das,
HAB
das
HAB
mumu
go-go
andrə
other
plɛk
place
"When he sees me coming here he goes somewhere else." [3]: 242
- Aimless repetition
o
3sg
kapkaptɛ
cut-cut-PF
di
the
tuku,
root
pinapinətɛ
peel-peel-PF
di
the
tuku
root
"He cut the roots (here and there), peeled the roots (here and there)." [3]: 242
- Repeated small steps (“the activity is iterated until some final stage is reached”)
wɛl
well
ju
2sg
mumu
go-go
tut
until
á:lma
all
di
the
fals
falls
famatɛ
finish-PF
"You keep go-go(ing) until all the waterfalls have finished.” [3]: 243
- Repetition of the same activity with different objects. For example,
Alma
All
di
the
pakitapu,
pocket-PL
en..
3pl
findifinten
open-open-PF=3pl
"All the pockets, they opened each of them." [3]: 243
Reduplication is used in adverbs for intensification. For example,
di
the
kɛnap
person-PL
wat
what
jɛnda
be=there
farfarə
far-far
"...the people that were living far away..." [3]: 245
On occasion, nouns are pluralized by reduplication instead of by receiving the pluralizing -apu suffix. This form tends to be used while describing reoccurring instances of an event.
Idri
Every
daka
day
ɛk
1sg
justu
PASTHAB
kriki
get
skelingskelings
cent-cent
"Every day I would get an 8 cents piece." [3]: 245
Cliticization
[edit]In BDC, cliticization is rare and non-mandatory. Among its various uses, cliticization is sometimes used to distinguish the locative case (the only grammatical case used in BDC). For example, in
The word "bed" (bedi) is combined with the locative postposition (angga).
Syntax
[edit]Word Order
[edit]The basic word order of Berbice Dutch Creole is SVO, as seen below:[4]
Headedness
[edit]In general, BDC favors head-initial constructions.[5] For example, the head-initial pair of "the" and "man":
Di
The
man
man
mosi
must
a
PAST
jɛnda
be=there
kandid
side
an
and
kiktɛ.
see-PF
"the man must have been near and watching (him)." [3]: 204
Adpositions can be either prepositions or postpositions in BDC.[3]: 192–227 Adpositions with, from, of, until, before, for, without, after, and about) are prepositions:[3]: 193
The most notable exception to BDC's head-initialness is found in BDC's use of postpositions.[6] The adpositions behind, in, on, in front of, near, over, under, and between are postpositions.[3]: 204
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- ^ "Berbice Creole Dutch". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
- ^ "Berbice Dutch Creole - Afropedea". www.afropedea.org. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Kouwenberg, Silvia 1960- (1994). A grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110885705. OCLC 853244249.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b c d Kouwenberg, Silvia (1994-01-31). A Grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole. Berlin, New York: DE GRUYTER MOUTON. ISBN 9783110885705.
- ^ Kouwenberg, Silvia (1992). "From OV to VO linguistic negotiation in the development of Berbice Dutch creole". Lingua. 88 (3–4): 263–299. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(92)90044-j. ISSN 0024-3841.
- ^ Zeijlstra, Hedde; Goddard, Denice (2017-03). "On Berbice Dutch VO status". Language Sciences. 60: 120–132. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2016.11.001. ISSN 0388-0001.
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