Antiguan and Barbudan Creole, often called Creole, "Local dialect", or simply Antiguan and Barbudan is an
English-based creole language
An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the ''lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the creo ...
consisting of several varieties spoken in the
Leeward Islands
french: Îles-Sous-le-Vent
, image_name =
, image_caption = ''Political'' Leeward Islands. Clockwise: Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Saint kitts and Nevis.
, image_alt =
, locator_map =
, location = Caribbean SeaNorth Atlantic Ocean
, coor ...
, namely the countries of
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda (, ) is a sovereign country in the West Indies. It lies at the juncture of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles, at 17°N latitude. The country consists of two maj ...
,
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis (), officially the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, is an island country and microstate consisting of the two islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, both located in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands chain of ...
and the British territories of
Anguilla
Anguilla ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territo ...
and
Montserrat
Montserrat ( ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, with r ...
.
There are subtle differences in the language's usage by different speakers, and islanders often use it in combination with
Standard English
In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service a ...
. The tendency to switch back and forth from Creole to Standard English often seems to correlate with the class status of the speaker. Persons of higher
social status
Social status is the level of social value a person is considered to possess. More specifically, it refers to the relative level of respect, honour, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organizations in a society. Stat ...
tend to switch between Standard English and Creole more readily, due to their more extensive formal education in the English-language school system. Creole usage is more common, and is less similar to Standard English, as speakers descend the
socioeconomic ladder. This is an example of a
Creole continuum
A post-creole continuum (or simply creole continuum) is a dialect continuum of varieties of a creole language between those most and least similar to the superstrate language (that is, a closely related language whose speakers assert or asserted d ...
.
Many Creole words are derived from
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
or
African
African or Africans may refer to:
* Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa:
** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa
*** Ethn ...
origins. The creole was formed when
slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
owned by English planters imitated the English of their enslavers but pronounced it with their own inflections. This can be easily seen in phrases such as "", meaning "I am not going", or in "", presumably a
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
of "Ain't it?"
Vocabulary
Vocabulary is widely influenced by British vocabulary, due to centuries of association with
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
. Examples:
* ''Bonnet'' refers to the
hood
Hood may refer to:
Covering
Apparel
* Hood (headgear), type of head covering
** Article of Academic dress#Hood, academic dress
** Bondage hood, sex toy
* Hoodie, hooded sweatshirt
Anatomy
* Clitoral hood, a hood of skin surrounding the clitori ...
of a car.
* ''Chips'' refers to
French Fries
French fries (North American English), chips (British English), finger chips ( Indian English), french-fried potatoes, or simply fries, are '' batonnet'' or ''allumette''-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium and France. Th ...
. However, ''fries'' is commonly used as well.
* ''Form'' is used instead of the American high school ''grade''. (7th Grade-1st Form; 11th Grade-5th Form)
* ''
Patty
A patty or burger (in British English) is a flattened, usually round, serving of ground meat and/or legumes, grains, vegetables, or meat alternatives. Patties are found in multiple cuisines throughout the world.
In British and American Eng ...
'' for flaky folded
pastry
Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ma ...
, unlike the American patty, meaning
hamburger
A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically Ground beef, beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles ...
patty.
* ''
Mongrel
A mongrel, mutt or mixed-breed dog is a dog that does not belong to one officially recognized Dog breed, breed and including those that are the result of intentional Dog breeding, breeding. Although the term ''mixed-breed dog'' is sometime ...
'' is used instead of the US ''
mutt''.
* ''
Biscuit
A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be ...
'' is used instead of the US ''
cookie
A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, n ...
''.
However, in other cases the American form prevails over the British one, due to the islands' close proximity to the United States:
* ''Apartment'' is used instead of the British ''flat''.
* ''Elevator'' instead of the British ''lift''.
* ''parking lot'' instead of ''car park''.
Because of the influx of other Caribbean nationals to Antigua, due to natural migration and to the
CSME, Antigua's everyday vocabulary is being influenced by
Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. A majority of the non-English wo ...
,
Bajan Creole
Bajan , or Bajan Dialect, is an English-based creole language with African and British influences spoken on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Bajan is primarily a spoken language, meaning that in general, standard English is used in print, in t ...
,
Guyanese Creole
Guyanese English Creole (''Creolese'' by its speakers or simply Guyanese) is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century ...
and
Trinidadian Creole
Trinidadian Creole is an English-Based creole language commonly spoken throughout the island of Trinidad in Trinidad and Tobago. It is distinct from Tobagonian Creole – particularly at the basilectal level – and from other Lesser Antillean ...
. This is even more common among the youth. Examples:
* ''Yute'' and ''star'' meaning young man.
* ''Breda'' (derived from ''Brethren'' and ''Partner'') meaning close friend.
* ''Sell off'' meaning excellent or very good.
Pronunciation
Antiguan is pronounced very similarly to Jamaican. This has led some to surmise that the slaves of these countries came from the same place in Africa. Below are a few ways in which some language blends are fused or changed completely.
* "TR" as in 'Truck' is pronounced "CH", thus: 'Chruck.'
* "DR" as in 'Dress' is pronounced" J", thus: 'Jess'
* "TH" as in 'Them' is pronounced "D", thus: 'Dem'
* "TH" as in 'Think' is pronounced "T", thus: 'Tink'
* "WN" as in 'Down' is pronounced "NG", thus: 'Dung'
* "V" as in 'Vex' is pronounced "B", thus: 'Bex'
* Sometimes an ending "T" is left off and words such as 'Best' sound like 'Bess'. Expect sounds like 'Expeck'; and 'Left' sounds like 'Leff'.
Phrases
* "You giee way you gut, an tek trash tuff um"
Sociohistorical influence
Antiguan and Barbudan Creole first emerged during the 18th century as an
English-lexifer Creole.
[Avram, Andrei. “Diagnostic Features of English-Lexifer Creoles: Evidence from Antiguan.” English World-Wide, vol. 37, no. 2, 2016, pp. 168–196.] While it thus adopted many features of the English language everything from the
creole's lexicon to its phonology reflects Antigua's more nuanced history.
The English arrived in Antigua in 1632 from neighboring St. Kitts upon which the first European establishment was founded on the island. Throughout the seventeenth century there was resistance to the use of slave labor due to the widespread belief that there was merit in laboring for one's self.
However, as the island shifted from a subsistence economy to a more commercial one, the demand for laborers took off. This was met with indentured servants hailing primarily from Southern England and Scotland (following the
1707 Act of Union), as well as imported slaves. Around the same time, in 1674, Colonel Christopher Codrington, emigrated from Barbados to Antigua and established the island's first sugar plantation.
This marked the beginning of what was to become the pinnacle of the island's economy until the late 18th century. And as the plantation economy grew, so did the desire for cheap labor. This is displayed in the monumental shift in the number of slaves on the island, from 41.6% of the population in 1672 to 90.2% merely 40 years later. Initially, these slaves were imported from the Bights of Benin and Biafra. There, the majority of the population spoke Delto-Benuic languages such as
Igbo
Igbo may refer to:
* Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria
* Igbo language, their language
* anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria
See also
* Ibo (disambiguation)
* Igbo mythology
* Igbo music
* Igbo art
*
* Igbo-Ukwu, a ...
and
Duala. However, in the early 1700s more slaves were imported to Antigua from the
Gold Coast
Gold Coast may refer to:
Places Africa
* Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana:
** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642)
** Dutch G ...
than from any other part of Africa.
This was short-lived and soon after the Bights of Benin and Biafra overtook the Gold Coast in exportation of slaves to Antigua.
This is all to say that Antiguan Creole, was conceived against the backdrop of a plethora of different languages and cultures, all of which have influenced this Creole. Words and syntax of Igbo origin like "eddoes" the Igbo word for "taro," and their second-person plural "unu" are widespread while English lexicon while at the end of the day, it evolved from the English of the island's colonizers in conjunction with
substrate languages
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
of West African origin.
[Michaelis , Susanne Maria. “World-Wide Comparative Evidence for Calquing of Valency Patterns in Creoles .” Journal of Language Contact , 2019, pp. 191–231., brill.com/view/journals/jlc/12/1/article-p191_191.xml?body=pdf-22559.]
Language use
Antiguan Creole is used in almost every aspect of life in Antigua. In all schools, during class hours, it is required of students to speak
Standard English
In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service a ...
. This policy is especially exercised in private owned schools. Most media and mainstream communication is written and spoken in Standard English, although Antiguan Creole is sometimes used humorously or as a way of identifying with the local public.
Use of Antiguan Creole varies depending on socio-economic class. In general, the higher and middle classes use it amongst friends and family but switch to Standard English in the public sphere. The lower class tend to use Antiguan Creole in almost every sector of life. Part of this discrepancy dates back to the Creole's inception. Ever since Antiguan Creole first came into existence it was used as a means to identify with a given group. For example, as more slaves entered the island, indentured servants and slaves had less contact with white plantation owners as the economy moved to a larger-scale. While these two groups interacted and a Creole emerged as the two groups had to communicate and interact, indentured servants tried to speak the 'Standard English' with increased frequency in order to associate with people at the top of the hierarchy for whom 'Standard English' was the norm.
Conversely, for slaves, speaking the Creole was a symbol of identity.
Pronominal system
# The pronominal system of Standard English has a four-way distinction of person, singular/plural, gender and nominative/objective. Some varieties of Antiguan Creole do not have the gender or nominative/objective distinction, though most do; but usefully, it does distinguish between the second person singular and plural (you).
I, me = me;
you, you (thou, thee) = yu;
he, him = he;
she, her = she;
we, us = ah-we;
they, them = dem;
To form the possessive form of the pronoun add "fu-" to the above. However, the pronoun "our" is an exception where we add "ar-".
my, mine = fu-mi;
your, yours (thy, thine) = fu-yu;
his, his = fu-he;
her, hers = fu-she;
our, ours = ah-we;
you all = ah-yu;
their, theirs = fu-dem
Example:
# a fu-yu daag dat?, is that your dog?
# a fu-yu daag dat day nuh, that is your dog.
See also
*
Nigerian Pidgin English
*
Krio language
Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an English-based creole language that is lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population, and it uni ...
References
{{English-based creoles
Languages of Antigua and Barbuda
English-based pidgins and creoles
Languages of the Caribbean
Languages of the African diaspora