Barbadian English or Bajan () English is a dialect of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

as used by

Barbadians Barbadians or Bajans (pronounced ) are people who are identified with the country of Barbados, by being citizens or their descendants in the Barbadian diaspora. The connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Barba ...

(Bajans) and by Barbadian diasporas. It should not be confused with

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 ...

, which 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 cre ...

. Schneider, E.W., and Kortmann, B. " A Handbook of Varieties of English: Morphology and syntax ". Mouton de Gruyter, 2004. In

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Pronunciation

Barbadian English is fully rhoticity in English, rhotic and full of

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

s. One example of Barbadian English would be the pronunciation of ''departments'', which is . It is also notable, in comparison with standard American or British English, for the first vowel in ''price'' or ''prize''. Schneider, E.W., and Kortmann, B. " A Handbook of Varieties of English: Morphology and syntax ". Mouton de Gruyter, 2004. In

'' Michelle Straw, Peter L. Patrick. " Dialect acquisition of glottal variation in /t/: Barbadians in Ipswich ". Language Sciences 29 (2007) 385–407. In

'' * The realization of the vowel in Barbadian English is pretty much the same as in American English, the default . * The vowel is . * The vowel is usually . * The vowel is usually or . * The vowel is the same as in the US English, . * The vowel is . * The vowel is . is best identified as an allophone of this phoneme, thus . * The diphthong varies by region and education/class: it manifests in educated speech generally as or sometimes , and in rural and uneducated speech as the vowel . * The vowel is mostly . The diaphoneme is mostly to be identified with this vowel (see trap-bath split) * The vowel is or . * The diphthong is generally or . * The and sequences are both , resulting in the

near-square merger In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowe ...

. * The sequence is . * The sequence is usually or . * The sequence and the sequence are both usually . * The vowel is . * The vowel is mostly . * The diphthong is generally . * The diphthong is either or . * The diphthong is . * The final vowel is . * The final vowel is . * The final vowel is . * The and vowels are not merged in Barbadian English. However the vowels of , , and are generally merged.

References

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 ...

{{English-lang-stub

Pronunciation

See also

References