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Berbice Creole Dutch (also known as Berbice Dutch) is a now
extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
Dutch creole language, once spoken in
Berbice Berbice is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which was between 1627 and 1792 a colony of the Dutch West India Company and between 1792 to 1815 a colony of the Dutch state. After having been ceded to the United Kingdom of Great Britain ...
, a region along the
Berbice River The Berbice River, located in eastern Guyana, is one of the country's major rivers. It rises in the highlands of the Rupununi region and flows northward for through dense forests to the coastal plain. The river's tidal limit is between from the ...
in
Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
. It had a
lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or for w ...
largely based on Dutch and Eastern Ijo varieties from southern Nigeria. In contrast to the widely known ''
Negerhollands Negerhollands ('Negro-Dutch') was a Dutch-based creole language that was spoken in the Danish West Indies, now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dutch was its superstrate language with Danish, English, French, Spanish, and African elements ...
'' Dutch creole spoken in the
Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Croi ...
, Berbice Creole Dutch and its relative
Skepi Creole Dutch Skepi is an extinct Dutch-based creole language of Guyana, spoken in the region of Essequibo. It was not mutually intelligible with Berbice Creole Dutch, also spoken in Guyana. This language has been classified as extinct since 1998. Descript ...
, were more or less 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 1994'','' and numerous other works examining its formation and uses.


History

Berbice Berbice is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which was between 1627 and 1792 a colony of the Dutch West India Company and between 1792 to 1815 a colony of the Dutch state. After having been ceded to the United Kingdom of Great Britain ...
was settled in 1627 by the Dutchman Abraham van Peere. A few years later,
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the nort ...
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 Batavian Republic ( nl, Bataafse Republiek; french: République Batave) was the successor state to the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 and ended on 5 June 1806, with the accession of Louis Bona ...
(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. Throughout the 1700's sugar and cacao plantations were numerous throughout the Berbice region. These plantations created close contact between numerous language groups as slaves were transported in from surrounding areas. The enslaved populations largely consisted of the indigenous Arawak Amerindian people of the surrounding Berbice region, and enslaved people shipped in from the Bight of Biafra. Thus, the initial contact situation consisted of Indigenous Arawak speakers, Eastern Ijo varieties from the Bight of Biafra, and Dutch colonizers mostly speaking southwestern varieties from Zeeland. A Dutch Arawak pidgin was developed early on in this time period and later contributed in the development of Berbice Dutch. It is believed that the language was largely constructed by children born locally into these plantations. Many of which are thought to be of mixed ancestry between the enslaved population and the mainly single Dutchmen. One-third of the basic words in Berbice Dutch Creole, including words for 'eat', 'know', and 'speak' are of Niger–Congo origin in
West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, ...
, from a single language-cluster, the Eastern Ijaw languages.The language borrowed its lexicon largely from Dutch (57%) and Eastern Ijo (38%), with only 1% of its lexicon stemming from Arawak varieties. It is considered a unique Creole language because it consists of only one African language influence, with 0% of its structure or lexicon stemming from parts of Africa outside of Eastern Ijo. It is suspected that the cause of this is a lack of diversity in groups of enslaved Africans in the region. At the time, slaves from the Bight of Biafra were considered undesirable. Due to Berbice's relatively small size, they would use undesirable slaves as they were cheaper, leading to a single language coming over from Africa, though in multiple varieties. Compared to Negerhollands and
Skepi Creole Dutch Skepi is an extinct Dutch-based creole language of Guyana, spoken in the region of Essequibo. It was not mutually intelligible with Berbice Creole Dutch, also spoken in Guyana. This language has been classified as extinct since 1998. Descript ...
, other contact languages from the area, Berbice Dutch is typologically closer to Dutch but lexically farthest from it. It is not based on a
Hollandic dialect Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish (East Flemish, We ...
of Dutch (the dialect that is closest to the modern standard of the
Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union (Dutch: , NTU) is an international regulatory institution that governs issues regarding the Dutch language. It is best known for its spelling reforms which are promulgated by member states, grammar books, the Green Boo ...
) but on
Zeelandic Zeelandic ( zea, Zeêuws; nl, Zeeuws; vls, Zêeuws) is a group of Friso-Franconian language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been move ...
. The language was originally spoken along the Wiruni Creek and the Berbice River where plantations were often located. The language 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 downriver to the coast in the 19th century. This shift was accompanied by the area being claimed by Britain in 1814. Berbice became part of the British Guiana at this time and a new English-lexified Creole emerged. As missionaries and enslaved people from Barbados arrived, this new Creole gained popularity and Berbice Dutch started to disappear. For the next century, small groups of multi-lingual mixed heritage people continued to live in the original location up-river and spoke Berbice Dutch. The language came into decay in the 20th century and by 1993, there were some 4 or 5 elderly speakers of the language left, although other sources report tens of speakers. The last speakers of Berbice Dutch were found in the 1970s by Professor Ian Robertson of the University of the West Indies. These Amerindian speakers were living on the upper reaches of the
Berbice River The Berbice River, located in eastern Guyana, is one of the country's major rivers. It rises in the highlands of the Rupununi region and flows northward for through dense forests to the coastal plain. The river's tidal limit is between from the ...
in and around the area of the Wiruni Creek. Dutch linguist Silvia Kouwenberg did further investigations on the language and published a grammar in 1994 as well as a variety of other works relating to the language. The last known Berbice Dutch Creole speaker was Albertha Bell, who was 103 years old when last interviewed by Ian Robertson and a UWI linguistics research team in March 2004.


Extinction

In February 2010, the language was declared officially extinct, according to an article in the March issue of the Dutch edition of ''
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'' magazine. In the '80s there was still a small number of Berbice speakers in Guyana but since then it has been discovered that the last speaker, Albertha Bell, died in 2005, the international language database '' Ethnologue'' had declared it extinct."Berbice Dutch officially extinct"
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Phonology


Vowels

There is a large degree of
free variation In linguistics, free variation is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers. Sociolinguists argue that describing such v ...
in the vowels, with the range of realizations of the phonemes overlapping. and are almost in
complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other el ...
, and were probably
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s at an earlier stage of the language.


Consonants

is usually in
complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other el ...
with , occurring only before , but there are a handful of exceptions. and occur only in loanwords from
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-centur ...
.


References


Other Reading

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External links


APiCS Online - Survey chapter: Berbice DutchInterview with the last living speaker of Berbice Creole Dutch
{{authority control Dutch-based pidgins and creoles Dutch language in the Americas Languages of Guyana Extinct languages of South America Languages extinct in the 2000s