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  • 7 - ENGLISH IN THE CARIBBEAN

  • from PART II - English overseas
  • Edited by Robert Burchfield, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the English Language
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    17 November 1994, pp 328-381

  • Summary

    Pidginised English was used in the slave trade in West Africa and brought to the Caribbean by African slaves and the British slavers and settlers who dealt with them. A Creole results when a pidgin is adopted as the first language of an entire speech community. During the second half of the seventeenth century a Creole with a structure quite distinct from English merged as the native language of a number of slave communities in the West Indies. The second half of the eighteenth century brought constant warfare to the Caribbean as Britain and France fought over the sugar islands, which were producing great wealth. Central America gained more English speakers during the second half of the nineteenth century even though British political influence waned there. This chapter discusses morphological changes, semantic changes, phonology, and syntax of the Creole English.