Eastern Caribbean English-derived language varieties: phonology

As a geographical region, the Eastern Caribbean has been left virtually untapped as a source of fieldwork data in creole studies and English dialectology. Of course, there are individual pieces of research derived from some islands of the Eastern Caribbean, and at least two geographical exceptions to these generalizations are Barbados, Guyana, and perhaps Trinidad. Barbados has been central to previous discussions and debates in trying to determine its possible role in the diffusion of shared features heard throughout the Anglophone Caribbean as well as in answering questions related to the concept of “decreolization” as to whether Barbados once contained significant communities of speakers of a “deeper” Creole than typically seems to be spoken today (Cassidy 1980; Hancock 1980; Rickford 1992; Van Herk 2003). Trinidad has received significant attention from Winer (1993). These cases aside, the Eastern Caribbean is still largely absent from contemporary research and fieldwork in creolistics. For example, Neumann-Holzschuh and Schneider (2000), one of the most recent additions to the excellent Creole Language Library series published by Benjamins, contains few references to the Anglophone Eastern Caribbean. The “action” in creole studies is not centered in the Eastern Caribbean, except perhaps as represented by Guyana in South America. Researchers have largely ignored the approximately one dozen other Anglophone islands in the Eastern Caribbean chain.

Aceto (2002a) designates specific islands of the Eastern Caribbean (among other areas of the Americas as well) as sites for future research by compiling the relatively few bibliographic references that have been published on Anglophone Caribbean varieties other than Jamaican and Guyanese and by indicating which specific islands or areas have received little or no attention from linguists. Some of the goals that prompted Aceto (2002a) have been rectified to some degree by Aceto and Williams (2003). Nonetheless, even after the publication of Aceto and Williams (2003), most of the Eastern Caribbean is still wide open for researchers interested in pursuing future fieldwork in Anglophone West Indian locations for which we have relatively little data.

Phonology as a general linguistic-based topic has not received the same attention from researchers that Creole language syntax has. Perhaps this observation relates to the fact that syntax is often tied directly to cognitive science (which has influenced the field of linguistics enormously) as well as the popularity of substrate arguments in discussing creole language genesis. Perhaps it is because of the highly variable nature of sound segments, especially vowels. Whatever the reason, in-depth phonological treatments of any specific Creole language have been few and far between. For evidence of this descriptive statement, simply examine the titles in the Creole Language Library. Though individual articles on Creole phonology appear in edited collections, not a single volume examines Creole phonology in depth while several volumes concentrate largely if not exclusively on syntactic data.

Holm (1989), Volume 3 of Wells (1982), Aceto and Williams (2003), various specific articles referenced below, and the author’s own notes from fieldwork whose results have not yet appeared in published articles. Map 1 shows the location of the islands discussed in the paper.