Vowel systems KIT

The KIT set of words with Middle English (henceforth ME)  are represented in Suriname creoles by words derived from Early Modern English ship, bit, dig, skin, drink, dinner, sieve, busy, and so on. In the rest of this article we will simply describe these for convenience as English words, whether the meaning has undergone a change or not. The normal realization of these words in the Suriname creoles is [i], a short high front vowel.

Table 1. The KIT set

A number of words that belong to this incidence set in RP and AmE have different realizations in the Suriname creoles.

Table 2. KIT words with deviant vowels

Whip has a form in Sranan and Ndyuka concomitant with a derivation from a form [wɪp] . Saramaccan, however, might be based on a form [hwɪp] , to judge by the optional /h/. The /u/ vowel appears in a number of other forms where it must also stand for earlier /wi/.

If has a lower vowel in other Caribbean creoles as well. Compare Krio /εf/, Jamaican /ef, efn/, Miskito Coast Creole /ef/ etc.

Mix must derive from an unrecorded EModE form /*mΛks/. In ME we do have a rounding of  after /w/, and in isolated words after /b/ as well as before /m/ (Dobson 1957). A possible parallel for this form is found in Cameroonian Pidgin .