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Pidgin: A linguistically simplified means of communication that emerges naturally when speakers of two or more languages need to understand each other
The slaves needed a means to communicate with their plantation owners, and the lingua franca imposed on them was English
A number of pidgin languages started to develop
Creole: A pidgin that has expanded in structure and vocabulary and has all the characteristics of other languages.
The history of English use across the Caribbean is not uniform; each Caribbean nation has a different colonization
history
Linguistic variations in the creoles used
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Becomes the first language of children within the community.
The pidgin remains the main means of communication within a community for a significant length of time.
Begins to increase in complexity as it is spoken in a wider range of contexts and adapts to serve the purposes of a
fully-fledged language.
FACE vowel
A similar vowel sound as that used by speakers in Scotland, Wales and the North East of England on words such as game, tray, plain, reign, they and great.
Vowel mergers
In Trinidadian English, vowels in minimal pairs are merged, e.g. in bird-bud, body-buddy.
H-dropping
Initial [h] is deleted in words such as happy and house.
GOAT vowel
A similar vowel sound as that used by speakers in Scotland, Wales and the North East of England on words such as home, show, boat and toe.
Consonant cluster reduction
Complex strings of consonants are often simplified by omitting sounds, so that best becomes ‘bes’, respect becomes ‘respec’, from becomes 'fom'.
Rhoticity
Some varieties in the Caribbean, such as Bajan (Barbadian English), are fully rhotic; others, such as Jamaican English, have a more complex system in which the <r> sound is pronounced in some phonetic environments but not in others.
Unreduced vowel in weak syllables
Vowels in unstressed syllables are not reduced, so that speakers use a comparatively strong vowel on words such as about, bacon.
Dental fricatives (TH-stopping)
The stopping of voiced and voiceless dental fricatives, with /theta/ realised as [t] as in think, and /eth/ realised as [d] as in these.
Zero indefinite article
The indefinite article, a or an, is occasionally omitted.
Zero past tense marker
Verbs are left unmarked for tense, although other signals (adverbs of time, such as yesterday, last week etc.) often give linguistic clues about the timing of an event.
Zero plural marker
Nouns are left unmarked for plurality.
High rising tone
Vowel assimilation
In Jamaican English, vowel assimilation occurs across syllables, as in see it pronounced [si:t], and syllable amalgamation occurs across syllables like do it pronounced [dwi:t]
Pitch differentiation
Homonyms are differentiated using a difference in pitch in Jamaican Creole and Tobagonian English.
Trinidadian's attitudes towards accents of Standard English
exo and endo-normative accents
Language attitudes toward linguistic variation on Jamaican Radio
Galloway, N., & Rose, H. (2015). Introducing global englishes. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Lambert, D. (2017, August 7). An introduction to the Caribbean, empire and slavery. The British Library. https://www.bl.uk/west-india-regiment/articles/an-introduction-to-the-caribbean-empire-and-slavery.
Nero, S. (2006). Language, identity, and education of Caribbean English speakers. World Englishes, 25(3-4), 501–511. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971x.2006.00470.x
Robinson, J. (2014, January 17). Caribbean English. The British Library. https://www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects/articles/caribbean-english.