Caribbean languages

Pichi, an Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea, features four types of reiteration. Amongst them, reduplication and repetition can be distinguished on formal and semantic grounds. Reduplication is a derivational operation consisting of self-compounding and tone deletion. It is restricted to dynamic verbs and yields iterative, dispersive and attenuative meanings. Repetition occurs with all major word classes, renders more iconic meanings and is analyzed as semi-morphological in nature. A comparison with verbal reiteration in a cross-section of West African languages and two of its sister languages in the Caribbean allows the conclusion that Pichi reduplication reflects an areal pattern. I conclude further that Pichi reduplication is not exceptionally iconic nor specifically “creole” in nature.

Group work is a widely known, but not always properly exploited language teaching strategy. Carefully planned, it may be successfully used in language classes; resulting in better learning, bonding, solidarity and, even, individual self-confidence. Not so carefully planned, it is on occasions used by some teachers simply to “save time and to maintain order by keeping all pupils simultaneously occupied” (Walter, 1930:6).  Nevertheless, whichever use is made of group work, it is a language learning strategy strongly based on humanistic methods and a task-based approach and, success level aside, serves to enhance pupils participation and, with it, a more successful learning of the target language translated in a “stimulation of simultaneous talking, a greater variety of quantity and quality language use, exploratory talk, and an enhanced communication”. (Long, 1990:35)
The paper discusses the importance of interaction in a group to: a) “decompose Target Language structures and derive meaning from classroom events; b) create opportunities for students to incorporate TL structures into their speech; c) establish a jointly constructed communication (Chaudron, 1988:10); and d) allow  more productivity by keeping students engaged.
The author positions Group Work as an effective learning strategy, especially for large groups of learners willing to show full commitment to the task, and discusses issues relating to motivation, group and personal responsibilities, as well as code switching.

This book deals with multilingualism, language contact, language change and convergence in the Guianas of South America, with a focus on Suriname. The Guianas are a very complex region. The national identity of the countries in the Guianas involves both a sense of common destiny and of multiple ethnic affiliations. We have named our volume Boundaries and bridges because it reflects at the same time the maintenance of ethnic and linguistic boundaries, through the languages involved, but also the numerous instances of cross-linguistic influence across these boundaries. It illustrates the point that in the complex multilingual and multiethnic area of the Guianas, the languages spoken have been part of an effort of groups to keep themselves apart, as boundaries, but have also undergone numerous changes in the presence of other languages, and thus form bridges. The Guianas, or any part of them, do not form a single language community, but rather a chain of interacting and intersecting communities, which have very diverse and complex relations among themselves. Hence the term multilingual ecologies in our subtitle. However, these cases of cross-linguistic influence are very diverse in nature, and involve many parts of language. They result from different contact scenarios and include maintenance, shift, and creation.

Pichi is an Afro-Caribbean English Lexifier Creole spoken by some 150’000 people on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. Pichi is an offshoot of Krio (Sierra Leone) and shares many characteristics with its West African sister languages. However, insulation from English and Krio, extensive contact and hybridization with Spanish, language shift involving the Bantu language Bubi, as well as koineization through the prolonged coexistence of Pichi with closely-related languages like Nigerian Pidgin and Cameroonian Pidgin have given the language a character distinct from that of the other English Lexifier creoles of the region. The study of Pichi and its comparison with other West African AECs therefore offers fresh insights into the role that language contact has played in the differentiation of the Afro-Caribbean English lexifier Creoles.

A short study about the sociolinguistic dynamics in Awala-Yalimapo (French Guiana) and the school curriculum restructuring toward bilinguism Kali'na - French.

Une courte étude au sujet des dynamiques sociolinguistiques à Awala-Yalimapo (Guyane) et de la restructuration de l'organisation scolaire vers  un bilinguisme kali'na - français.

En las dos últimas décadas muchos autores y cineastas residentes dentro o fuera de Cuba se han referido al contexto del Período Especial en sus creaciones artísticas. En este ensayo quisiera reflexionar sobre las modalidades de la representación del hambre, su exploración e incluso explotación. El análisis de un corpus de películas y novelas que se relacionan con el Período Especial me ha llevado a proponer cuatro «estrategias» que se alejan cada vez más del mundo referencial marcado por la penuria: estereotipo, contraste, relegación al segundo plano, metonimia (en el sentido de desplazamiento). Ilustraré cada una de estas «estrategias» comentando brevemente películas como Alicia en el Pueblo de Maravillas (Díaz Torres), Suite Habana y Madagascar (Fernando Pérez) y novelas como El hombre, la hembra, el hambre (Daína Chaviano), Te di la vida entera (Zoé Valdés), Las Bestias (Ronaldo Menéndez), El Rey de La Habana (Pedro Juan Gutiérrez), Silencios (Karla Suárez), La sombra del caminante (Ena Lucía Portela). Terminaré con el estudio de Las comidas profundas de Antonio José Ponte que reúne y rebasa las estrategias propuestas. Mis análisis revelan que estas diferentes « estrategias » sirven objetivos específicos en el campo de la ética, la estética y la poética de estas expresiones artísticas.

Este artículo propone una lectura detenida de la novela Fe en disfraz (2009), de Mayra Santos-Febres con el propósito de examinar el reciclaje de un pasado esclavista que denuncia tanto el proceso de erotización de las relaciones de dominación y sumisión, como la reproducción de estas dinámicas en las sociedades poscoloniales. En este contexto, el artículo explora las posibles subversiones de las dinámicas tradicionales de poder en las relaciones interraciales.

Según la gramática prescriptiva del español, los verbos impersonales solo deben ser conjugados en tercera persona y en singular. Sin embargo, el verbo impersonal haber es pluralizado en varios países hispanos (DeMello 1991). Claes (2014) sugiere que este fenómeno es un cambio lingüístico donde surge una forma personal del verbo haber existencial. Otros lingüistas proponen que este fenómeno representa variación lingüística y se mantendrá como tal, parcialmente debido al estigma asociado con su uso (Quintanilla Aguilar 2009).
En este proyecto conduzco un análisis sociolingüístico del uso del fenómeno en el Caribe. Utilizo cuatro corpus de las siguientes ciudades: La Habana, Cuba (Gonzales Mafud et al. 2010); Holguín, Cuba (Tennant et al. 2006); San Juan, Puerto Rico (Morales et Vaquero 1990); y Caracas, Venezuela (Rosenblat et al. 1979). Específicamente investigo la frecuencia de uso del fenómeno según el sexo, la edad, y el nivel socio-económico de los locutores. El propósito de este análisis es determinar si las características sociolingüísticas del fenómeno son consistentes con las características del cambio lingüístico estipuladas por Labov (1991). Resultados preliminares muestran que los locutores más jóvenes pluralizan el verbo más frecuentemente. Esto puede sugerir que en el Caribe una forma personal del verbo haber está surgiendo.

Of the 1,000 plus languages of the Americas, 70 are in use across the 29 territories of the Caribbean, including both the archipelago and continental rimlands (Allsopp 1996). Linguistic situations of the Caribbean are complex, with language users managing an interface between and among a variety of heritage languages, each with its own social status, and some with both national and official status. Linguistic groupings include indigenous Amerindian languages, European languages, creole languages, sign languages (indigenous and foreign), and immigrant languages of various origins, including religious languages. With regard to European languages and creole languages, the relationships are varied, intense and often appear to be problematic, especially where they meet in the arena of formal education. In addition to the complexity of the living languages, their varieties and the often overlapping communities of practice to which their users (speakers and signers) belong, there are a number of heritage languages in various stages of obsolescence. Some are almost totally extinct, and some moribund, with few, if any, young native language users. Caribbean(ist) linguists have been engaged in the analysis and documentation of these languages and language situations for several decades, many pioneering work in hitherto neglected areas. These linguistics studies have an immediate application to formal education, language and language education policies, sustainable and ongoing language and culture development, communication, issues of identity, heritage and ethnicity, nation-building, linguistic rights and discrimination and language revitalisation. To understand human language as an integral and inseparable part of human culture is to begin to understand human and issues of social and cultural identity. This is the work of linguists in the Caribbean and beyond.

*****ERRATA***** (missing from published version on *Table 9.1 Amerindian Languages of Belize and the Guyanas, under Carib, page 133):
*Akurio
*Sikiana and
*Trió

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Of the 1,000 plus languages of the Americas, 67 are in use across the 29 territories of the Caribbean, including both the archipelago and continental rimlands (Allsopp 1996). Linguistic situations of the Caribbean are complex, with language users managing an interface ...