Part of
Language Issues in Saint Vincent and the GrenadinesEdited by Paula Prescod
[Varieties of English Around the World G51] 2015
► pp. 165–180
Edited by Paula Prescod
[Varieties of English Around the World G51] 2015
► pp. 165–180
Languages in St Vincent and the Grenadines
An annotated bibliography
Languages of the Caribbean are fascinating and have been studied extensively. It is a particularly fertile ground for the study of pidgins and creoles and the interplay of language and culture and society. However, the languages of St Vincent and the Grenadines have not received the comprehensive attention they deserve. Because the work accomplished has been published in a wide variety of sources the literature is difficult to locate. Despite the existence of Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (the primary bibliographic resource in the field of linguistics) the linguistics literature is often found in other sources. In addition, the literature of the subfield of pidgins and creoles is even more scattered and harder to find. There is no comprehensive compilation of literature on the languages of St Vincent & the Grenadines. The classic A bibliography of pidgin and creole languages (Reinecke, John E. et al. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1975) has never been updated. Keywords: creoles; language contact; varieties of English; bibliography
References
The bibliography
Abrahams, Roger D.
1970 A performance-centred approach to gossip. Man 5(2): 290–301. 
A study on the sociolinguistics of gossip (or commess), uses data from Richland Park, St Vincent
Abrahams, Roger D.
1972 The training of the man-of-words in talking sweet. Language in Society 1(1): 15–29.
This paper explores the language learned and used in one Afro-American peasant community on St Vincent
Abrahams, Roger D.
1982 Storytelling events: Wake amusements and the structure of nonsense on St Vincent. Journal of American Folklore 95(378): 389–414.
The article investigates the 'Wake' by looking closely at the content features of riddles and stories told in Richland Park, St Vincent
Abrahams, Roger D.
1985 A note on neck-riddles in the West Indies as they comment on emergent genre theory. Journal of American Folklore 98(387): 85–94.
The discussion includes 62 riddles told one night during a wake, in Richland Park, St Vincent
Abrahams, Roger D. & Bauman, Richard
1971 Sense and nonsense in St Vincent: Speech behavior and decorum in a Caribbean community. American Anthropologist 73(3): 762–772.
An analysis of speech behavior among the Afro-American peasants of St Vincent, British West Indies, is provided, focusing on the tea meeting, one of the most popular performance events on the island
Aceto, Michael
2002 Going back to the beginning: Describing the (nearly) undocumented Anglophone Creoles of the Caribbean. In Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in the 21st Century, Glenn G. Gilbert (ed.), 93-120. Bern: Peter Lang.
Discusses specific need for more description of undocumented English-derived Creoles of the Americas, including St Vincent and the Grenadines
Aceto, Michael
2005 The borrowing and innovation of food terms in the Anglophone Caribbean. Sargasso 2005(1): 77-96. (Special issue on Creolistics and Caribbean Languages
)
Occasional use of examples from St Vincent
Aceto, Michael
2008a Eastern Caribbean English-derived language varieties: Phonology. In Varieties of English, 2: The Americas and the Caribbean, Edgar W. Schneider (ed.), 290-311. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Specific data for St Vincent & the Grenadines included (pp. 307-8) in the general discussion and analysis
Aceto, Michael
2008b Eastern Caribbean-derived varieties: Morphology and syntax. In Varieties of English, 2: The Americas and the Caribbean, Edgar W. Schneider (ed.), 645-660. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
No special section on St Vincent & the Grenadines, yet data from the language included in discussion and analysis
Aceto, Michael
2009 Caribbean Englishes. In The Handbook of World Englishes, Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru & Cecil L. Nelson (eds), 203-222. Malden MA: Blackwell.
Surveys English-derived Creoles of the Caribbean, including the island of St Vincent. Provides a general description of phonology, morphology, and syntax
Allsopp, Richard
1979 How does the creole lexicon expand? In Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies, Albert Valdman & Arnold Highfield (eds), 89-107. New York NY: Academic Press.
The author adds 6 new ways of expansion (building on Ian Hancock's 12: coining, incoining/blending, calquing, semantic extension, semantic shift, convergence, divergence, back formation, tautology, tonalizing, reduplication, adoption): misascription, functional shift, folk etymology, code overlap, attraction, and free-compounding. Examples from St Vincent are used (pp. 91, 101, 105)
Allsopp, Richard
1996 Dictionary of Caribbean English usage. Oxford: OUP.
Comprehensive dictionary covering all varieties of English in the Caribbean, including St Vincent & the Grenadines (lists the numerous specific informants/advisors, p. xv)
Avram, Andrei A.
2001 Shared features in the Atlantic English Creoles. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 46(1-4): 69–89.
Phonological, lexical, & grammatical features from nine Atlantic English Creoles: Antiguan, Bajan, Gullah, Guyanese, Jamaican, Kittitian (St Kitts), Krio, Surinam, and St Vincent are compared and analyzed
Baker, Philip
1999 Investigating the origin and diffusion of shared features among the Atlantic English Creoles. In St Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles: The Texts of Samuel Mathews in Perspective, Philip Baker & Adrienne Bruyn (eds), 315-364. Westminster: University of Westminster Press.
St Vincent Creole is one of the nine Atlantic English Creoles (AEC) used in the analysis. Also reviews earlier work on affinities among the AEC's
Bakker, Peter, Daval‐Markussen, Aymeric, Parkvall, Mikael & Plag, Ingo
2011 Creoles are typologically distinct from non-creoles. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 26(1): 5–42.
A typological study of 33 Caribbean English Creole, including St Vincent
Brenneis, Donald
1987 Talk and transformation. Man 22(3): 499–510.
Focuses on discourse-language as social practice in communities in the Caribbean (including St Vincent) and among Fiji Indians
Breton, Raymond
1666 Dictionnaire François-Caraïbe. Auxerre: Par Gilles Bouquet, impr. ordinaire du Roy.
Breton lived among the Dominican Caribs from 1635-1640 and compiled this dictionary; includes language/words from St Vincent
Carlson, Paul E.
1973 Cognition and social function in the West Indian dialect: Stubbs. In Windward Road: Contributions to the Anthropology of St Vincent, Thomas M. Fraser Jr. (ed.), 123-136. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts.
Discusses formality and informality in language used in the village of Stubbs, St Vincent
Carmichael, Mrs. A.C.
1833 Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the White, Coloured and Negro Population of the West Indies. London: Whittaker, Treacher, 2 Vols. (Accessed from Sabin Americana. Gale, Cengage Learning. University of New Mexico. 14 March 2013). [URL]
One of the earliest published works that includes coverage of linguistic phenomena in St Vincent
Carney, William
2009 Rhetorical preferences of Caribbean university students : An empirical study. International Communication Studies 18(2): 249–257.
Students from St Vincent are included in the sample used in this study on language use
Daleszynska, Agata
2008 Constraints of variation in Bequian Creole: Focus on the past tense. In New Ways of Analyzing Variation 37. 8 November 2008. Rice University. Houston, TX.
Paper presented. No abstract or paper found online or in print as of 3/14/2013
Daleszynska, Agata
2009 Apparent time changes in Bequia Creole: Evidence for dialect levelling. In New Ways of Analyzing Variation 38. 22-25 October 2009. Ottawa, Canada. 37-38. [URL]
Focuses on dialect leveling, by analyzing the alternation between bare verbs and inflected verbs among younger speakers of Bequian Creole
Daleszynska, Agata
2010 What’s gender got to do with it? Investigating the effect of gender and place on / t, d / deletion in Bequia. In
The Proceedings of the Summer School of Sociolinguistics
. 14-20 June 2010. The University of Edinburgh. [URL]
Word final /t,d/ use by adolescents in Bequia is examined
Daleszynska, Agata
2011a And them people bin live so happy: On the function of preverbal bin in Bequia and its role in language change. In
Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics Winter Conference
. 7-8 January 2011. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Abstract on p. 169 of Conference Handbook.[URL]
The preverbal marker bin and its place in the past tense of Bequian Creole is explored
Daleszynska, Agata
2011b Are in-betweens useful for variationist research? A perspective from Bequia Creole. In New Ways of Analyzing Variation 38. 22-25 October 2009. Ottawa, Canada. 37-38.[URL]
This paper focuses on a group of young speakers of Bequian Creole who are outside the sociolinguistic community norms
Daval-Markussen, Aymeric & Bakker, Peter
2011 A phylogenetic networks approach to the classification of English-based Atlantic Creoles. English World-Wide 32(2): 115–146.
This paper provides a classification of English-based Creoles using 33 languages, including St Vincent, by looking at a selection of lexical and typological features encoded as binary pairs
Dubrow, Eric H.
1999 Cultural processes in child competence: How rural Caribbean parents evaluate their children. In Cultural Processes in Child Development: Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology 29: 97-121. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Uses data from a study on St Vincent, including discussion of language use
Duncan, Ebenezer
1963 A Brief History of St Vincent with Studies in Citizenship, 3rd rev. edn. Kingstown: St Vincent Reliance Printery.
Includes discussion of the use of non-standard English and the perceived importance of changing to the use of Standard English
Edwards, Esther J.
1997 Caribbean Cultural Poems and Parlance in Vincentian Dialect. Brooklyn NY: Distributed by Esther’s Cultural Productions.
This volume has 17 poems, as well as an extensive vocabulary section of nearly 900 entries
Fortenbery, Elizabeth C.
1998 Women, Language, and Respect in Rural St Vincent and the Grenadines. PhD dissertation, University of Washington.
An ethnographic study of the language practices of primarily rural lower-class women on St Vincent. With fieldwork done in 1992-1993, this work explores the personal, social, and cultural significance of women's voices engaged in everyday talk
Foster, Byron
2012 Celebrating autonomy: The development of Garifuna ritual on St Vincent. Caribbean Quarterly 33(3-4): 75–83.
In covering various rituals describes some of the languages used
Garrett, Paul B.
2003 An ‘English Creole’ that isn’t: On the sociohistorical origins and linguistic classification of the vernacular English of St Lucia. In Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean [Varieties of English around the World G30], Aceto, Michael & Jeffrey P. Williams (eds), 155-210. Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins.
Mentions St Vincent Creole while discussing and contrasting the language of St Lucia
Goldsmith, Daena
2009 Gossip from the native’s point of view: A comparative analysis. Research on Language and Social Interaction 23: 163–193.
Looks at five different cultural systems, including St Vincent, in this comparative analysis of the functions of gossip
Gonsalves, Rennie
2007 Investigating the semantics-semiotics interface through textual analysis. LACUS Forum 33: 275-283. [URL]
A detailed semiotic analysis of a story related to the author by a Vincentian Carib
Gonzalez, Nancie L.
1983 New evidence on the origins of the Black Carib, with thoughts on the meaning of tradition. New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-indische Gids 57(3-4): 143–172.
Discusses the history of Black Caribs, including their time on St Vincent, including coverage of languages spoken
Gonzalez, Nancie L.
1988 Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna. Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press.
While primarily about the Garifuna after exodus to the continent, does discuss history on St Vincent & the Grenadines - including language
Gonzalez, Nancie L.
1991 Prospero, Caliban and Black Sambo: Colonial views of the other in the Caribbean.
1992 Lecture Series Working Papers 11. University of Maryland, Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
The linguistic situation is included in the discussion of the relations among different groups on St Vincent during the Carib Wars during 1795-96
Granberry, Julian & Vescelius, Gary S.
2004 Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles. Tuscaloosa AL: University of Alabama Press.
This volume is "oriented toward the analysis of language forms not for their own sake but, instead, as a pragmatic tool toward elucidation of the physical, ethnic, and linguistic origins of their users" (p. xi). Includes coverage of the language of St Vincent
Gullick, Charles J.M.R.
1976 Carib ethnicity in a semi-plural society. New Community 5(3): 250–258.
Brief discussion of the complicated situation contrasting the Carib-identifying people with the Afro-American majority on St Vincent
Gullick, Charles J.M.R.
1985 Myths of a Minority: The Changing Traditions of the Vincentian Caribs. Assen: van Gorcum.
Extensive coverage of the history of the Carib people on St Vincent from the earliest known history through the 1970’s. Language in all its aspects is a part of this history
Hancock, Ian
1987 A preliminary classification of the Anglophone Atlantic Creoles with syntactic data from thirty-three representative dialects. In Pidgins and Creole Languages: Essays in Memory of John E. Reinecke, Glenn G. Gilbert (ed.), 264-333. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press.
Extensive discussion and comparison of syntactic data from 33 English-based Creoles contribute to a new classification of these creoles. St Vincent is included
Hofman, Corinne L. & Carlin, Eithne B.
2010 The ever-dynamic Caribbean: Exploring new approaches to unraveling social networks in the pre-colonial and early colonial periods. In Linguistics and Archaeology in the Americas: The Historization of Language and Society, Eithne B. Carlin & Simon van der Kerke (eds), 107-122. Leiden: Brill.
Among people and languages covered is Eneri/Island Carib, spoken on the Windward Islands
Holbrook, David Joseph
2012 The Classification of the English-lexifier Creole Languages Spoken in Grenada, Guyana, St Vincent and Tobago Using a Comparison of the Markers of Some Key Grammatical Features: A Tool for Determining the Potential to Share and/or Adapt Literary Development Materials. Dallas TX: SIL International. [URL]
This study classifies the four English-lexifier Creole languages spoken in Grenada, Guyana, St Vincent, and Tobago. Based on his 2006 PhD dissertation, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad
Holm, John
1989a Commonwealth Windward Islands. In Pidgins and Creoles, Vol. II: Reference Survey, 457-459. Cambridge: CUP.
Provides a brief history of the island and gives language examples
Holm, John
1989b Pidgins and Creoles, Vol. II: Reference Survey. Cambridge: CUP.
Section 10.3 covers Eastern Caribbean Creole English, with history and language examples of St Vincent
Jourdain, Elodie & Herbert, Cecil
1953 Creole – A folk language. Caribbean Quarterly 3(1): 24–30.
Brief mention of words from St Vincent in this overview of creoles in the Caribbean
Katz, Phillip S.
1973 Some aspects of gossip. In Windward Road: Contributions to the Anthropology of St Vincent, Thomas M. Fraser Jr. (ed.), 80-89. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts.
Sociolinguistic discussion focusing in on stories and accusations relating to thievery, or 'tiefs'
Langworthy, Geneva
2000 Language planning in a trans-national speech community. In Indigenous languages across the community. Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Stabilizing Indigenous Languages 7th, 11-14 May 2000. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [URL]
Language revitalization and planning efforts in Garifuna communities in Central America, St Vincent, and the United States are described
Le Page, Robert B.
1958 General outlines of Creole English dialects in the British Caribbean. Orbis 7: 54–64.
Discusses the dialects of 12 areas, including St Vincent
Le Page, Robert B. & Tabouret-Keller, Andrée
1985 Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: CUP.
The language of St Vincent has a significant presence in this work. Chapter 3 analyzes results of a grammar questionnaire given to speakers in Jamaica, St Vincent and Grenada. Within the section on Disputed settlements and their outcomes is a piece on St Vincent: A boundary case
Lent, John A.
1975 The price of modernity. The Journal of Communication 25(2): 128-135.
Covers mass media and languages used in the Commonwealth Caribbean, including St Vincent and the Grenadines
Lewis, M. Paul
The classic reference work for languages of the world, includes St Vincent & the Grenadines
Meyerhoff, Miriam
2008 Bequia sweet/ Bequia is sweet: syntactic variation in a lesser-known variety of Caribbean English. English Today 24(1): 33–40.
An analysis of dialect variability in the use of Bequian English on the island of Bequia
Meyerhoff, Miriam
2009 Men argue, but women duz trace. Sargasso 2009-09(1): 115–132. (Special issue on Linguistic Explorations of Gender and Sexuality
)
A sociolinguistic exploration of some gender and language characteristics on Bequia
Meyerhoff, Miriam
2011 Passing for different: The importance of hidden differences in language variation (paper presented). In
The construction of local identities through culture and language in the Dutch province of Limburg. Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences Workshop
. 1-3 December 2011. Wassenaar, Nl. [URL]
Reviews data from ongoing work on Bequian English that shows that in spite of a superficial simplicity in shared patterns, Bequian English is different from Standard English
Meyerhoff, Miriam & Walker, James A.
2006 The persistence of grammatical constraints: ‘urban sojourners’ from Bequia. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 12(2): 131–143.
The absence of BE is examined across three ethnically distinct village communities on the small island of Bequia, with particular attention to speakers - one in each village - who have lived in urban settings in the UK or Canada and returned to the island
Meyerhoff, Miriam & Walker, James A.
2007 The persistence of variation in individual grammars: Copula absence in ‘urban sojourners’ and their stay-at-home peers, Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines). Journal of Sociolinguistics 11(3): 346–366.
Phonological variation in Bequia among two speech communities, ‘urban sojourners’ – Bequians who have spent an extended period overseas and their stay-at-home peers, is analyzed
Meyerhoff, Miriam & Walker, James A.
2012 Grammatical variation in Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines). Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 27(2): 209-234.
Examines language use in Bequia, focusing on three communities. Quantitative analysis of three aspects of the grammatical system that exhibit variation: absence of the verb BE, verbal negation, and tense-aspect marking are provided
Meyerhoff, Miriam & Walker, James A.
2013 Bequia Talk (St Vincent and the Grenadines). London: Battlebridge Publications.
Designed for a wide audience, this book surveys the commonalities and differences in the ways people talk on the island of Bequia. It starts with a sociohistorical chapter and then moves on to chapters dealing with phonology and grammar
Meyerhoff, Miriam & Walker, James A.
2013 An existential problem: The sociolinguistic monitor and variation in existential constructions on Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines). Language in Society 42(4): 407-428.
Investigates the alternation between Standard English-like existentials ('there is/there's/there are') and Caribbean variants (e.g. 'it have' or 'it get') in four villages on the island of Bequia
Meyerhoff, Miriam & Walker, James A.
Forthcoming. Variation in existentials on Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines): Grammatical or lexical? In Theoretical Perspectives on Intra-individual Variation and its Empirical Study, Jeffrey K. Parrott (ed.) Amsterdam John Benjamins
Using a corpus of Bequian English, the question of whether agreement in existential constructions is best viewed as grammatical or lexical is analyzed
Meyerhoff, Miriam, Walker, James A. & Daleszynska, Agata
2009 Marking the past and the present in Bequia (conference handout). In New Ways of Analyzing Variation 38. 22-25 October 2009. Ottawa, Canada.[URL]
Investigates tense in Bequia
Morth, Grace E.
1973 Commess: traditional and official forms of social control. In Windward Road: Contributions to the Anthropology of St Vincent, Thomas M. Fraser Jr. (ed.), 73-79. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts.
Describes the rules and formats followed in the transfer of information/mechanisms of social control. Research conducted in Georgetown
Mühleisen, Susanne
2005 Forms of address in English-lexicon Creoles: The presentation of selves and others in the Caribbean context. In Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles [Varieties of English around the World G34], Susanne Mühleisen & Bettina Migge (eds), 195-223. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
A few of the examples used in the discussion are from St Vincent (199)
Mulcahy, F. David
1973 A sketch of Vincentian-Portuguese folk botany and medicine. In Windward Road: Contributions to the Anthropology of St Vincent, Thomas M. Fraser (ed.), 108-122. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts.
Primarily from data collected in the inland community of Villo [sic] Point, discusses word usage and definitions of plants and their uses
Nero, Shondel J.
2000 The changing faces of English: A Caribbean perspective. TESOL Quarterly 34(3): 483–510.
St Vincent is one of the islands included in this report on students’ linguistic self-perception, among other findings
Parkvall, Mikael
2000 Out of Africa: African Influences in Atlantic Creoles. London: Battlebridge Publications.
Extensive review of substrate features in Atlantic Creoles, based on analysis of 42 creoles and 168 African languages. Data from St Vincent are grouped in with other Windward Islands
Parsons, Elsie Worthington Clews
1936 Folklore of the Antilles, French and English, Part I: Stories. New York NY: American Folk-lore Society: G. E. Stechert & Co., Agents.
Stories from the Grenadines are on pp. 71-95 with 10 stories from St Vincent on pp. 72-112
Parsons, Elsie Worthington Clews
1943 Folklore of the Antilles, French and English, Part III: Riddles. New York NY: American Folk-lore Society: G. E. Stechert & Co., Agents.
Included in the riddles from St Vincent are 24 in English (pp. 375-377) and 11 in French (pp. 466-467)
Partridge, Andrew
2009 Charting the vowel space of Bequian Creole. MA thesis, University of Edinburgh.
Provides a phonemic inventory, resulting from acoustic analyses of vowels and consonants using both existing data and newly collected data
Plag, Ingo
2009 Creoles as interlanguages: Word-formation. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 24(2): 339–362.
Investigates word formation in creoles through the lens of second language acquisition. Includes data from St Vincent
Poussa, Patricia
1990 A contact-universals origin for periphrastic do, with special consideration of OE-Celtic contact. In Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Cambridge, 6-9 April 1987 : Dedicated to the Memory of James Peter Thorne (1933-1988), Sylvia Adamson (ed.), 407-434. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Data from St Vincent are used briefly (p. 412)
Prescod, Paula
2001 Vincentian speech: A conservative creole? Paper presented at the
Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics Conference
. 26-27 June, University of Coimbra, Portugal. [URL]
Vincentian Creole data, collected from radio, poetry and prose, are analyzed
Prescod, Paula
2002 Indefinite pronouns in Vincentian Creole and English: A comparative approach. Paper presented at the
14th Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics
. 14-17 August, UWI Trinidad.[URL]
The three major series of indefinite pronouns in English and Vincentian Creole are compared through an examination of their inventory and distribution. Despite superficial similarity, fundamental differences between the two languages are found
Prescod, Paula
2003 Just what do VinC indefinite pronouns entail? Paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics
, January 2003. Atlanta GA. [URL]
The uses and functions of the three major series of indefinite pronouns in Vincentian Creole are investigated by looking closely at their inventory and distribution
Prescod, Paula
2006a Stress assignment and functions of pitch in Vincentian Creole. In Stress, Tone, and Intonation in Creole and Contact Languages, Parth Bhatt & Ingo Plag (eds). Special issue of Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung: STUF 59(2): 191–210.
Demonstrates that stress and pitch enable syntactic differentiation in Vincentian Creole
Prescod, Paula
2006b Towards a writing system for Vincentian Creole. Searchlight: Weekly newspaper of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Article published in 3 parts from 17 February – 3 March 2006. [URL]
Article written for the general public proposing a writing system for Vincentian
Prescod, Paula
2008a The formation of deverbal nouns in Vincentian Creole: Morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic processes. In Roots of Creole Structures: Weighing the Contribution of Substrates and Superstrates [Creole Language Library 33], Susanne Michaelis (ed.), 333-355. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Explores derivational processes in Vincentian Creole and demonstrates that while speakers use these processes much like English, they also use distinctly different combination forms
Prescod, Paula
2008b Sentential negation and the distribution of n-words in Atlantic English-based Creoles. Paper presented at the
Society for Caribbean Linguistics Conference: Usage, Application and Development of the Languages of the Caribbean and the Guianas
, 28-31 July, Cayenne, French Guiana. Proceedings - Society for Caribbean Linguistics CD-Rom. [URL]
This study examines how some English-based Creoles position negative particles, in particular in utterances marked for tense, mood, and aspect
Prescod, Paula
2008c The syntax of negation and indefinite pronouns in Standard English and Caribbean Creole varieties. Paper presented at the
European Society for the Study of English Conference
. 22-26 August, University of Aarhus, Denmark. [URL]
The contrastive behavior of sentential negation and the distribution of indefinite pronouns in Standard English and English-lexified Caribbean varieties are examined. Both systems treat negation differently
Prescod, Paula
2008d What does and doesn’t do for creoles: Zeroing in on aspect and negation.
Invited paper: NORMS Workshop on Auxiliaries, Mood and Modality
, 17-18 September, NTNU Trondheim University, Norway.[URL]
Lexical and grammatical features of English-based Creoles are examined
Prescod, Paula
2009 On -self and reflexivity in English-lexicon Creoles. In Simplicity and Complexity in Creole and Pidgins [Westminster Creolistics Series 10], Nicholas Faraclas & Thomas Klein (eds), 153-174. London: Battlebridge Publications.
The classification of pidgins and creoles in terms of language complexity is discussed. Vincentian is one of the languages
Prescod, Paula
2010 A Grammatical Description of the Noun Phrase in the English-lexicon Creole of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Munich: Lincom.
A comprehensive, book-length description of the noun phrase in the English-lexified Creole of St Vincent and the Grenadines. This work is the translation of the original French version of the author’s 2004 PhD thesis, which was also published in 2006. (cf. below)
Prescod, Paula
2006 Une description grammaticale du syntagme nominal dans le créole anglophone de St-Vincent-et-les-Grenadines. PhD dissertation, Université Paris III. Lille: Presses de l’ANRT.
2011 The morphology and compositionality of particle verb constructions in Vincentian Creole. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 56(1): 87–107,146.
Describes a word-formation process in Vincentian Creole, not typically considered relevant to word formation
Prescod, Paula
2012 Morphosyntactic features in Vincentian Creole. In The Electronic World Atlas of Variation in English: Grammar, Bernd Kortmann (ed.). Munich & Berlin: Max Planck Digital Library in cooperation with Mouton de Gruyter. [URL]
Interactive tool that provides a wide range of morphosyntactic phenomena on varieties of English. This chapter is dedicated exclusively to the Vincentian variety
Prescod, Paula
2013 Vincentian Creole. In The Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English: Grammar, Bernd Kortmann & Kerstin Lunkenheimer (eds), 329-341. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Provides a wide range of morphosyntactic phenomena on varieties of English including this full-length chapter on the Vincentian variety
Prescod, Paula
2013 Vincentian Creole structure dataset. In Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online, Ch. 7, Susanne Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath & Magnus Huber (eds). Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. [URL]
The Atlas provides 130 world maps of structural linguistic features of 76 pidgins and creoles. The printed version contains a full length chapter providing sociohistorical background, the sociolinguistic situation, phonological, morphological and structural features of Vincentian Creole. The online version also contains sound files of each language
Prescod, Paula
2013 Vincentian Creole. In The Survey of Pidgin and Creole Languages, Vol. 1: English-based and Dutch-based Languages, Ch. 7, Susanne Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath & Magnus Huber (eds), 70-80. Oxford: OUP.
The Atlas provides 130 world maps of structural linguistic features of 76 pidgins and creoles. The printed version contains a full length chapter providing sociohistorical background, the sociolinguistic situation, phonological, morphological and structural features of Vincentian Creole
Prescod, Paula & Fraser, Adrian
2008 A demolinguistic profile of St Vincent and the Grenadines or a successful attempt at linguistic disenfranchisement. Anthropos 103(1): 99–112.
The demolinguistic dynamics between the Arawak and Carib Indians and succeeding settlers in St Vincent & the Grenadines are explored
Ralston, Lenore D.
1985 A historical account of ‘country talk’ on St Vincent Island: Problems and new directions. In Diversity and Development in English-related Creoles, Ian F. Hancock (ed.). Ann Arbor MI: Karoma.
Summarizes the history of the island and then discusses whether or not St Vincent has an English-based or a French-based creole
Roberts, Peter A.
1988 West Indians and their Language. Cambridge: CUP.
A wide-ranging discussion of the numerous varieties of English used in the West Indies, including some examples from St Vincent
Roberts, Peter
1997 From Oral to Literate Culture: Colonial Experience in the English West Indies. Mona, Jamaica: The Press University of the West Indies.
One of the recurring themes in this volume is the many languages used on the islands and their sociolinguistic import
Rubenstein, Hymie
1987 Coping with Poverty: Adaptive Strategies in a Caribbean Village. Boulder CO: Westview Press.
An ethnographic account of a "large coastal village" on St Vincent. Occasional use of nonstandard English while discussing various activities. Based upon fieldwork done in 1969-1971, 1980, and 1985
Schneider, Edgar W.
1992 Negation patterns and the cline of creoleness in English-oriented varieties of the Caribbean. In Studies in Caribbean Language, II: Papers from the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, Pauline Christie, et al. (eds), 2014-227. St Augustine, Trinidad: University of West Indies Press.
Compares negation patterns in numerous creoles, including St Vincent, to make the claim that there is a "cline of creoleness", i.e., a language continuum
Shephard, C.
1831 Historical Account of the Island of St Vincent. London: W. Nicol.
Occasional mention of language used by island tribes
Sidnell, Jack
2007a Comparative studies in conversation analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 36: 229–244.
Includes Bequian Creole among languages used for analysis
Sidnell, Jack
2007b Repairing person reference in a small Caribbean community. In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural, and Social Perspectives, Nick N.J. Enfield & Tanya Stivers (eds), 281-308. Cambridge: CUP.
Bequian Creole is among the languages used for this analysis
Sidnell, Jack
2008 Alternate and complementary perspectives on language and social life: the organization of repair in two Caribbean communities. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4): 477–503.
Discusses the history of relations between conversation analysis and linguistic anthropology, using the organization of other-initiated repair in two Caribbean communities, one of which is Bequia
Sidnell, Jack
2009 Language-specific resources in repair and assessments. In Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives, Jack Sidnell (ed.), 304-324. Cambridge: CUP.
For analysis of "if"-prefaces repeats, using Bequian Creole as part of the data, shows that Caribbean English Creoles have apparently unique possibilities for social action. Using data from Bequian Creole, explores repairs in referencing persons
Singler, John Victor
2008 The sociohistorical context of creole genesis. In The Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies, Silvia Kouwenberg & John Victor Singler (eds), 332-358. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Vincentian is among nine Atlantic English-based Creoles compared in a section on cross-creole similarities. Shows that five of the Caribbean Creoles pattern together: St Kitts, Barbados, Antigua, Guyana, and St Vincent
Snow, Peter
2000 Language variation in Caribbean Creole/non-lexifier contact situations: continua or diglossia? Texas Linguistic Forum 44(1): 148–162.
St Vincent is grouped in with other Windward Islands in the analysis
Stewart, Harold
1993 A Case Study of a Methods Program in English as a Second Language in St Vincent, West Indies. PhD dissertation, University of Alberta.
The purpose of this case study was to reveal the impact of an English as a second language methods course on the professional lives of a group of teachers from St Vincent, West Indies
Taylor, Douglas
1956 Languages and ghost-languages of the West Indies. International Journal of American Linguistics 22(2): 180–183.
Survey of languages of the West Indies, including brief mention of St Vincent and Island Carib
Taylor, Douglas
1958 Names on St Vincent. West Indian Guide (De West-Indische Gids) 38: 106–110.
Discusses the place names of Carib origin. The work is based on maps and other documents and some direct fieldwork
Taylor, Douglas
1961 New languages for old in the West Indies. Comparative Studies in Society and History 3(3): 277–288.
Discusses many of the languages of the Caribbean, in particular, a community in the Eastern Caribbean island of St Vincent
Taylor, Douglas
1977 Languages of the West Indies. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Comprehensive coverage of the many languages of the West Indies, mostly an historical account
Trudgill, Peter
2002 The history of the lesser-known varieties of English. In Alternative histories of English, Richard J. Watts & Peter Trudgill (eds), 27-44. London: Routledge.
Includes St Vincent & the Grenadines in the discussion of Caribbean Englishes
Trudgill, Peter
2010 Investigations in Sociohistorical Linguistics: Stories of Colonisation and Contact. Cambridge: CUP.
Chapter 3 “On Anguilla and the Pickwick Papers” includes examples from St Vincent
Vincentian Creole English: A Language of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Ethnologue report for language code svc. Most similar to Guyana, Tobago. It exists in a continuum with Standard English, with speech in the Capital of Kingstown most similar to Standard English (the acrolect) and that of the Island Carib descendants who live north of the Dry River being the least similar to Standard English
Walker, James A. & Meyerhoff, Miriam
2006 Zero copula in the Eastern Caribbean: Evidence from Bequia. American Speech 81(2): 146–163.
Zero copula is analyzed on the Eastern Caribbean island of Bequia, where a mesolectal creole variety coexists with a nonstandard English variety
Walker, James A. & Meyerhoff, Miriam
2013 Studies of the community and the individual. In Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics, Robert Bayley, Richard Cameron & Ceil Lucas (eds), 175-194. Oxford: OUP.
While exploring the issues involved in the individual vs. the community, the English spoken on the island of Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines) is used
Walker, James A. & Meyerhoff, Miriam
Forthcoming; to appear in 2015. Bequia English. In The Lesser-known Varieties of English: Further Case Studies, Jeffrey P. Williams, Edgar W. Schneider, Peter Trudgill & Daniel Schreier (eds) Cambridge CUP
Provides a description of Bequian English
Walker, James A. & Sidnell, Jack
2011 Inherent variability and coexistent systems: Negation in Bequia. In Variation in the Caribbean: From Creole Continua to Individual Agency [Creole Language Library 37], Lars Hinrichs & Joseph T. Farquharson (eds), 39-55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Despite its small size (only 7 sq. miles) there is a surprising linguistic diversity on the island. Examines the variable negation in three communities. The authors conclude that there are multiple coexistent systems rather than a highly variable linguistic system
Williams, Jeffrey Payne
1985 Preliminaries to the study of the dialects of white West Indian English. New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-indische Gids 59(1-2): 27–44.
Describes original and offshoot settlements, historical to the present, of the Irish, Scots, and English on Barbados, St Vincent, Bequia, and Saba. Includes details and question on the phonology, morphology, and syntax
Williams, Jeffrey Payne
1987 Anglo-Caribbean English: A Study of its Sociolinguistic History and the Development of its Aspectual Markers. PhD dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin.
A sociolinguistic history of the dialects of Anglo-Caribbean English, including Bequia and St Vincent, is provided. The convergence and reanalysis of form/function relationships within grammar is shown to be one of the outcomes of dialect contact
Williams, Jeffrey Payne
1988 The development of aspectual markers in Anglo-Caribbean English. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 3(2): 245–263.
Investigates aspectual markers in the various English-derived Creoles of the Caribbean, including Bequia
Williams, Jeffrey Payne
2010 Euro-Caribbean English varieties. In The Lesser-known Varieties of English: An Introduction, Daniel Schreier, Peter Trudgill, Edgard W. Schneider & Jeffrey P. Williams (eds), 136-157. Cambridge: CUP.
A description of a continuum of lesser-known varieties of English spoken in small, relatively isolated enclave white communities in the West Indies is provided. Includes the community of Dorsetshire Hill, St Vincent
Wilson, Carlos Guillermo
1998 The Caribbean: Marvelous cradle-hammock and painful cornucopia. In Caribbean Creolization: Reflections on the Cultural Dynamics of Language, Literature, and Identity, Kathleen Balutansky & Marie-Agnes Souriean (eds), 36-43. Gainesville FL: University Press of Florida.
While primarily concerning the Garifuna after leaving St Vincent, the chapter does include discussion of the broad linguistic situation on the island prior to leaving
Wilson, Samuel M.
1997 The legacy of the indigenous people of the Caribbean. In Indigenous People of the Caribbean, Samuel M. Wilson (ed.), 206-213. Gainesville FL: University Press of Florida.
Included in the discussion are mention of the linguistic connections, names for food and cooking, and place names
Winford, Donald
1993 Predication in Caribbean English Creoles [Creole Language Library 10]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
The bulk of the book discusses Jamaican and Guyanese, but does include an interesting chart of the relationships between all of the Caribbean English Creoles
Winford, Donald
1997 Re-examining Caribbean English Creole continua. World Englishes 16(2): 233–279.
Occasional use of data from St Vincent in reviewing evidence of a creole continuum
Young, Virginia Heyer
1993 Becoming West Indian: Culture, Self, and Nation in St Vincent. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press.
While language is not the focus, it is not ignored and the study includes the sociolinguistic use of varieties of language and quotes from texts in creole. Based on fieldwork done for six months in 1972, two months in 1984, and two months in 1986