Article published in:
Language Issues in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
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

Published online: 12 February 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g51.07cro
References

The bibliography

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Word final /t,d/ use by adolescents in Bequia is examined
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The preverbal marker bin and its place in the past tense of Bequian Creole is explored
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A detailed semiotic analysis of a story related to the author by a Vincentian Carib
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Discusses the history of Black Caribs, including their time on St Vincent, including coverage of languages spoken
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While primarily about the Garifuna after exodus to the continent, does discuss history on St Vincent & the Grenadines - including language
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The classic reference work for languages of the world, includes St Vincent & the Grenadines
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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
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Provides a phonemic inventory, resulting from acoustic analyses of vowels and consonants using both existing data and newly collected data
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Vincentian Creole data, collected from radio, poetry and prose, are analyzed
Prescod, Paula
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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
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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
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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. http://​www​.fcvnet​.net​/~paula​/papers​.html
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
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Lexical and grammatical features of English-based Creoles are examined
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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.Google Scholar
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. http://​apics​-online​.info​/apics​/contributions​/7Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
Occasional mention of language used by island tribes
Sidnell, Jack
2007a Comparative studies in conversation analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 36: 229–244. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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
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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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chapter 3 “On Anguilla and the Pickwick Papers” includes examples from St Vincent
Vincentian Creole English: A Language of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
http://​www​.ethnologue​.com​/show​_language​.asp​?code​=svc
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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
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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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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