Guyanese Creole
Guyanese Creole | |
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Creolese | |
Native to | Guyana |
Native speakers | 643,000 in Guyana (2021)[1] 68,000 in Suriname (2018)[1] |
English Creole
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | gyn |
Glottolog | creo1235 |
Linguasphere | 52-ABB-av |
Part of a series on the |
English language |
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Guyanese English Creole (Creolese by its speakers or simply Gayiniiz) is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century English and has loan words from West African, Indian-South Asian, Arawakan, and older Dutch languages.[2]
Varieties and influences
There are many sub-dialects of Guyanese Creole based on geographical location, urban - rural location, and race of the speakers. For example, along the
As with other Caribbean languages, words and phrases are very elastic, and new ones can be made up, changed or evolve within a short period. They can also be used within a very small group, until picked up by a larger community. Ethnic groups are also known to alter or include words from their own backgrounds.
A socially stratified
Utterance | Represents the speech of |
---|---|
[ai tɔuld hɪm] | acrolect speech of upper-class speakers
|
[ai toːld hɪm] | mesolect varieties of speech of middle-class speakers
|
[ai toːl ɪm] | mesolect varieties of lower-middle and urban class speakers |
[ai tɛl ɪm] | |
[a tɛl ɪm] | |
[ai tɛl ɪ] | |
[a tɛl i] | |
[mi tɛl i] | rural working class |
[mi tɛl am] | basilect speech of illiterate rural laborers
|
Grammar
It is common in Guyanese Creole to repeat adjectives and adverbs for emphasis (the equivalent of adding "very" or "extremely" in standard British and American English). For example, "Dis wata de col col" translates into "This water is very cold". "Come now now" translates into "Come right now."
Phonology
There are several phonological markers that are present in Guyanese Creole:[2]
- Guyanese Creole is isomorphic with the Jamaican phoneme system
- TH stopping
- Cluster reduction
- Avoidance of [ʃ], [ʒ], [f], [v] phonemes
- H dropping
- Semivowels
- Non-rhoticityamong older speakers
Sample words and phrases
The following phrases are written as they are pronounced:
- ah go do it or meh guh do am Meaning: "I will do it"[3]
- dem ah waan sting yuh waan bil - Literally: "they want to sting your one bill" - Meaning: "they usually want to take money from you"[4]
- evri day me a run a raisfil - Literally: "Every day I run the ricefield" - Meaning: "Every day I take care of the ricefield"[4]
- ee bin get gun - Literally: "He been get gun" - "he had the gun"[5]
- ee wuda tek awi lil time but awi bin go come out safe - Literally: "it would have taken us a little time but we would have come out safely"[6]
- me a wuk abak - Meaning: "I'm working further inland"[5]
- suurin - a form of courtship (from "suitoring", itself the result of adapting the noun "suitor" for use as a verb and then applying standard patterns to generate a gerund form)[7]
See also
- Nation language
- Jamaican patois
- Trinidadian Creole
- Tobagonian Creole
- Sranan Tongo
- Creole language
- Spanglish
References
- ^ a b Guyanese Creole at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ a b "Guyanese Creole Survey Report David J. Holbrook and Holly A. Holbrook SIL International 2001". scholar.googleusercontent.com. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
- JSTOR 455577.
- ^ JSTOR 454817.
- ^ JSTOR 412355.
- JSTOR 415478.
- JSTOR 455590.