In the following article, we will explore Belizean English and its impact on our lives in detail. Belizean English is a topic that has captured the attention of many people in recent years, sparking debate and interest in a variety of fields and sectors. Throughout these pages, we will examine the different aspects and perspectives of Belizean English, addressing its historical relevance, its current situation and possible future implications. We hope that this article will be enlightening and stimulating, offering new ideas and approaches to Belizean English for our readers.
Belizean English | |
---|---|
Region | Belize |
Speakers | 184,000 (2014) L2: 56,000 (2003) |
Early forms | |
Standard forms | Standard Caribbean English[note 1] |
Latin (English alphabet) | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Belize |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
IETF | en-BZ |
Coordinates: 17°03′23″N 88°40′02″W / 17.056440603398805°N 88.66713935720784°W | |
Belizean English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Belize and by members of the Belizean diaspora.
The development of Caribbean English, including Belizean English, is dated to the West Indian exploits of Elizabethan sea dogs, which are credited with introducing to England names for Caribbean flora, fauna, and various other things via, for instance, Hakluyt's Principall Navigations of 1589 and Raleigh's Discoverie of the Empyre of Guiana of 1596. As English settlements followed shortly thereafter, Caribbean English has been deemed 'the oldest exportation of that language from its British homeland.'
Pronunciation in Belizean English tends towards Caribbean English, except that the former is non-rhotic.[note 2]
In 2013, it was noted that spoken Belizean English is heavily influenced by Belizean Creole, as 'both the lexicon and syntactic constructions often follow creole.' The influence has been deemed strong enough to argue 'that spoken English is simply a register of creole, relexified and restructured through contact with mainstream English.'[note 3] However, it has been further noted that one may describe this phenomenon 'from the opposite perspective and claim creole to be a register of English.'
The largest proportion of the lexicon unique to Belizean English is thought to name local flora, fauna, and cuisine. Notably, the most significant donor language to this portion of Belizean English lexicon is thought to be the Miskito language, not Mayan languages, 'as might be expected.' Other donor languages include Mayan languages, African languages (via Jamaican English), and Spanish (particularly for cuisine).[note 4]
Item | PoS | Gloss | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Agayuma | p.n. | water-spirit; like will o' the wisp or jack o' lantern | fm. Garifuna; cf |
alania | n. | beverage; made of grated cassava | fm. Garifuna; cf |
alcalde | n. | local government office; in Mayan settlements | fm. Spanish; cf |
alligator fish | n. | fish species; Belonesox belizanus | cf |
altamesa | n. | plant species | cf |
amapola / amopolla | n. | tree species; Pseudobombax ellipticum | fm Spanish; cf |
Anansi | p.n. | lead character in folk-tales | fm Akan; cf |
anansi | n. |
|
cf |
antelope | n. | red brocket deer | cf |
apasote | n. | herb species; Dysphania ambrosioides | fm Nahuatl; cf |
apple banana | n. | banana cultivar | cf |
areba / ereba | n. | round flat bread; made of grated cassava | fm Spanish; cf |
axe-master | n. | tree species; Caesalpinia gaumeri | cf |
baboon | n. | howler monkey | cf |
baboon cap | n. | herb species; Couepia dodecandra | cf |
In 2013, it was noted that spelling in official contexts, such as in government, tended to follow British conventions, while that in commercial spaces tended to prefer American usage, with spelling in popular written media described as 'highly inconsistent, following the conventions of the writer.'[note 6]
In 2017, it was noted that –
is highly contested among Belizeans and perceived as discrediting by most of – the status of exogamous 'proper' English is high and most of informants perceived the suggestion that there is an endogamous variety as almost offensive.
The aforementioned study suggested that such attitude towards Belizean English might be related to attitudes towards code-switching between English and Kriol, as the latter was described by the study's Belizean informants 'as an index for educational attainment and therefore for class, as it apparently requires formal training to learn to differentiate the two .' However, the social regard for exogamous dialects of English is thought to be decreasing in Belize, though this has been linked to a concomitant rise in the prestige of Belizean Creole, rather than that of Belizean English.[note 7]
The earliest scholarly dictionary of Caribbean English is thought to have been the 1967 Dictionary of Jamaican English. During Easter of that same year, the Caribbean Association of Headmasters and Headmistresses resolved –
Be it resolved that this Association request the appropriate department of the University of the West Indies to compile a list of lexical items in each territory and to circulate these to schools for the guidance of teachers.
Said resolution was promptly forwarded to Richard Allsopp, who by mid-1967 'already had some ten shoe-boxes each of about 1,000 6 × 4 cards and many loose unfiled cuttings, notes and other material .' In 1971, Allsopp introduced the Caribbean Lexicography Project as 'a survey of usage in the intermediate and upper ranges of the West Indian speech continuum.' This set the stage for the seminal Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, first published 1996.[note 8]
In 2013, it was noted that Belizean English may not constitute a single dialect. For instance, the English spoken in Garifuna-majority settlements in the southeastern coast of Belize 'includes distinctive borrowings which are not found elsewhere in the country.' It was further noted that, though Belizean English is not a tonal language, some of its words 'are not correctly pronounced unless the relative pitch heights are accurate.'
However, Ammon et al. 2006, p. 2087 note that 'forms of language approximating Internationally Acceptable English exist in each territory , under local labels such as Standard Guyanese English, Standard Belizean English, etc., or under the regional label of Standard Caribbean English.' Standard Caribbean English is thought to be authoritatively described by the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, which defines the former as 'the literate English of educated nationals of Caribbean territories and their spoken English such as is considered natural in formal social contexts' (Ammon et al. 2006, pp. 2088–2089).Standard English is West Indian, generally somewhat creolised except in formal situations and in school.
— Ammon et al. 2006, p. 2077
Schneider 2017, pp. 69–70 go on to suggest that the English–Kriol boundary may be pragmatically marked by 'sound features like pitch, intonation and speed rhythm,' rather than by structural differences such as grammar.It seems that in informal forms of everyday language practice, many speakers in Belize have developed a kind of fused lect where grammatical differences between the codes do not necessarily have a boundary marking function and where, therefore, it has become difficult to differentiate codes. Indeed, it can be maintained that what would elsewhere be regarded as non-standard forms (e.g. lack of subject-verb agreement) is appropriate, for example, in public governmental signage or in school signposts, while most of the lexical forms that are defined as Kriol in explicit language ideological discourse are in fact the same as in English, sometimes (but not always) with a slightly different pronunciation.
— Schneider 2017, pp. 69–70