The Song of Kriol: A Grammar of the Kriol Language of Belize Ken Decker THE SONG OF KRIOL: A GRAMMAR OF THE KRIOL LANGUAGE OF BELIZE Ken Decker SIL International DIS DA FI WI LANGWIJ Belize Kriol Project This is a publication of the Belize Kriol Project, the language and literacy arm of the National Kriol Council No part of this publication may be altered, and no part may be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author or of the Belize Kriol Project, with the exception of brief excerpts in articles or reviews or for educational purposes. Please send any comments to: Ken Decker SIL International 7500 West Camp Wisdom Rd. Dallas, TX 75236 e-mail: [email protected] or Belize Kriol Project P.O. Box 2120 Belize City, Belize c/o e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] Copies of this and other publications of the Belize Kriol Project may be obtained through the publisher or the Bible Society Bookstore 33 Central American Blvd. Belize City, Belize e-mail: [email protected] © Belize Kriol Project 2005 ISBN # 978-976-95215-2-0 First Published 2005 2nd Edition 2009 Electronic Edition 2013 CONTENTS 1. LANGUAGE IN BELIZE ......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 DEFINING BELIZE KRIOL AND BELIZE CREOLE ...................................................................................... 2 1.3 ENGLISH IN RELATIONSHIP TO KRIOL ..................................................................................................... 6 1.4 KRIOL LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND EDUCATION ..................................................................................... 7 1.5 BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH .......................................................................................................... 9 2. THE SOUND SYSTEM OF BELIZE KRIOL ...................................................................................... 11 2.1 INTRODUCTION TO PHONOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 11 2.2 CONSONANTS ...................................................................................................................................... 11 2.3 VOWELS .............................................................................................................................................. 14 2.4 DISTRIBUTION OF PHONEMES .............................................................................................................. 21 2.5 SYLLABLE STRUCTURE ........................................................................................................................ 23 2.6 HIGHER LEVEL PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES ........................................................................................... 24 2.7 HISTORICAL CHANGES IN SOUNDS ....................................................................................................... 27 2.8 SOUND VARIATIONS AND WRITING ...................................................................................................... 31 3. THE WRITING OF BELIZE KRIOL ................................................................................................... 33 3.1 HISTORY OF WRITING BELIZE KRIOL ................................................................................................... 33 3.2 THE PROCESS OF ORTHOGRAPHY DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................... 33 3.3 THE BELIZE KRIOL WRITING SYSTEM ................................................................................................. 36 3.4 SENTENCE CONSTITUENTS AND KRIOL PUNCTUATION ........................................................................ 37 4. THE WORDS OF BELIZE KRIOL ...................................................................................................... 39 4.1 NOUNS................................................................................................................................................. 39 4.2 PRONOUNS .......................................................................................................................................... 43 4.3 ADJECTIVES ......................................................................................................................................... 48 4.4 PREPOSITIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 52 4.5 VERBS ................................................................................................................................................. 55 4.6 ADVERBS ............................................................................................................................................. 56 4.7 CONJUNCTIONS .................................................................................................................................... 69 4.8 INTERJECTIONS .................................................................................................................................... 71 5. SENTENCE STRUCTURE IN BELIZE KRIOL ................................................................................. 72 5.1 PHRASES .............................................................................................................................................. 72 5.2 CLAUSES.............................................................................................................................................. 88 5.3 SENTENCES ........................................................................................................................................ 103 6. DISCOURSE .......................................................................................................................................... 106 6.1 SOME DISCOURSE FEATURES............................................................................................................. 106 6.2 SAMPLE DISCOURSE EXAMPLE .......................................................................................................... 107 i CHARTS Chart 1: Consonant Symbol Correspondence ............................................................................... iii Chart 2: Vowel Symbol Correspondence ...................................................................................... iv Chart 3: Belize Kriol Vowels ....................................................................................................... 15 Chart 4: Previous research Vowel System Analysis ..................................................................... 17 Chart 5: English and Kriol Vowel Comparison ............................................................................ 20 Chart 6: Syllable Patterns ............................................................................................................. 24 Chart 7: Personal Pronouns .......................................................................................................... 44 Chart 8: Contrast of Kriol and English Personal Pronouns .......................................................... 45 Chart 9: Reflexive Pronouns ......................................................................................................... 46 Chart 10: Demonstratives ............................................................................................................. 50 Chart 11: Prepositions................................................................................................................... 53 Chart 12: Elements of the Noun Phrase ........................................................................................ 73 Chart 13: Possible Combinations of TMA Markers in Belize Kriol ............................................ 80 Chart 14: Constituent Order for Tense in English Verbs ............................................................. 81 Chart 15: Other Pre-verbal Phrase Ordering................................................................................. 82 Chart 16: Interrogative Words ...................................................................................................... 95 Chart 17: Subject-Verb Agreement in English ........................................................................... 101 Chart 18: Linguistic Description of Belize Kriol Phonemes ...................................................... 109 FIGURES Figure 1: Parts of the Mouth ......................................................................................................... 12 Figure 2: Relative Vowel Positions .............................................................................................. 15 Figure 3: Vowel Overlap .............................................................................................................. 17 Figure 4: Possible combinations of TMA markers in Belize Kriol .............................................. 79 ii Chart 1: Consonant Symbol Correspondence 1 Phonemic Dictionary BK BK sample English 2 Symbol Symbol Alphabet word translation b b b beed bead t͡ʃ ch ch cheet cheat d d d dayt date f f f fish fish ɡ ɡ g goat goat h h h hamadili armadillo d͡ʒ j j Joon June k k k keel keel l l l leek leak m m m mangroav mangrove n n n no no ŋ nɡ ng ring ring p p p paypa paper r r r reech reach s s s snayk snake ʃ sh sh ship ship t t t toad toad v v v vain vine w w w wing wing y y y yes yes z z z zink zinc ʒ zh zh provizhan provision Phonetic symbols for consonants used in the text: voiced bilabial fricative β (See footnotes in § 2.2.1.) voiced dental fricative ð as in ‘that’ voiceless dental fricative θ as in ‘thick’ voiced velar fricative x (See footnotes in § 2.2.1.) voiceless velar fricative ɣ (See footnotes in § 2.2.1.) glottal stop ʔ as in ‘uh-oh’ syllabic consonant r ̩ as in ‘bird’ 1 These symbols, from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), are used to represent the phonemic system described in this book. 2 Some of these English dictionary symbols are not precisely accurate for describing the sounds in Belize Kriol because the BK sounds are different from English. iii Chart 2: Vowel Symbol Correspondence Phonemic Dictionary BK BK English Symbol Symbol3 Alphabet sample translation word iː ē ee bleed bleed i ĭ i big, di big, the eː ā ay bay, bayk bay, bake e ĕ e bed bed ɑi ī ai ailan island ɑː ää aa saal salt ɑ ä a man man uː o͞o oo boot boot u o͝o u bush, yu bush, you ou ou ow bowt about oː ō oa boat boat o o o goh, brok go, break nasalization hn waahn want Phonetic symbols for vowels used in the text: high front unrounded lax ɪ as in ‘bit’ mid front unrounded lax ɛ as in ‘bed’ low front unrounded lax æ as in ‘bat’ mid central unrounded ə as in ‘but’ mid central rounded ɵ as in Kriol ‘brok’ high back lax rounded ʊ as in ‘foot’ low back lax rounded ɔ as in ‘bought’ nasalization ɑ̃ as in ‘ham’ diphthongs ou or uo etc. vowel length ː (See § 2.3.2 on vowel length.) 3 Some of these English dictionary symbols are not precisely accurate for describing the sounds in Belize Kriol because the BK sounds are different from English. iv PREFACE The purpose of this book is to show that Belize Kriol (BK) is a systematic language that differs in many ways from English. This will be accomplished by describing the history, the patterns of sound that make up the words, the word order rules that link words in larger units of communication, and patterns of language use in society. This book was designed and written for the Belizean teacher. It is hoped that this grammar will provide a useful reference for teachers and students in the schools of Belize. For many years Belizean teachers have been hampered in their educational efforts by the lack of knowledge about the language. There has been much research on Belize Kriol, but little of it is available to Belizeans. Many negative attitudes and myths persist in Belize against Kriol. Kriol- speakers need to understand that their language is systematic, different from English, and is as legitimate a language as any other. This book is a descriptive grammar, rather than prescriptive. This book only attempts to describe how Kriol is spoken; there are no claims as to how it ‘should’ be spoken. It will only be possible to give descriptions of the most commonly used forms. Good research often raises further questions for further research. It is hoped that this volume stimulates Belizean Creoles to further study of their language and more books will be written on the language and in the language. As a descriptive grammar, this book is organized to describe the language from the smallest units of sounds (phonology), the writing of those sounds (orthography), the classes and roles of words, and how they are organized into meaningful communication (syntax). The International Phonetic Alphabet 4 (IPA) has been used in the phonology chapter as a standardized phonetic system. For the spelling of Kriol words the spelling system provided by the Belize Kriol Project (1997) and modified in 2002 has been used in other sections. Some technical terminology and grammatical definitions are used in this book. The experienced student of languages may not need these definitions, but they are included for those learning more about languages and so that any reader may know the definitions used by this author. To find a definition for a technical term the reader can refer to the index and find a page number in bold font. On that page the technical term is identified by a bold font, and a definition is provided. This book includes 11 years of the author’s research, as well as the results of research by other authors. Examples are taken from notebooks and recorded texts collected between 1993 and 2001 and some have been created from the author’s personal knowledge of Kriol. Everything has been checked several times by Kriol-speaking Belizean friends, to whom the author is greatly indebted. However, the author accepts responsibility for any errors in this text. Boxes, such as this, have been inserted throughout the book to provide exercises or activity ideas for teachers, or anyone learning more about Kriol. For answers see Appendix C. 4 This is a standardized alphabet used by linguists for describing the sounds in any language in the world. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Finally, there are so many people I would like to thank: my wife Sandy, whose help in innumerable ways has made it possible for me to work on this book for so long; all the Belizeans who helped us learn Kriol and put up with our feeble attempts to speak their beautiful language, especially Rev. Rodney Gordon, Silvana Woods, also Myrna Manzanares, Rev. Lynda Moguel, Joey Belisle, Loretta Soutar, and Yvette Herrera for their help in the development and editing of this book; Hilda Gentle, and Gilford Hoare; SIL colleagues who helped in many ways, especially David Frank for his editing, David Holbrook who has always been alongside in our study of Creole languages, Naomi Glock, Paul and Cindy Crosbie for carrying on the work in Belize; and other linguists who have shared generously of their work, especially Sir Colville Young. I thank God for His love and the opportunity to live in Belize and to serve the people of Belize. Ken Decker SIL International 2005 v i 1. Language in Belize 1.1 An Introduction to Language What is language? What is a language? What is a dialect? There are whole libraries of books that discuss these topics. I cannot do justice here to all the discussions involved in answering these questions. However, it is relevant at the beginning of this book that the reader considers his or her presuppositions on these issues. Is your attitude about the Kriol speech of Belizeans (BK) based on feelings or facts? For many years the Kriol speech of Belize has been criticized as not being a “real” language, characterized as being “broken” English. It is typical for people to have negative attitudes toward Creole languages worldwide. There has been much debate as to whether the speech of Belizean Creoles is a language or a dialect, and there have been Is your attitude many arguments raised against the recognition of Belize Kriol as a about Kriol based “language”. This resistance to recognition is also typical of non-‘official’, on feelings or unwritten languages. These arguments tend to be associated with political or facts? social concerns and not with scientific facts. The reader must also understand definitions for words as I am using them. It is a scientific fact that humans have the capacity for language; here the term LANGUAGE is used to refer to the ability to communicate. For meaning to be communicated from one person to another, they must share similar understandings of specific symbols and patterns, i.e. both people share an understanding of the sounds grouped to make words that both people understand have the same meaning. A LANGUAGE is a shared system of symbols used for the purpose of communication. The way a language is spoken varies from person to person; we call these individual forms of language IDIOLECTS. Language is an important part of identity. The similarity of idiolects is one way by which people often identify themselves as a group. People form opinions about their own speech and the speech of other people. The more prestigious speech is thought of as a ‘real’ language. In the Caribbean, people tend to consider the European languages as ‘real’ languages, and the local speech is called a dialect. The term DIALECT is used disrespectfully of the less prestigious speech. There is no linguistic reality to the prestige of one speech over another. Belize Kriol is a real language and the term ‘dialect’ will not be used in this book. There are numerous systematic patterns that make up a language. The study of the systematic patterns of sounds used in a specific language is called phonology. The systematic patterns by which the words are grouped into phrases and sentences are called syntax. There are patterns to the development of a language through its history. There are patterns in the ways people use the language in the society. Each of these patterns in Belize Kriol will be discussed in this book. 1