“Bajan Creole”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Bajan ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|eɪ|dʒ|ə|n}}) or Barbadian English is an English-based creole language with African influences spoken on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Bajan is primarily a spoken language, meaning that in general, standard English is used in print, in the media, in the judicial system, in government, and in day-to-day business, while Bajan is reserved for less formal situations, in music, or in social commentary. Ethnologue estimates that Barbados has around 1,000 people who use English as their main language and 286,000 people who use Bajan as their main language.

Languages

Bajan is the Caribbean creole with grammar that most resembles Standard English.^[1] There is academic debate on whether its creole features are due to an earlier pidgin state or to some other reason, such as contact with neighboring English-based creole languages.^[2] In one historical model, Bajan arose when captive West Africans were forcibly transported to the island, enslaved and forced to speak English, though learned imperfectly. Bajan later became a means of communicating without always being understood by the slave holders.

Due to emigration to the Province of Carolina, Bajan has influenced American English^[3]^[4] and the Gullah language spoken in the Carolinas.^[5]^[6] Regionally, Bajan has ties to Belizean and Guyanese Creoles.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}

Unlike Jamaica, Guyana or Trinidad, Barbados was the destination of few enslaved African-born captives after 1800.^[7] Thus, African Barbadians became "Bajanized" relatively early on in the island's history. This tended to make them less resistant to local culture, with its Anglicised language, religion and customs.^[7]^[8]

Bajan is a primarily spoken language with no standardised written form. Due to the lack of standardisation, spelling may vary widely from person to person. There is much dialectal variation throughout the island. Barbadians practicing Rastafari on the island also tend to speak more with a Jamaican accent than full Bajan. Bajan words and sentences presented below are largely spelled as they are pronounced. New terminology, expressions, jargon, and idioms are regularly added to the dialect by social commentary sung during the annual Crop Over festival.^[9]

Features

As in most English-based Caribbean creoles, the interdentals {{IPA|/θ/}} and {{IPA|/ð/}} (as in "thing", and "the respectively) have merged with other consonants (in this case, {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/d/}}, respectively, resulting in "ting" and "de").^[10] Unlike most other Caribbean creoles, Bajan is fully rhotic, and if anything more rhotic than North American Standard English. Bajan also has a strong tendency to realize syllable-final {{IPA|/t/}} as a glottal stop {{IPA|[ʔ]}}. Thus the Bajan pronunciation of start, {{IPA|[stɑːɹʔ]}}, contrasts sharply with the pronunciation of other Caribbean speakers, {{IPA|[staːt]}} or {{IPA|[stɑːt]}} or {{IPA|[staːɹt]}}.^[11]

Pronouns

Pronouns in Bajan creole don't diverge too far from Standard English, however there are differences. As with other similar creoles, Bajan does not differentiate subject and object pronouns, as well as possessive pronouns, except in the case of the first person singular. Another difference is the word for the plural you, which is wunna, similar to the Jamaican word unnu / unna or Bahamian yinna. Here is a list of pronouns in Bajan creole:

Questions

The structure of questions in Bajan creole varies from that of Standard English, as it is generally the same format as regular statements. Questions seeking yes or no answers are usually pronounced as a statement with only a raised intonation to differentiate, usually on the last word. For example Wunna win de cricket? means "Did you (pl.) win the cricket match?"; dahs yours? means "Is that yours?"

On the other hand, questions asking for information, i.e who, what, when, where, why or how, usually begin with a 'question word/phrase', saying what is being asked for, followed by a partial, or incomplete statement. For example "Wha he waun?" means "What does he want?" or "He wants what?". {{citation needed|date=March 2018}} Some question words, however, don't exist, or are seldom used in Bajan creole, including when, where and why, and are achieved by making questions beginning with "wha" (what). For example, "Wha time you see he?" means "When did you see him?", and "Wha part de Chefette?" means "Where is the Chefette?". In addition, “why” questions can be achieved by asking “how come”. For example, “How come you get hey so late?”.

Tenses

The tense/aspect system of Bajan is fundamentally unlike that of English. In Bajan, verbs are seldom conjugated, and only have a few forms, lacking forms to express tense or distinguish between singular and plural. In particular, there are no morphological marked past tense forms corresponding to English "-ed", "-t" or other past tense forms.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

Proverbs

Bajan is peppered with a number of colourful proverbs and sayings that have been passed down through the generations. These are just a few examples below:

African words in Bajan

Although most words in Bajan Creole are English in origin, many words are borrowed from West Africa languages and Irish dialects. The largest portion contributed to Bajan is from the Igbo language.

See also

References

1. ^{{Harvcoltxt|Hancock|1980|p=22}}, citing {{Harvcoltxt|Le Page|1957|pp=58–59}}
2. ^{{Harvcoltxt|Hancock|1986|p=195}}
3. ^Barbados Tourism Encyclopaedia
4. ^[https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/r/robertson-vesey.html New York Times – "The Buried History of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It"]
5. ^{{cite book |author=Carrington, Sean |title=A~Z of Barbados Heritage |year=2007 |publisher=Macmillan Caribbean Publishers Limited|pages=113, 114 |isbn=0-333-92068-6}}
6. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.georgewashingtonbarbados.org/index.asp?pgid=5 |title=Historical Facts on George Washingtons visit to Barbados in 1751 |accessdate=6 April 2010 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100115181915/http://www.georgewashingtonbarbados.org/index.asp?pgid=5 |archivedate=15 January 2010 }}
7. ^¹{{cite book |editor1-first=Caroline |editor1-last=Radula-Scott |editor1-link= |others= |title=Barbados |edition= 3rd |series=Insight Guide |volume= |year= 2000|publisher=APA Publications |location= Singapore|isbn=981-234-067-X |page= 58 |chapter=Features: All o' We Is Bajan }}
8. ^{{cite book |last1=Carrington |first1=Sean |authorlink1= |last2=Fraser |first2=Henry |editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor1-link= |others= |title=A~Z of Barbados Heritage |trans-title=|url= |format= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year=2003 |month= |origyear= |publisher=Macmillan Caribbean |location= |isbn=0-333-92068-6 |oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages=2–3 |trans-chapter=|chapter=African Heritage |chapterurl= |quote=Direct African influence declined in Barbados earlier than in other major Caribbean societies. In 1817 only 7 percent of Barbadian slaves had been born in Africa, whereas in Jamaica the proportion was 36 percent and 44 percent in Trinidad. An important result was that the process of acculturation, whereby Afro-Barbadians were persuaded or coerced into accepting European cultural norms was more intensive in Barbados. To give two examples, the proportion of words of African origin in the Barbadian vocabulary is much lower than it is in Jamaica, and there are in Barbados none of the religions of African or partly African origin found elsewhere in the Caribbean, such as Voodoo in Haiti, Shango in Trinidad, or Kélé in St. Lucia. (It may be claimed that the Spiritual Baptists are an exception, but this church came to Barbados from Trinidad in comparatively recent times.) |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}
9. ^Musings: In this jurisdiction, solely {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407060123/http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=columnists&NewsID=25888 |date=7 April 2014 }}
10. ^{{Harvcoltxt|Cassidy|1986|p=202}}
11. ^{{cite book|last1=Aceto |first1=Michael |last2=Williams |first2=Jeffrey P. |date=1 Jan 2003 |title=Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L42oT48bPCEC&pg=PA260&lpg=PA260&dq=bajan+rhotic&source=bl&ots=QRsxPMi39K&sig=grDSMe_0yJHWiXOoI8MP4oM7MzY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-6crdyYzaAhUCxVkKHV73A04Q6AEIIzAA#v=onepage&q=bajan%20rhotic&f=false |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |page=260 |isbn=9789027248909}}
12. ^{{Harvcoltxt|Allsopp|Allsopp|2003|p=201}}
13. ^Website of author Jerome Davis, former Barbadian Consul to Canada
14. ^Common sense & evidence: The art of Bajan dialect, Nation Newspaper