Bahamas

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Like a string of pearls the Caribbean islands stretches between Mexico and Venezuela. Other names for the Caribbean islands are "The Antilles"
or The West Indies and comprises three main island chains and one of them is the Bahamas Islands. Bahamas comprise an archipelago of about
700 islands, and is known for its fine beaches and colourful, tropical vegetation.

BAHAMAS as we know it, this peaceful island with beautiful sunsets and beaches in our travel catalogues. Today the Bahamas islands are popular tourist attractions and only one of the twenty-five countries situated
in the West Indies, but definitely one of the most famous ones. Its pleasant climate and astonishing nature has made the Bahamas to a paradise - within your reach! But it has not always been a paradise, at least not to the native inhabitants, who have experienced a difficult history.

DURING THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES European kingdoms conquered the West Indies and Bahamas became a British Crown Colony in 1717.
The islands turned out to be perfect for sugarcane fields, and the governing nations sent their African slaves to harvest there. The descendants of
those slaves are now the main population of Bahamas.

Though, this was not the first time Europeans set their feet on Bahamas. As early as 1492 Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Bahamas and later on, Spanish slave traders captured the native inhabitants, known as Lucayan Indians, and forced them to work in gold mines in Hispaniola, Haiti. The result of this was the perish of the Lucayan Indians.

THE POLITICAL OPPRESSION and deepening poverty in Haiti in the 1970´s and the 80´s, caused by the dictator and tyrant Jean Claude Duvalier, gave a
result of an exodus of refugees to the Bahamas and the USA from Haiti. Nowadays there are small Haitian groups on Bahamas, and they were the
cause of the Bahamian Creole English.

So what is Creole?

If you look Creole up in a dictionary you will find out that it means several things. A Creole is a term to distinguish the offspring of European settlers from Native Americans, blacks and other immigrants. In the West Indies the word Creole is used to identify descendants of any European settlers.

The term also is used to denote a language derived from a pidgin language, but are having a much more complicated grammar and vocabulary. Both the Creole and the Pidgin languages are belonging to the Non-genetic categories, other languages in that category are the Deaf Sign Language and the Sign Language. At least 66 different Creole languages have been defined, based on 16 different mother languages. The Bahamian version is English based and is spoken in the northern Atlantic. The Bahamian Creole English is very similar to the Afro-seminole Creole and the Sea Islands Creole English.
The most famous Creole language is of course Jamaican, since it´s most widely spread. The Bahamian Creole English are basically only spoken among the Haitian immigrants and are not that equally spread, but it does not differ that much from the Jamaican Creole.

THE BIGGEST BREAKTHROUGH of the Bahamian Creole English recently has been with music. Because who could have missed the radio plague and hit-wonder "Who Let the dogs out?" with the Baha Men? The Baha Men are natives of the Bahamas and proponents Junakanoo. Junakanoo is the name
of the indigenous rhythm of their homeland, Bahamas. ´

Junakanoo is a term with a history; the story goes that there was a man, many years ago, back in slavery, named John Canoe. He was a slave and the leader of the revolt on Bahamas. The slaves were given time off, at least once or twice a year, around Christmas, and that was the only time they were allowed to play music. John Canoe organised the slaves one year
to communicate with each other using their drums, and that was the beginning of a successful revolt. And therefore the name "Junakanoo".

The song "Who Let the dogs out?" is one example of the language spoken on Bahamas. Words like "the" and "them" are replaced with "da" and "dem", also the grammar and sentence structure are a bit different from ordinary English.

IN FACT the Bahamian English have much in common with the American English, especially such as the slang. The Bahamas have very strong connections with the USA, both economic and commercial relations. They also share the same ethnic background and culture. There are also very many Americans visiting the Bahamas every year. They amount to be 82 percent
of the 3.4 million tourists. The Americans are not only visiting, quite a few are also living there.

The Bahamas is home to 7000 American residents. There is no doubt that the both countries have influenced each other in their ways to use their languages.

TODD AND HANCOCK wrote in 1986:

All languages have inherent prejudices

They pointed out that thi...