Statian Creole English: an English‐derived language emerges in the Dutch Antilles1

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper examines data gathered via fieldwork from St Eustatius, an island in the Dutch Caribbean. This English variety displays a handful of correspondences with other Englishes spoken in geographically proximate areas, but what is most noteworthy about this restructured English is that so much of its grammar is significantly different from many of those same nearby varieties. Historical, linguistic, and ethnographic data are interwoven to make the case that Statian English sounds different from most other Englishes of the Caribbean basin because the colonizing and settlement patterns of the island differed from plantation societies focusing on the production of cash crops. St Eustatius was a commercial center instead, offering an entrepôt for goods (and, at times, slaves) for sale to customers from the eastern rim of the Americas. In this import‐export context, English as a lingua franca of trade emerged with its own distinctive cluster of features.