Bequia sweet/ Bequia is sweet: syntactic variation in a lesser-known variety of Caribbean English

English Today ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Meyerhoff
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
South America ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
African Languages ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

ABSTRACTAn analysis of dialect variability in the use of BE in the island of Bequia. Bequia (pronounced /bekwei/) is the northernmost of the Grenadine islands in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Like most of the Caribbean, Bequia has a long history of language contact, but most of the evidence for this must be inferred. It appears that the Carib population living on the island before European colonization settled Bequia in successive waves of migration ultimately originating from the coast of South America indeed the name ‘Bequia’ is said to derive from a Carib word becouya, meaning ‘Island of the clouds’, but as yet I have been unable to trace this etymon reliably to a particular Carib language. Based on what we know about St Vincent, and the limited mentions of Bequia in the eighteenth century, we can infer that, at times, there may have been contact between some combination of speakers of a Carib language or languages, French, English, African languages and/or possibly a relatively new creole-like or contact variety of English.

scholarly journals “Soi-Disant Columbuses”: The Discovery of Dominica’s Boiling Lake and the Commodification of Knowledge in Colonial Societies

2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 237-263
Author(s):  
Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Sir Walter Ralegh ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Commodification Of Knowledge

It may indeed be “a truth universally acknowledged” that “no man is an island, entire of itself.” Nonetheless, the entirety upon itself that Donne assumes as a given in connection to islands may be true only as far as geography and geometry are concerned – or perhaps, in the case of the poet, as far as the pure idea, the literary conceit, goes. The truth is that given the pernicious history of European colonization around the world, no island has retained its entirety of itself for very long after being “discovered” by Europeans. One may thus wonder if Donne himself was quite unaware of the irony implicit in his verses. In 1596, more than a quarter century before he penned his famous lines, he had had his own brush with conquest and colonization. In that year, he had enlisted in the Earl of Essex’s unsuccessful privateering expedition against Cadiz, and in 1597 he had sailed with Essex and Sir Walter Ralegh in the near-disastrous Islands Expedition, which had sought to intercept Spanish ships bringing gold and silver from South America as they sailed past the Azores.

Islam without Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad S. Dallal
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Ganges

Replete with a cast of giants in Islamic thought and philosophy, Ahmad S. Dallal’s pathbreaking intellectual history of the eighteenth-century Muslim world challenges stale views of this period as one of decline, stagnation, and the engendering of a widespread fundamentalism. Far from being moribund, Dallal argues, the eighteenth century--prior to systematic European encounters--was one of the most fertile eras in Islamic thought. Across vast Islamic territories, Dallal charts in rich detail not only how intellectuals rethought and reorganized religious knowledge but also the reception and impact of their ideas. From the banks of the Ganges to the shores of the Atlantic, commoners and elites alike embraced the appeals of Muslim thinkers who, while preserving classical styles of learning, advocated for general participation by Muslims in the definition of Islam. Dallal also uncovers the regional origins of most reform projects, showing how ideologies were forged in particular sociopolitical contexts. Reformists’ ventures were in large part successful--up until the beginnings of European colonization of the Muslim world. By the nineteenth century, the encounter with Europe changed Islamic discursive culture in significant ways into one that was largely articulated in reaction to the radical challenges of colonialism.

Syntactic variation in the history of Norwegian and the decline of XV word order

Diachronica ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Sundquist
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Case Morphology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Exogenous Factors ◽  
Subsequent Loss

This essay examines syntactic variation between Complement–Verb (XV) and Verb–Complement (VX) order in a corpus of Middle Norwegian texts written between 1250 and 1525. In comparison to traditional studies which relate word order variation and the subsequent loss of XV word order to overt case morphology, this analysis proposes that information structure and variation in the underlying structure of the VP play a significant role. Empirical data point to the interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors, including language contact between Norwegian and Danish, which ultimately brings about the decline of XV word order in 15th-century Norwegian.

Introduction When the Levees Rose

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
Cécile Vidal
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Racial Formation ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Atlantic History ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
Urban Slavery ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
It Practices

The introduction presents the book’s argument according to which it is more accurate to view eighteenth-century New Orleans as a Caribbean port city than as a North American one, as its late foundation, its position within the French Empire, and its connections with Saint-Domingue explain why the interplay of slavery and race profoundly shaped its society from the outset. It situates the book vis-à-vis Louisiana and Atlantic historiographies on urban slavery, slave societies, and racial formation, arguing that historians need to move away from a comparative history of racial slavery in the Western Hemisphere that contrasts the Caribbean and North America as two distinctive models. Finally, the introduction discusses how the book draws on two methodological approaches in order to analyze how racial formation unfolded under the influence of global, regional, and local circumstances: it practices a situated Atlantic history and develops a microhistory of race within the urban center.

Where Caciques and Mapmakers Met

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Alan Jr. Erbig
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
South America ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Native Sovereignty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Joint Mapping ◽  
Territorial Claims ◽  
Imperial Reforms

During the late eighteenth century, Portugal and Spain sent joint mapping expeditions to draw a nearly 10,000-mile border between Brazil and Spanish South America. These boundary commissions were the largest ever sent to the Americas and coincided with broader imperial reforms enacted throughout the hemisphere. Where Caciques and Mapmakers Met considers what these efforts meant to Indigenous peoples whose lands the border crossed. Moving beyond common frameworks that assess mapped borders strictly via colonial law or Native sovereignty, it examines the interplay between imperial and Indigenous spatial imaginaries. What results is an intricate spatial history of border making in southeastern South America (present-day Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay) with global implications. Drawing upon manuscripts from over two dozen archives in seven countries, Jeffrey Erbig traces on-the-ground interactions between Ibero-American colonists, Jesuit and Guaraní mission-dwellers, and autonomous Indigenous peoples as they responded to ever-changing notions of territorial possession. It reveals that Native agents shaped when and where the border was drawn, and fused it to their own territorial claims. While mapmakers' assertions of Indigenous disappearance or subjugation shaped historiographical imaginaries thereafter, Erbig reveals that the formation of a border was contingent upon Native engagement and authority.

1. The Atlantic slave trade

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Heather Andrea Williams
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Middle Passage ◽  
Slave Labor ◽  
Christopher Columbus ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
North And South America ◽  
North And South

Slavery had long existed in Europe and Africa, but the history of the Atlantic slave trade begins in the 1440s with Portuguese exploration of West Africa. ‘The Atlantic slave trade’ charts the increased demand for slave labor in Portugal and the Christian justification of African enslavement. In the 1490s, the journeys of Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean and North and South America opened up mineral-rich and fertile lands on which European countries planted their flags and the Christian cross. More than 12 million Africans boarded the ships, but nearly 2 million died during the Middle Passage. Of those who survived, only about 5 percent went to North America, with most going to South America and the Caribbean.

The geological history of northwestern South America: from Pangaea to the early collision of the Caribbean Large Igneous Province (290–75Ma)

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Spikings ◽  
Ryan Cochrane ◽  
Diego Villagomez ◽  
Roelant Van der Lelij ◽  
Cristian Vallejo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Large Igneous Province ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Igneous Province ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

scholarly journals A genetic history of the pre-contact Caribbean

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Fernandes ◽  
Kendra A. Sirak ◽  
Harald Ringbauer ◽  
Jakob Sedig ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Population Size Estimates ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

Humans settled the Caribbean ~6,000 years ago, with intensified agriculture and ceramic use marking a shift from the Archaic Age to the Ceramic Age ~2,500 years ago. To shed new light on the history of Caribbean people, we report genome-wide data from 184 individuals predating European contact from The Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, and northwestern Venezuela. A largely homogeneous ceramic-using population most likely originating in northeastern South America and related to present-day Arawak-speaking groups moved throughout the Caribbean at least 1,800 years ago, spreading ancestry that is still detected in parts of the region today. These people eventually almost entirely replaced Archaic-related lineages in Hispaniola but not in northwestern Cuba, where unadmixed Archaic-related ancestry persisted into the last millennium. We document high mobility and inter-island connectivity throughout the Ceramic Age as reflected in relatives buried ~75 kilometers apart in Hispaniola and low genetic differentiation across many Caribbean islands, albeit with subtle population structure distinguishing the Bahamian islands we studied from the rest of the Caribbean and from each other, and long-term population continuity in southeastern coastal Hispaniola differentiating this region from the rest of the island. Ceramic-associated people avoided close kin unions despite limited mate pools reflecting low effective population sizes (2Ne=1000-2000) even at sites on the large Caribbean islands. While census population sizes can be an order of magnitude larger than effective population sizes, pan-Caribbean population size estimates of hundreds of thousands are likely too large. Transitions in pottery styles show no evidence of being driven by waves of migration of new people from mainland South America; instead, they more likely reflect the spread of ideas and people within an interconnected Caribbean world.

scholarly journals Biological Anthropology of Latin America: Historical Development and Recent Advances

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas H. Ubelaker ◽  
Sonia E. Colantonio
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
South America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Biological Anthropology ◽  
Health And Nutrition ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Growth Development

<table> <tr> <td> <p>Despite significant positive developments within topics of biological anthropology, archaeology, and related academic areas in Latin America, we noted a lack of coordination and communication among them. Available publications provide syntheses within different areas of biological anthropology, yet few have attempted integration of the distinct subfields. We decided to address the development and current issues of most major areas of Latin American biological anthropology in a single volume with chapters by distinguished, experienced scholars who live and work in Latin America, are knowledgeable about the topics, have published extensively on them, and who were recommended by specialists within six geographical regions of interest: Brazil and northeastern South America, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, northwestern South America, and southern South America. Six subdisciplines within biological anthropology were defined for academic coverage: (1) biodemography and epidemiology; (2) bioarchaeology and skeletal biology; (3) paleopathology; (4) forensic anthropology; (5) population genetics; and (6) growth, development, health, and nutrition. Though these six subdisciplines overlap to an extent, each offers a distinct history of development and presents unique issues to address. Chapters generally cover topics of history, the state of knowledge, methodological perspective, and areas in need of additional research. Although the text is in English, abstracts in English, Spanish, and Portuguese are included.</p> </td> </tr> </table>

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