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Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 35:1 (2014) ► pp.52–67

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An 18th-century novel from the Miskito Coast

What was creolized?

 | University of Coimbra, Portugal
Published online: 21 February 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.35.1.04hol
William Williams (1727–1791) wrote a novel entitled Mr. Penrose: The Journal of Penrose, Seaman about an English sailor marooned on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, partly based on the author’s own experience. Internal linguistic evidence confirms that the castaway’s contact was with the Rama and Miskito Indians of this area. The novel’s 350 printed pages are in the formal English of the times, but also include dialogue in the local vernacular English that was still undergoing creolization. It includes words not only from Rama and Miskito, but also Spanish and African languages and phrases suggesting convergence with modern English Creole structures (“Harry was sick, sick”). This article uses lexical and morphosyntactic data from the 18th-century manuscript to cast light on the origin of synchronic features of Miskito Coast Creole English.
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Perez, Danae
2019. Introduction. In Language Competition and Shift in New Australia, Paraguay, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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