Bajan Creole

Bajan(/ˈbeɪdʒən/BAY-jən), orBajan Creole, is anEnglish-based creole languagewith West/Central African and British influences spoken on theCaribbean islandofBarbados. Bajan is primarily aspoken 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 reports that, as of 2018, 30,000 Barbadians were native English speakers, while 260,000 natively spoke Bajan.
Bajan is the Caribbean creole with grammar that most resemblesStandard English.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 neighbouring English-based creole languages.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 theProvince of Carolina, Bajan has influencedAmerican Englishand theGullah languagespoken in the Carolinas.Regionally, Bajan has ties toBelizeanandGuyanese Creoles.
Unlike Jamaica, Guyana or Trinidad, Barbados was the destination of few enslaved African-born captives after 1800.Thus,African Barbadiansbecame "Bajanised" relatively soon after British colonization. This tended to make them less resistant to local culture, with its Anglicised language, religion and customs.
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 practising 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 annualCrop Overfestival.
As in most English-based Caribbean creoles, theinterdentals/θ/and/ð/(as in "thing", and "the" respectively) have merged with other consonants (in this case,/t/and/d/, respectively, resulting in "ting" and "de").Unlike most other Caribbean creoles, Bajan is fullyrhotic, and if anything more rhotic thanNorth American Standard English. Bajan also has a strong tendency to realize syllable-final/t/as aglottal stop[ʔ]. Thus the Bajan pronunciation ofstart,[stɑːɹʔ], contrasts sharply with the pronunciation of other Caribbean speakers,[staːt]or[stɑːt]or[staːɹt].
Pronouns in Bajan Dialect do not diverge too far from Standard English, but there are differences. As with other similar creoles, Bajan does not differentiate subject and object pronouns, nor possessive pronouns, except in the case of the first person singular. Another difference is the word for the pluralyou, which iswunna, similar to the Jamaican wordunnu/unnaor Bahamianyinnaor Gullah Geecheehunnuh. Here is a list ofpronounsin Bajan Dialect:
The word "yuh" is interchangeably pronounced/ju/or/jə/.
The structure of questions in Bajan Dialect 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 raisedintonationto differentiate, usually on the last word. For example,Wunna win de cricket?means "Did you (pl.) win the cricket match?";das 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 wan?"means "What does he want?" or "He wants what?"Some question words, however, do not exist, or are seldom used in Bajan dialect, includingwhen, 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 deChefette?"means "Where is the Chefette?" In addition, "why" questions can be achieved by asking "how come". For example,"How come you get hay so late?”
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.
Continuous Tenses
Showing Tense
Negative
Some of the common Bajan proverbs are listed below.
Although most words in Bajan dialect are English in origin, many words are borrowed from West African languages. The largest portion contributed to Bajan is from the Igbo language.