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Today Kristoffer Friis Bøegh has send me the following news:

“The feature film “Empire” is nominated for the 2023 Nordic Council Film Prize.

St. Croix, the Danish West Indies, 1848. Anna Heegaard and Petrine are close friends. Although both are women of colour, their living conditions are very different – Anna is free and owns the enslaved Petrine. Anna shares her life with Danish Governor General Peter von Scholten at her country house, where she manages the home, her fortune, and her beloved and trusted housekeeper Petrine. Things are seemingly fine until rumours of a rebellion begin to swirl. Which side are Anna and Petrine really on, and is it the same one?”

The entire article is available at: https://www.norden.org/en/nominee/empire-denmark

On July 3rd the US Virgin Islands celebrates emancipation of the enslaved took place o175 years ago. Please visit this site to know more about this beautiful day.

During the period of slavery most of the enslaved used a Dutch related Creole language which emerged at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century on the Danish Westindies, in which a large part of the colonist used Dutch as their venacular. The language was called Carriolsch, Creole and lateron in European/Dutch publications ‘Negerhollands’. From about 2013 on we use the name Virgin Islands Dutch Creole.

The language is conserved in a large number of missionary texts from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and a lot of stories, sentences and words which were noted in early twentieth century interviews.

From the end of the 1960s until 1987 several last native speakers helped linguists to study and learn the language as it was actually spoken.

The most remarkable Virgin Islands Dutch Creole text related to slavery, which was expressed by an enslaved man is noted in 1788. The following farewell song invites the listener to enter the thoughts of a desperate enslaved one:

Adjo my Mester Neeger, e — Samja

Da lob my lo lob, e – Samja

My nöy kan hau di uit mer &c

Di Blanco no frey, e – Samja

Adjo my Syssie, &c

Van Dag du Mandag &c

Adjo my Mama &c

Da lob my &c

Adjo my beer Maade …

Adjo my gud Friende &c

Adjo my Tata

Di Land no Frey &c

Adjo my Viefe &c

Lef frey met my Mama &c

Dünk op my altyt &c

My nu sae ferjet jou e – – Samja

English translation:

Farewell, my master negroe, I unhappy one

It is going what I will do

I can’t hold it anymore

The whites (are) no good

Farewell my sister

Today it is monday

Farewell my mother

It is going what I will do

Farewell my bed mates (‘close friends’)

Farewell my good friends

Farewell my father

The country not good

Farewell my wife

Live well with my mother

Think about me always

I will not forget you

Informatie volgt zo snel mogelijk.

Only a few days ago Peter Bakker (Aarhus University) published his review of my dissertation The Virgin Islands Dutch Creole Textual Heritage: Philological Perspectives on Authenticity and Audience Design (2017) (and my defence) on Lingoblog.dk. You can find the text here.

Next week, on wednesday December 20, I will defend my PhD-thesis The Virgin Islands Dutch Creole Textual Heritage: Philological Perspectives on Authenticity and Audience Design. The defence will take place at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. The thesis will appear as no 477 in the LOT-dissertation series. An Open Source version will be available from December 20th on. I will publish the link on this website.

Several sources point to the Zeelandic/Flemish lexifier of Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. Hesseling mentions that, Logeman, etcetera. In 2000 I published the article ‘Negerhollands, Negerzeeuws, Negervlaams?’ in which I showed that not only Zeelandic, but especially  West-Flemish is of importance as lexifier of VIDC. Since lexical items from these dialects do not appear in Dutch texts from the Danish Antilles at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, I considered the appearance in VIDC a proof for emigrants from the south of Zeeland and the north of West Flanders.

Demography underlines this. In my article from 2013, of which I have just found out it is digitally available, I study the heritage of the colonists on the basis of a few censuses of St. Thomas, of which the one of 1691 is the most important.

Van Rossem 2013