Review of ‘Language contact in the Danish West Indies: Giving Jack his jacket’

Posted on May 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

About this moment, only four years ago, Robin Sabino’s Language contact in the Danish West Indies: Giving Jack his jacket appeared. This work is without a doubt THE description of spoken Virgin Islands Dutch Creole and contains a bulk of information about all stages and aspects of this Dutch related Creole.

In the latest volume of Journal of Pidgin and Creole Language Peter Bakker (Aarhus University) published his review:

Bakker, Peter. 2016. Review of Language contact in the Danish West Indies: Giving Jack his Jacket. By Robin Sabino. Leiden: Brill 2012. Pp. 337 ISBN 978-90-04-22540-4 (Brill’s Studies in Language, Cognition and Culture, Volume 1) (…). In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 31: 1, p. 223-228.

Other reviews of Sabino (2012) are Migge (2013) and Van den Berg & Van Sluijs (2015).

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Die Geskiednis 1833 available as scan

Posted on April 15, 2016 | Leave a comment

In a letter from 1773 we find the first clue that Johann Böhner had at least started to translate Samuel Lieberkühn’s Gospel Harmony (1768) into Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. In the following years he made at least two versions before 1780 (manuscripts 321 and 322). During a conference in 1784 it was decided that J.C. Auerbach should make another version for a better connection to the audience of (enslaved) inhabitants of the Danish Antilles. We think the unfinished manuscript 3231 is from his hand. A final manuscript version, from before 1795, is also incorporated in our corpus.

In 1833  Die Geskiednis van ons Heere en Heiland Jesus Christus, soo as die vier Evangelist sender ka skriev die op  is published in New York, financed by the American Tract Society. 2000 copies were distributed among 9400 Christianized slaves (Anon. 1836), so of lots of people it must have thought they had the skill to read Creole. Still it was the last printed Virgin Islands Dutch Creole text of the Moravian Brethren.

The content of the manuscripts is available in the digital Clarin-Nehol Corpus. On the Scanned Publications page, you will find the scanned version of this 1833 Virgin Islands Dutch Creole Gospel Harmony.

 

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Posted in Clarin-NEHOL Corpus, Historical corpora, Manuscripts

Dutch as a koine?

Posted on February 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

Aarhus Danish Atlantic 160116 Dutch as a Koine

On January 16, 2016, I presented this paper in Aarhus at the symposium The Danish Atlantic (Aarhus University). Next to papers in the field of history, anthropology, archives and museums, five had a linguistic subject. Robbert van Sluijs (Radboud University) about West-African grammatical influence on VIDC, Peter Bakker (Aarhus University) about Danish linguistic elements in West-African and Dutch Creole languages, Kristoffer Boegh (Aarhus University) about the differences between Dutch Creole lects and other Creole languages and Peter Stein (several universities, Emeritus) about Oldendorps reports on the life of enslaved people.

The Dutch language was the largest lexifier of VIDC, and to be be more precize: the influence of Western Flemish and Zeelandic dialects is obvious. However, we do not know exactly how these elements entered into the vernacular of the Danish Antilles. I already presented on this subject in Brussels (2012), which was published in Revue Belge, but in this presentation I focus on the exact variant of Dutch and not only on demographic information.

Further reading? This will be a part of my dissertation. Please feel free to send me an email about this subject.

Cefas van Rossem

 

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Posted in Danish sources, Historical corpora, Manuscripts, metalinguistic comments, Presentations, Uncategorized

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Audience Design and eighteenth century Virgin Islands Dutch Creole

Posted on February 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

Audience Design and eighteenth century VIDC [dct]

On February 6, 2016, I presented a paper during the so-called Grote Taaldag/Taalkunde-in-Nederland-dag of the Algemene Vereniging voor Taalkunde, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. In this presentation I focused on the use of Bell’s Audience Design model to study the authenticity of eighteenth century Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. Of course it will eventually be a part of my dissertation.

Please feel free to send me feedback!

Cefas van Rossem

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Thomas Stolz’s ‘Gibt es das kreolische Sprachwandelmodell?’ on ResearchGate.net

Posted on December 23, 2015 | Leave a comment

In 1986 Thomas Stolz (University Bremen) published his thorough study of Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. In German he presents an extensive description of VIDC grammar. At the moment it is available as download for members of  ResearchGate.net.

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Manuscript of Brandt 1799?

Posted on November 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

On February 17, 2003 Hein van der Voort received an e-mail from Poul Olsen of Copenhagen’s Rigsarkivet in which he presented a newly found manuscript of a hymn book. The text consists of 86 pages on which 76 hymns and a litany are written.  The print was stored in our archives and only a few hours ago, when I was working on the comparison of different versions of the hymn O! Planterman, it appeared to be different from the other hymn books by Danish translators.

 

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Van der Voort thought this manuscript was likely to be of Andreas Joachim Brandt’s 1799 hymn book. A closer look shows a bulk of similarities, but also differences. The title, for instance, is never used for a printed hymn book.

An interesting incidental is the presentation of an alternative preposition like I described in my Aruba presentation (to be published). The author originally used the Dutchlike preposition in, but added the Creole preposition na above of it. The word in was not erased and so it seems as if a final decision about correct use was postponed. Eventually only Creole na was used in the titles of printed hymn books by Danish translators. In the rest of the manuscript we see erased and underlined words. In most cases of the underlined words, another word or form is added in one of the margins. For instance: regt skoon ‘truely fair’, is changed into heel skoon ‘very fair’ (p. 3). The word heel seems to be more according the vernacular than regt. In the same hymn ju Geest selv ‘your spirit himself’ is changed into ju Geest Selv, as if a capital was needed to clarify the relation between Geest and selv. Capitals are always used to indicate nouns.

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Creol Psalm Buk 1834 digitally available

Posted on November 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

For his work on the VI Dutch Creole Database and Die Creol Taal 1996, Hein van der Voort studied many, if not all, available Creole texts by Danish translators. In our Bibliography he added several remarks with regard to the printing history of these sources. The information about Creol Psalm-Buk, of een Vergaedring van Oûwe en nywe Psalmen na Creol-Tael. (Copenhagen:  1834) gives  interesting information which is comparable to the metalinguistic comments I published in my former post:

‘Schuchardt (1914:124) also mentions this (1834, cvr) edition. This must then be the fourth edition or the fifth (when Brandt 1799 is included) of 1770. This is an exact copy of 1827. Note that likewise, Prætorius’ catechism-and-textbook of 1834 is identical to the one from 1827. Furthermore, both works from 1827, then prin­ted at C. Græbe, were reprinted in 1834 at P.T. Brünnich, and each in an issue of 1000 copies (as appears from an account of 10 November 1834 in RA, Koloniernes Centralbestyrelse, Koloni­alkontoret, Gruppesager II. 922 Salmebogssagen).’ (Bibliography p. 19, November 6, 2015)

Like the Gospel Harmony which was distributed in 1834 in 2000 copies, this hymn booklet was distributed in 1000 copies. This seems to me a huge number, when we keep in mind that Dutch Creole is already more and more replace by English (Creole) in the early nineteenth century.

A comparison of four versions of the hymn, O Planterman, (Wold 1770, Kingo 1770, Praetorius 1823 and Creol Psalm-Buk 1834)  shows that there are, although minor and only orthographical, differences between the latter two.

The Creol Psalm-Buk is available at the following places:

Babel Hathitrust

Google Books

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Some metalinguistic comments from early nineteenth century

Posted on October 19, 2015 | Leave a comment

It is unclear from what period on Dutch Creole was replaced by English or English Creole. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, missionaries still translated and published large texts into Dutch Creole. However, the manuscript which shows best that English became the most important language of the Danish Antilles is Wied’s Confirmations Unterricht of september 1843 (3.3.2  in Stein’s 1986 bibliography of Herrnhuter manuscripts). The first 60 pages of the catechism are in Dutch Creole, but the questions 4, 11, 18 and 25 are already written in English. The final 23 pages, from 1847, are in English.

In 1833, when the Gospel Harmony was published, the edition numbers give the impression the language was still vivid. Among the about 9000 Christianized slaves, 2000 copies of this large book were distributed.

books

(Anon. “Moravian Brethren’s Tract Operations”. In: Twenty-second Annual Report of the American Tract Society, Boston, presented at Boston, May 25, 1836, showing the facilities enjoyed for enlarged operations in foreign and pagan lands, and in our own country. Together with lists of auxiliaries, benefactors, depositories, publications, &c. Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1836. P. 34.)

With regard to the use of language in the church of the Moravian Brethren, in 1829 the following is published:

booksCA3MJ182

(Anon. Periodical Accounts relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren, established among the heathen. Volume XI. London: McDowell, 1829, p. 241-245.)

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What a Pistarckle! Virgin Islands English Creole

Posted on October 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

Lito Vall’s dictionary of Virgin Islands English Creole What a Pistarckle! contains several entrances which were originally Dutch Creole.

The original publication from 1981 can be searched here: What a Pistarcle! 1981. The 1990 supplement is digitally available here: What a Pistarckle! 1990.

Most of the Dutch related words are obsolete. It would therefore be interesting to collect Dutch Creole words which are still in use in Virgin Islands English Creole.

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Van Sluijs about Grammaticalization of ‘Mankeer’

Posted on October 5, 2015 | Leave a comment

On September 28th, Robbert van Sluijs presented his paper Grammaticalization and semantic development of lack > need > want  in Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (Negerhollands) mankee(r) during the Workshop on Grammaticalization of the Radboud University Nijmegen. An abstract can be found here:

program_abstracts_workshop_on_grammaticalization.

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Posted in Announcements and reviews, Clarin-NEHOL Corpus