Barbados Languages

Barbados

Languages

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Description

English is the official language of Barbados, and is used for communications, administration, and public services all over the island. In its capacity as the official language of the country, the standard of English tends to conform to the vocabulary, pronunciations, spellings, and conventions akin to, but not exactly the same as, those of British English. It is used in print, in the media, in the judicial system, in government, and in day-to-day business.

A regional variant of English referred to locally as Bajan is spoken by most Barbadians in everyday life especially in informal settings, in music, or in social commentary. In its full-fledged form, Bajan sounds markedly different from the Standard English heard on the island. The degree of intelligibility between Bajan and general English depends on the level of creolised vocabulary and idioms. A Bajan speaker may be completely unintelligible to an English speaker from another country. Bajan is influenced by other Caribbean English dialects.

• Bajan or Barbadian Creole - English-based creole language with African and British influences spoken on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Around 1,000 people use English as their main language and 286,000 use Bajan as their main language.
• There was no indigenous language on Barbados

Alphabet and Pronunciation

Pronouns in Bajan Creole 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 plural you, which is wunna, similar to the Jamaican word unnu / unna or Bahamian yinna. Here is a list of pronouns in Bajan creole:

Singular			Plural
Bajan	Standard		Bajan	Standard
I/me/my	I/me/my		we	we/us/our
yuh	you/your		wunna	you all/your
he she it	he/him/his she/her it/its		dem	they/them/their

The word "yuh" is interchangeably pronounced /ju/ or /jə/.