Bahamas Creole English
PrintPrimary tabs
A language of Bahamas
ISO 639-3
Alternate Names
Bahamian Creole English, Bahamian Dialect
Population
225,000 in Bahamas (1987).
Language Maps
Language Status
6a (Vigorous). De facto language of national identity.
Classification
Dialects
None known. Good comprehension of and reportedly very similar to Sea Island Creole [gul] and Afro-Seminole [afs] in the United States (Hancock 1980). Major differences with Sea Island are in phonology, a few words, regional expressions, grammatical differences (verbal markers). There is a spectrum of varieties from standard American English usage to creole (Todd and Hancock 1986).
Language Development
Dictionary.
Language Resources
Writing
Latin script [Latn].
There is a continuum of variation from basilectal Creole to acrolectal English [eng] of the educated. Christian.