Diagnostic Features of English-Lexifier Creoles: a new look at Bahamian

Abstract

This paper is a partial replica of a study by Hackert and Huber (2007). It first documents the earliest attestations in Bahamian of the diagnostic features of English-lexifier pidgins and creoles proposed by Baker and Huber (2001). Bahamian is then compared to the seven Atlantic English-lexifier varieties considered by Baker and Huber (2001). As shown by Hackert and Huber (2007), this feature-based approach allows for the quantification of the affinity between Bahamian and Gullah. Finally, a number of selected diagnostic features recorded in Bahamian are discussed in terms of their origin and of their distribution.

Keywords

• diagnostic features
• Bahamian
• Caribbean
• Atlantic
• world-wide