Report on the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage: School Edition

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“…Indeed, it is not the case that the words selected are necessarily unique to the respective varieties. I consulted the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (Allsopp 2003) and the Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad and Tobago (Winer 2009), as well as several folk dictionaries and glossaries, in order to gain insights into the territories in which the words might have originated and where they continue to be used. This search found that a number of items (afta, bruggadown/braggadang, evahsince, horn, gyam, obeah, rass, ah cunumunu, eh-heh, icenin, jookin board, jumbie, lickrish, mamaguy, nennen, pickah, yampee, uppin) are used in several territories and are not in fact unique to the variety at hand.…”

“…Earlier works such as John Mendes's (1985) Cote Ci Cote La (Trinidad), Frank Collymore's (1970) Notes for a Glossary of Words and Phrases of Barbadian Dialect, and two 1975 works on Guyanese Creole by A. J. Seymour and C. A. Yansen (Allsopp 2008: 354) represent the impressive efforts by non-linguists to document the vocabulary of Caribbean Creoles. More systematic, scholarly undertakings are represented in large-scale lexicographical projects such as the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (Allsopp 2003), The Dictionary of Jamaican English (Cassidy andLe Page [1967] 2002), and the Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad and Tobago (Winer 2009). The production and publication of books require considerable time, knowledge, and capital.…”