Berbice Dutch Creole was a language spoken along the Berbice River of Guyana. Born in the plantations of the former Dutch, this Creole developed from interactions between the colonizers, the local Arawak populations, and the Enslaved Africans. A significant aspect about this Creole was that 38% of its lexicon was easily traceable to a single language cluster: Ijo (Ijaw). This suggested that many of the enslaved from this region descended from Ijaw speaking people, particularly Kalabari clan. This is very unique, as no other creole had such a clear and strong connection to a single African language/culture. Unfortunately, the last native speaker, Albertha Bell, passed in 2005; and the language has been declared extinct since 2010.
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#berbice #berbicedutchcreole #ijaw #kalabari #ijawse #riversstate #creoles #carribean #arawak