W&M Featured Events

Location

Boswell Hall (formerly Morton Hall), Room 314
100 Ukrop Way
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location

Iyabo Osiapem's work focuses on language and identity, and the many ways that they are intwined, among speakers of Bermudian English. Recently she has been working on the history of Black Bermudian English trying to determine how it fits into the Atlantic Anglophone Creole Continuum and on perfectivity in the verb phrase of Bermudian English. In this talk she will explore the history and development of Black Bermudian English (BBE) by looking at how the first English settlers and first black enslaved people contributed to language development in Bermuda. Although BBE is not a creole, as this paper argues, applying creole language development theories to Bermuda's early history can help to situate BBE in the Caribbean English Creole Continuum and can contribute to existing contact language development theories.

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