Creole Then And Now: The Problem Of Definition

Caribbean Quarterly

Volumn 44, Issue 1-2, 1998, Pages 33-49

  Allen, Carolyn ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0007261877     PISSN: 00086495     EISSN: 24706302     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00086495.1998.11829569     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Bill, Ashcroft, Garath, Griffiths and Helen, Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures (London & New York: Routledge, 1989) 145. See also J., Michael Dash in “Psychology, Creolisation and Hybridisation” in James Clifford's The Predicament of Culture where the Caribbean is seen as a “paradigm for modem syncretic cultures.” (Typescript from the author. Recently published in Bruce King edited collection on post-colonial literature.)
2. In his Introduction À une poétique du divers (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), Edouard Glissant also sees the implications of studying creolisation as going beyond the region, to offering a new approach to the spiritual dimension of the humanities.
3. Sidney, Mintz and Sally, Price, Caribbean Contours (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, (1985) 6.
4. Rex, Nettleford, Caribbean Cultural Identity (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1978) 2.
5. Rex, Nettleford, Inward Stretch, Outward Reach: A Voice from the Caribbean (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993) 64.
6. Jean, Casimir, La Caraibe Une et Divisible (Port-au-Prince: CEPALC/Nations Unies/Henri Deschamps, 1991) 27, “La mise en place de groupements et de rdsaux de relations durables suppose un certain degré de connaissance du mode de fonctionnement de la sociélté. Dans une situation coloniale, cette mise en place est done l'oeuvre des creoles on des creolicas. Ce n'est pas par hasard que les specialistes des sciences sociales de la région, s'émancipant de la tutelle métropolitaine, s'efforcent de mettre au clair ce que sont le crdole et le processus de creolisation.”
7. Suzanne, Romaine, Pidgin and Creole Languages (London: Longman, 1988)1
8. Noted in entry on “creole” in A Dictionary of American English (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940).
9. See Frederic G., Cassidy, Jamaica Talk 1961 (London/Kingston: Macmillan Caribbean/Sangster's, 1982) for changes in Jamaican usage. Also Bolland's reference to Virginia R. Dominguez’ study of the meaning(s) of ‘creole’ in Louisiana since the eighteenth century.
10. Quoted by Stefano Harney in Nationalism and Identity: Culture and the Imagination in a Caribbean Diaspora (London and Kingston: Zed Books and UWI, 1996) 95.
11. According to Brathwaite: “…in Trinidad, it refecs principally to the black descendants of slaves Contradictory Omens, 10. Mintz/Price: “In modem settings, it refers in some areas (e.g., coastal Suriname) to Afro-Americans and in others (e.g., Trinidad) to persons of European ancestry. Caribbean Contours (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UNiversity Press, 1985) 6.
12. Oxford English Dictionary Vol.11 (Oxford University Press, [1933]1961), 1163
13. To give just a few examples: Dictionnaire de la langue francaise (Paris: Hachette, 1878) “L'origine de criollo est douteuse; si I'on fait venir de 1'espagn…. la formation est tout A fait irregulaire d'Espagne. “Oscar, Bloch and Wlather, von Wartburg, Dictionnaire Etymologigue de la langua franca (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1975 6th ed.) “dér. De criar… lat. Creare, avec un suff. peu clair.” An Entymological Dictionary of the English Language. (Oxford U P, 1987) “… a corrupt word made by the negroes; said to be a contraction of creadillo…”
14. Maureen, Wamer-Lewis, “Posited Kikoongo Origins of some Portuguese and Spanish words of the slave period.” Paper presented to Tenth Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, Georgetown, Guyana (August 1994). For further support and connnentary on the African origins of linguistic creole formation see William, Washabaugh and Sidney M., Greenfield, “The Development of Atlantic Creole Languages,” Ellen, Woolford and William, Washabaugh eds., The Social Context of Creolisation (Ann Arbor: Karoma, 1983) 106–119.
15. Diccionario Critico Etimolōgico de la Lengua Castellana (Bema: 1954.)
16. Carol, Barash, “The Character of Difference: The Creole Woman as Cultural Mediator in Narratives about Jamaica,” Eighteenth Century Studies 23.4 (1900) 424
17. A Dictionary of American English University of Chicago Press, 1940
18. H.W., Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. 2nd ed. London: Kingston: Macmillan Caribbean/Sangsters) [1961] 1982), 162.
19. See Frederic G., Cassidy, Jamaica Talk 1961, 162
20. Carol, Barash, “The Character of Difference: The Creole Woman as Cultural Mediator in Narratives about Jamaica”, Eighteenth Century Studies, 23: 4(1990), 424
21. A Dictionary of American English (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940).
22. See Warner-Lewis extract above. Edward, Long. The History of Jamaica, 3 Vols. (London: n.p. 1774) Philip, Wright (ed.). Lady Nugent's Journal of her Residence in Jamaica, 1801–1805 (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, [1907] 1966).
23. Southall quoted in Cassidy and LePage, 130, Also Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea for a fictional representation. Discussed by Carole Barash.
24. Tnésor de la Langue Française: Dictionnaire de la langue du XIXe et du XXe siècle. (16 vols.) Vol. 6 (Paris: Eds. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1978). Franscisco J., Santamaria, Dictionariode Majicanismos. (Méjico: Editorial Porrua, 1959).
25. Edward, Long qouted in Cassidy, Jamaica Talk 156; Victor, Hugo (1826) cited in Trésor de la Langue Française; J., Ramsay (1788) quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary
26. As Cudjoe notes in Resistance and Caribbean Literature (Chicago: Ohio UP, 1980). “Given these divisions, it became impossible for Africans to maintain the sense of cohesiveness necessary to overthrow the Europeans and develop their own national state.” For a more extended discussion of Haiti, see David, Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier.
27. Philip, Wright (ed.). Lady Nugent's Journal of her Residence in Jamaica, 1801–1805 (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, [1907] 1966)98
28. Radiquet (1923) cited in Trésor de la Langue Française: J., McLeod (1818) in Oxford English Dictionary; Cassidy Jamaica Talk, 153
29. Franklin W., Knight, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism. 2nd edition. (New York: Oxford UP, 1990) 128.
30. Kamau, Brathwaite “Creative Literature of the British West Indies during the period of slavery,” Roots (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993) 129.
31. Sidney, Mintz, “The Caribbean as a Socio-cultural Area,” Michael M., Horowitz ed., Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean (New York: Natural History Press, 1971) 34.
32. Discussing the racial politics of Mexican independence for example, Chester, Hunt and Lewis, Walker state, “Mexican independence and Mexican nationalism were first stimulated to serve the interests of the criollos…” Ethnic Dvnamics: Patterns of intergroul) relations in various societies (Homewood: Dorsey Press, 1974) 141.
33. Cassidy and LePage, Dictionary of Jamaican English. (Cambridge: Camb University Press, 1967). 130
34. Joseph Tregle's discussion of the political importance of creoleness in Louisiana is instructive, in “Creoles and Americans”, Creole New Orleans, Arnold R., Hirsch and Joseph, Logsdon. eds. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University, 1992). 131–185.
35. “Creole,” Encylopedia du Bon Francais dans l'usage conteporain. Vol. I (Paris: Editions de Trévise, 1972).
36. P. M., Sherlock, West Indian Nations: A New History (London: Macmillan and Kingston: Jamaica Publishing House, 1973) 32.
37. Jean, Casimir, La Caraïabe Une et Divisible. (Port-au-Prince:CEPALC/Nations Unies/Henri Deschamps, 1991), 44. My translation. “Qualifier la culture locale de culture creole fait courir le risque de confondre les creations des ethnies dominoes avec les adaptations des institutions europdenncs par l'ethnie dominante.” Casimir 44.
38. Sylvia, Wynter, “Creole Criticism — A Critique,” New World Ouarterly 5.4 (1972): 12–37.
39. David, Nicholls, Dessalines to Duvalier Warwick University Caribbean Studies (London's Basingstoke: Macmillan Caribbean. 1988) 248–49.
40. Rex, Nettleford, Caribbean Cultural Identity (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1978) 2.
41. Edouard, Glissant, “Creolisations dans la Caraibe et les Ameriques,” Introduction A une poetique du divers (Paris: Gillimard, 1996) 14. oet
42. J., Michael Dash, “Psychology, Creolisation and Hybridisation,” ts 2–3.
43. O., Nigel Bolland, “Creolisation and Creole societies: a cultural nationalist view of Caribbean social history.” in Alistair, Hennessy, ed. intellectuals in the Twentieth CentruryCaribbean. Vol. 1-Spectre of the New Class: The Commonwealth Caribbean. Warwick University Caribbean Studies, (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1992), 50–79.
44. Robert J. C., Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (New York: Routledge, 1995) 20–22.
45. Kamau, Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens. (Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, (1974]1985), 58
46. O., Nigel Bolland, “Creolisation and Creole societies: a cultural nationalist view of Caribbean social history.” 72.
47. Bolland, 52
48. “Creoles and Pidgins.,” The Linguistics Encyclopedia (London and New York: Routledge, 1991) 82. For a more detailed account with quotations but later dates see Peter, Stein, “Quelques dates nouvelles de l'histoire du mot ‘créole’,” Etudes Creoles, 5. 1–2 (1982): 162–165.
49. Oxford Companion to the English Language (Oxford and NY: Oxford UP, 1992) 270–1.
50. Kamau, Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens. (Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, (1974) 1985),58. Roger, Anderson et. al., Pidginisation and Creolisation as Language Acquisition. (Rowley and London: Newbury House, 1983), 11.
51. Roberto, Marquez, “Nationalism, Nation and Ideology: Trends in the Emergence of a Caribbean-Literature, The Modem Caribbean, Franklin W., Knight and Colin A., Palmer eds. (Chapel Hill and London: U of North Carolina Press, 1989) 330.
52. Derek, Walcott, Omeros. (NewYork: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1990). Jahan, Ramazani, “The Wound of History: Walcott's Omeros and the Postcolonial Poetics of Affliction,” PMLA 112 (1997): 405–417. Quoting from Abstracts, 536.
53. Jahan, Ramazani, PMLA 112: 3 (1997), 405–417, passim.
54. Jahan, Ramazani, PMLA 112:3 (1997), 409.
55. The difficulty of thinking outside the habits of mind which privilege the linear structure makes metaphors both useful and attractive. All three embrace the essential ingredients of multiplicity and encounter or relationship, but each contains a limitation: in the melting pot original identity is lost; with the quilt each element remains discreet, unaltered; the ‘parts’ of the rhizome root may have little relation to each other outside the point of origin.