A tale of two dialect regions

By Andre Sherriah

This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences in Sranan, an English-based creole spoken in Suriname. Sranan contains "fossilised" linguistic remnants of an early English colonial period. The book discusses whether Sranan's English influence(s) originated from a single dialect from the general London area, as proposed by Norval Smith in 1987, or whether we are dealing with a composite of dialectal features from all over England. The book introduces a novel replicable methodology for linguistic reconstructions, which combines statistics (in the form of binomial probability), English dialect geography (via use of Orton's et. al., 1962-1971, Survey of English Dialects, which focuses on traditional regional English dialects across England and Wales), and 17th-century English migration history (compiled from The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607-1660, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654-1686, Virtual Jamestown, Virginia Center for Digital History, and Colonial State Papers secured from the British History Online databases, among other relevant historical sources).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3961101566
• ISBN13: 9783961101566
• Release Date: May 2019
• Publisher: Language Science Press
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.7" x 9.6"