St. Lucian Kwéyòl on St. Croix: A Study of Language Choice and Attitudes

This new work brings together both reviews and critiques of current theories of creolization and provides new data from a sociolinguistic case study of speakers of St. Lucian French-lexifier Creole (Kwéyòl) on the island of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. St. Lucian Kwéyòl has its origins in the 17th century after the French settled there in 1651 from Martinique with their slaves. In the following years, thousands more African slaves were imported. A rugged volcanic island with a roadless interior, St. Lucia provided a haven for runaway slaves (nègres marrons or maroons) from other islands. Buffeted by the forces of globalization and the continued impact of English, Kwéyòl continues to be widely-spoken on St. Lucia today. The crux of the book is the case study that examines Kwéyòl-speaking St. Lucians as a minority community on St. Croix where Kwéyòl is but one of numerous languages spoken, including Caribbean English, Crucian Creole, several other Caribbean Creole languages, Spanish, and Arabic. The collection of data and analytical attention are centered on questions of language choice, language attitudes, ethnolinguistic identity, and bilingualism. This book will be welcomed by students and researchers in linguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics and anthropology with a special interest in Creole languages and linguistic minorities in multilingual speech communities.