The language situation in the Caribbean
The Caribbean is known to be a melting pot of linguistic diversity. Among the many languages spoken the most dominant ones are, without doubt, English, French, Spanish and Dutch. English, for instance, is spoken in the Bahamas, Jamaica or Trinidad &Tobago. The most important French-speaking islands are Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique, whereas Spanish is spoken in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Finally, Dutch is an official language of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and the Netherland Antilles. (Patzelt, 2009, p. 113)
The Caribbean is constituted of the West Indian islands (or Antilles) and some portions of Central and South America. This part of the world has a shared history, as all these areas were colonized and used as plantations for economic profit. The Caribbean is a linguistically heterogeneous area. The Anglophone Caribbean is just one part of the broad area, and it presents a complex linguistic situation
According to Mair and Sand (2017), All states of the Caribbean share a common feature. In the Anglophone Caribbean, English co-exists with an English-lexicon creole language if not more. These languages are all used by all strata of the society. They are either used formal or informal communicative situations. Local English usage in the Caribbean has been affected by contact with: Other European languages, Non-European immigrant languages, Creoles with a language other than English as a lexifier, and Native American languages, many of which are now extinct. It is extremely difficult to describe the use of Caribbean English linguistically. Therefore, English usage in the area is regarded as a ‘continuum’, in order to account for the complex polyphony of English usage. Caribbean English as a variety was created through the common history and culture.