On the East India Company vocabulary of St Helena in the late 17th and early 18th century
Accepted version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Wright, LC
Abstract
This article considers vocabulary occurring in the St Helena Consultations, which record court proceedings from St Helena, South Atlantic, from the late 1600s onwards, administrated by the British East India Company. As the island was settled ab initio by East India Company settlers, soldiers and their slaves, the input languages are, to some extent, recoverable. The purpose of the East India Company was trade, resulting in much of the vocabulary recorded in the early years being to do with global commerce. Along with settler’s idiolectal Englishes, administrative practices developed elsewhere in the East India Company’s domain transferred non-English vocabulary to St Helena, resulting in an early World English lexicon.
Description
Keywords
47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4704 Linguistics
Journal Title
World Englishes
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0883-2919
1467-971X
1467-971X
Volume Title
36
Publisher
Pergamon Press Ltd.
Publisher DOI
Sponsorship
Academy of Finland (via University of Tampere) (258434)
Academy of Finland (via University of Tampere) (258434)