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On the East India Company vocabulary of St Helena in the late 17th and early 18th century

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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

Volume Title

36

Publisher

Pergamon Press Ltd.
Sponsorship
Academy of Finland (via University of Tampere) (258434)
Academy of Finland (via University of Tampere) (258434)