The survival of people and languages : : schooners, goats and cassava in St. Barthélemy, French West Indies / / by Julianne Maher.

• Superior document: Brill's studies in language, cognition and culture, volume 5
• Author: Maher, Julianne.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : Brill,, 2013.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's studies in language, cognition and culture ; 5.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (258 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In The Survival of People and Languages: Schooners, Goats and Cassava in St. Barthelemy, French West Indies , Julianne Maher explains a rare linguistic anomaly, how a small homogeneous population of seventeenth century French settlers in the tiny island of St. Barth came to speak four separate languages. With a range of historical documents and eighteenth century eye-witness accounts, Maher reconstructs the island's social ecology that led to its fragmentation. The four speech varieties are closely examined and analyzed, using extensive native speaker interviews; with the impending demise of these languages such documentation is unique. Maher concludes that social factors such as poverty, economics, geography and small population size served to maintain linguistic barriers on the island for over two hundred fifty years.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- 1. Origins -- 2. History’s Shuttlecock -- 3. The Social Ecology of St. Barthélemy -- 4. The Languages of St. Barthélemy -- 5. Language Survival and Language Loss -- Epilogue -- Appendix 1. The St. Barth 1681 Census -- Appendix 2. Language Samples from Recorded Interviews -- References -- Index.