Zones of intimate linguistic contact and the situation of the Southern Caribbean

A number of areas on the world linguistic map show accretions of linguistic systems which have undergone intense exchange of features, including high degrees of (perforce) partial relexification, or extreme borrowing, in which preexisting features of a language are replaced by forms originating in other linguistic systems. These constitute a special kind of linguistic process, related to other language contact phenomena such as syntactic and semantic metatypy, cultural borrowing and unnecessary borrowing. Parts of the Southern Caribbean, specifically the former Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, French Guiana and Guyana, constitute area where such phenomena are common (McWhorter & Good 2012; Jacobs 2012; Parkvall & Jacobs 2023). This is a region in which contact-induced change has resulted in patterns of borrowing, some of which are quite rare, such as a form of the Core-Periphery division with a very slender core of inherited morphs (Grant 2019), and others which are simply very rarely attested elsewhere in the world. The interaction of these rare patterns of borrowing is also most unusual. Historical documentation and evidence from related languages enable us to see much of how this cluster of borrowing patterns, and the creation of this zone of intense linguistic contact, came about. Focus is on three creoles within the domain of the Dutch sphere of influence in the region: Saramaccan, Papiamentu, and Berbice Dutch, which are placed in a broader regional and global context.