Island Carib

Print

Island Carib

Pam Munro, Wed, 2022-08-24 19:43
Regarding: 
Dialects
State
Closed
ISO 639-3: 
cab

The Garifuna language page includes the following:

"Related to Island Carib [car], with Spanish [spa], English [eng], and French [fra] borrowings"

Douglas Taylor used the alternate name "Central American Island Carib" for Garifuna (his Black Carib). I don't think this or "Island Carib" are currently used (or I have not heard these in either Belize or Los Angeles). (Some older male speakers do call Garifuna "Carib"; I don't know how widespread this is.)

I searched the Ethnologue for Island Carib and found that it was reported as an alternative name for Garifuna. This doesn't seem to square with the quote above. There seems to be no language page for Island Carib. I couldn't find another reference to ISO car.

Editorial Action

We will correct and update the Dialects section (Intelligibility Remarks) for Garifuna [cab] in Nicaragua.

Comments

Chuck Fennig, Fri, 2022-08-26 13:25

Dear Pam,

Thank you for notifying us of this error on the Garifuna [cab] language page.

The code [car] refers to Carib or Kariña, a Cariban language spoken in Venezuela and 4 other Latin American countries that is not even related to Garifuna, a Maipurean language spoken in Central America.

Several alternate names for Garifuna have the name Carib or Caribe in them, so there was evidently some confusion with the Carib [car] language name. Also, approximately 5% of the Garifuna vocabulary has been borrowed from Carib [car], according to this source (http://www.garifunaresearch.com/garifunalanguage.html).

So, we will change the sentence, "Related to Island Carib [car], with Spanish [spa], English [eng], and French [fra] borrowings" to "with borrowings from Carib [car], Spanish [spa], English [eng], and French [fra]".

Best regards,

Chuck Fennig
Managing Editor, Ethnologue

Chuck Fennig, Tue, 2022-09-06 11:39

Pam,

Actually, this turned out to simply be a wrong ISO code for Island Carib: [crb] instead of [car].

Island Carib is a language which reportedly went extinct in 1920. This language is not listed in the current edition of the Ethnologue but has recently been added to the database. Garifuna was the offshoot of Island Carib that survived the colonalization period. Island Carib (also known as Kalinago or Iñeri) was widely spoken throughout the Windward Islands of the Caribbean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinago_language).

Sorry for the confusion on this one.

Chuck Fennig
Managing Editor, Ethnologue

Add new comment

View the Discussion