BelizeKriol_EngDic_49337_2009

system required a person to be already proficient in English, alanguage which has one of the most complicated spelling systems inthe world.In 2002 the Kriol Project called together a committee to revisethe system to a completely phonological orthography, similar tothose used by many other languages. This writing system is based onsound rather than rules. Each sound is represented by only onesymbol. Once a person learns the symbol for each sound, he or shewill more easily know how to read and write any word in Kriol. Thegoal of the committee was not to dictate how Belizeans shouldspeak Kriol, but to help us all find a standardized method inwhich to write down what we say so that we can share it moreeasily with each other. Important advantages of this system are thatknowledge of English spelling rules is not required in order to writeBelize Kriol, and variants in regional and generational speech can berepresented. Those already literate in English will need to rememberthat English and Kriol are two separate languages, and they will needto make an effort to learn the symbols associated with the Kriolwriting system.As literature has been produced to test the new orthography andpeople are learning to use it, there has been an urgent call for adictionary to use as an authoritative reference, so work on it has beengoing on in earnest. This dictionary represents the current spellingdecisions, although some refinements may come about as morepeople use the orthography.Development of this editionMany Belizean educators find that their students do notunderstand key concepts if they are presented only in English. Ratherthan denigrating Kriol, some teachers are using it as a stepping-stoneto better education. They are finding that by explaining the contrastbetween English and Kriol, students gain a better understanding ofboth languages. Reference tools and literature in both languages areneeded. To help in this task, the dictionary committee decided tomake a bilingual dictionary that includes sample sentences in bothKriol and English.Deciding which words to include was a most difficult task, andin the end, our decisions were somewhat arbitrary. While we stroveto preserve the older Kriol forms of words for historical purposes,our focus was to reflect contemporary Kriol – the way in which Kriolis spoken today. Belize is blessed with a rich blend of cultures and2