BelizeKriol_EngDic_49337_2009

ForewordBy Sir Colville Young GCMG, Ph.DA language, like a people, can be marginalized — bywhich I mean, it can be treated as insignificant or evenunworthy of being called a language, or of scholarly interest.The creole and pidgin languages of the world have especiallysuffered in this regard. As the noted creolist Dell Hymes 1 put itin 1971, “The languages called pidgins and creoles have longbeen a stepchild, so far as serious attention, either public orscientific, is concerned.” He added, significantly, “Thestepchild may prove to be a Cinderella.”Most people now accept that it is most unreasonable toignore or denigrate the daily speech (and in many cases theonly speech) of millions of people.One reason for the slow acceptance of pidgins and creolesas “real” languages was the fact that they “lacked a dictionaryor grammar.” Of course, all languages at one time lackeddictionaries, or formal, codified exposition of theirgrammatical systems.As far as Belize Kriol grammar is concerned, a scholarlygrammar has long been made available in my doctoral thesis“Belize Creole: a study of the Creolized English spoken in(Belize).” 2 All that was needed to silence the nay-sayerscompletely was a dictionary, and with this publication thatneed is met at last.I believe Belize Kriol to be the most widely used of all themany languages spoken in Belize. If for no other reason, itdeserves a published list of its words, with their meanings andvariety of usages as well as (if space permits) etymologies1 Preface to Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, ed. Dell Hymes.Cambridge 1971.2 Unpublished York University thesis, 1973.v