Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

44 / Chapter 3.
Table 2. Some Taíno, Island- Carib, and Lokono Cognates.
that “these cognates are sufficiently close that contemporary observations to
the effect that a single language allowed for communication across the Caribbean”
are well supported. A selection from Taylor’s list of cognates, Table 2, may
demonstrate the point.
Some of the differences in spelling are more apparent than real, and morphological
as well as lexical correspondences exist. Kouwenberg concludes, “the
resemblances are so close that Taíno, Island- Carib, and Lokono can be considered
dialects of the same language” (2005a).
In this regard, it may be necessary to say something further about the status
of Island- Carib. This is not in fact a Carib, but a “mixed,” language (Kouwenberg
2005a). A mixed language is one that combines the grammar of one language
with the lexicon of another. Such languages usually arise where mothers
and fathers come from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Island-
Carib was documented in the seventeenth century in Dominica by Raymond
Breton, and was said to have two “styles” of speaking, a male and a female. The
“female” style is a variant of Arawakan referred to as Iñerí (Taylor 1977). The
“male” style was mixed. Kouwenberg comments, “Legend has it that Carib invaders
of the Lesser Antilles cohabited with Arawak women after having exterminated
the Arawak men. However, mixed households often come about
where foreign intruders attain political and/ or economic supremacy, and although
this is typically supported by military supremacy, it does not require the
extermination of indigenous men” (2005b). Be that as it may, the fact is that
with the passage of time the proportion of Carib forms within the language
has decreased. As is well known, the survivors of the Island- Caribs are today
the Garífuna, or Black Caribs, of Central America (Rust 2001). Slaving ships
wrecked on St. Vincent in 1635 brought Africans and indigenous Americans