West Africanisms in Limonese Creole English ELIZABETH GRACE WINKLER* and SAMUEL GYASI OBENG** ABSTRACT: Costa Rican Limonese Creole (LC) is an English-based creole language showing substrate influence from, among other African languages, the Kwa languages of West Africa, in particular from Akan (Ghana). West Africanisms exhibited in LC include: serial verb constructions, reduplication, ideophones, and lexical retentions. The study of West Africanisms in LC contributes to the body of research on substrate influence on West Atlantic Creoles. This is done not from the extreme position that the majority of creole features can be attributed to substrate influence, but, as Mufwene wrote in 1990, that `creoles owe their formal features variably to both substrate influence and the bioprogram as well as from superstrate influence' (p. 3). Substrate influence will be demonstrated through a comparison of LC and Akan morphophonology, morphosyntax, and lexicon. INTRODUCTION 1 Limonese Creole (LC), an English-based creole spoken primarily by residents of Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, is directly descended from Jamaican Creole, which can trace its heritage back to a number of ethnic groups from West Africa, including the Akan of Ghana who speak related languages of the Kwa language group of the Niger-Congo family. 2 Present-day varieties of LC and Akan share a number of interesting morpho- phonological and morphosyntatic features (including the use of reduplication, ideophones, and serial verb constructions), as well as common lexical items. FROM AFRICA TO LIMON COSTA RICA A number of researchers including Alleyne (1993), Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985), McWhorter (1997a), and Mufwene (1996) have indicated that there was a significant Akan influence on the development of the English-based creoles, especially the creole of Jamaica, from which LC derives. According to Alleyne, `In Jamaica, one African ethnic group (the Twi) provided political and cultural leadership' on the plantations of the New World (1993: 170). Thus, although they were not numerically dominant throughout the history of the plantation period in Jamaica, the Akan were in a position of influence among the slave population. Alleyne also points out that `there is evidence among Maroon and among Jamaicans in general of an inter-African syncretism and assimilation taking place within a broader framework of Asante (or Koromanti) dominance' (p. 177). Le Page and Tabouret- Keller (1985) concur ± although the Yoruba constituted a numerical majority in the English colonies of the New World, it seems that the Akan left a greater mark on the developing creoles: `the largest number of Africanisms recorded in DJE [Dictionary of Jamaican English] are from the Akan (Gold Coast) languages, especially from Twi and Ewe' (p. 47). This greater influence may be attributed to the particular demographic A Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. World Englishes, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 155±171, 2000. 0883±2919 * Department of Language and Literature, Columbus State University, 4225 University Avenue, Columbus, GA 31907-5645 USA. E-mail: Winkler_Elizabeth@colstate.edu ** Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, Bloomington Memorial 326, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA. E-mail: sobeng@indiana.edu