Andre Sherriah

The University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, Humanities and Education, Post-Doc

Phillips-Universität Marburg, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Alumnus

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I have a PhD in linguistics from the University of the West Indies (Mona) and an M.A. in Linguistics and Web Technology from Philipps Universität Marburg (Germany). My academic interests include English Dialectology, Comparative Phonology, Historical Linguistics and much more.

Aside from my academic interests, I enjoy making and working, with others or alone, in the area of web development and design, videography and photography. I also enjoy writing poetry and screenplays with my best friend, mixed martial arts training, gymnastics and reading.
Supervisors: Hubert Devonish, Jo-Anne S. Ferreira, and Renée Blake

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A tale of two dialect regions

This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences i... more This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences in Sranan, an English-based creole spoken in Suriname. Sranan contains "fossilised" linguistic remnants of an early English colonial period. The book discusses whether Sranan's English influence(s) originated from a single dialect from the general London area, as proposed by Norval Smith in 1987, or whether we are dealing with a composite of dialectal features from all over England. The book introduces a novel replicable methodology for linguistic reconstructions, which combines statistics (in the form of binomial probability), English dialect geography (via use of Orton's et. al., 1962–1971, Survey of English Dialects, which focuses on traditional regional English dialects across England and Wales), and 17th-century English migration history (compiled from The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607–1660, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654–1686, Virtual Jamestown, Virginia Center for Digital History, and Colonial State Papers secured from the British History Online databases, among other relevant historical sources).

Identifying the dialect sources of the lexico-phonetic inputs from England into Sranan

Supplementary Table 1 for Sherriah, A., Devonish, H., Thomas, E. and Creanza, N

A tale of two dialect regions: Sranan’s 17th-century English input

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Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Apr 5, 2018

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The English Words in Sranan

The Routledge Companion to the Work of John R. Rickford, 2019

Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan

Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution, Feb 12, 2018

Creole languages are formed in conditions where speakers from distinct languages are brought toge... more Creole languages are formed in conditions where speakers from distinct languages are brought together without a shared first language, typically under the domination of speakers from one of the languages and particularly in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism. One such Creole in Suriname, Sranan, developed around the mid-seventeenth century, primarily out of contact between varieties of English from England, spoken by the dominant group, and multiple West African languages. The vast majority of the basic words in Sranan come from the language of the dominant group, English. Here, we compare linguistic features of modern-day Sranan with those of English as spoken in 313 localities across England. By way of testing proposed hypotheses for the origin of English words in Sranan, we find that 80% of the studied features of Sranan can be explained by similarity to regional dialect features at two distinct input locations within England, a cluster of locations near the port of Bristol and another cluster near Essex in eastern England. Our new hypothesis is supported by the geographical distribution of specific regional dialect features, such as post-vocalic rhoticity and word-initial ‘h’, and by phylogenetic analysis of these features, which shows evidence favouring input from at least two English dialects in the formation of Sranan. In addition to explicating the dialect features most prominent in the linguistic evolution of Sranan, our historical analyses also provide supporting evidence for two distinct hypotheses about the likely geographical origins of the English speakers whose language was an input to Sranan. The emergence as a likely input to Sranan of the speech forms of a cluster near Bristol is consistent with historical records, indicating that most of the indentured servants going to the Americas between 1654 and 1666 were from Bristol and nearby counties, and that of the cluster near Essex is consistent with documents showing that many of the governors and important planters came from the southeast of England (including London) (Smith 1987 The Genesis of the Creole Languages of Surinam; Smith 2009 In The handbook of pidgin and creole studies, pp. 98–129).

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How people talk now holds clues about human migration centuries ago

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Metaphors, Mental Spaces and Cultural Models: The Case of Jamaican Creole

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Accompanying Creole: A Corpus Linguistic Study of the Attitudes towards Jamaican Creole in Jamaican Newspapers

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Books

The English words in Sranan: From Where, From Whom and How?

The Routledge companion to the work of John R. Rickford, 2019

A tale of two dialect regions: Sranan's 17th-century English input

This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences i... more This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences in Sranan, an English-based creole spoken in Suriname. Sranan contains "fossilised" linguistic remnants of an early English colonial period. The book discusses whether Sranan’s English influence(s) originated from a single dialect from the general London area, as proposed by Norval Smith in 1987, or whether we are dealing with a composite of dialectal features from all over England. The book introduces a novel replicable methodology for linguistic reconstructions, which combines statistics (in the form of binomial probability), English dialect geography (via use of Orton’s et. al., 1962–1971, Survey of English Dialects, which focuses on traditional regional English dialects across England and Wales), and 17th-century English migration history (compiled from The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607–1660, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654–1686, Virtual Jamestown, Virginia Center for Digital History, and Colonial State Papers secured from the British History Online databases, among other relevant historical sources).

Drafts

Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan

by Hubert Devonish and Andre Sherriah

Philosophical Transactions Royal Society B, 2018

One contribution of 16 to a theme issue 'Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in hum... more

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A tale of two dialect regions

Identifying the dialect sources of the lexico-phonetic inputs from England into Sranan

Supplementary Table 1 for Sherriah, A., Devonish, H., Thomas, E. and Creanza, N

A tale of two dialect regions: Sranan’s 17th-century English input

Download

Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Apr 5, 2018

Download

The English Words in Sranan

The Routledge Companion to the Work of John R. Rickford, 2019

Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan

Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution, Feb 12, 2018

Download

How people talk now holds clues about human migration centuries ago

Download

Metaphors, Mental Spaces and Cultural Models: The Case of Jamaican Creole

Download

Accompanying Creole: A Corpus Linguistic Study of the Attitudes towards Jamaican Creole in Jamaican Newspapers

Download

The English words in Sranan: From Where, From Whom and How?

The Routledge companion to the work of John R. Rickford, 2019

A tale of two dialect regions: Sranan's 17th-century English input

This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences i... more This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences in Sranan, an English-based creole spoken in Suriname. Sranan contains "fossilised" linguistic remnants of an early English colonial period. The book discusses whether Sranan’s English influence(s) originated from a single dialect from the general London area, as proposed by Norval Smith in 1987, or whether we are dealing with a composite of dialectal features from all over England. The book introduces a novel replicable methodology for linguistic reconstructions, which combines statistics (in the form of binomial probability), English dialect geography (via use of Orton’s et. al., 1962–1971, Survey of English Dialects, which focuses on traditional regional English dialects across England and Wales), and 17th-century English migration history (compiled from The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607–1660, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654–1686, Virtual Jamestown, Virginia Center for Digital History, and Colonial State Papers secured from the British History Online databases, among other relevant historical sources).

Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan

by Hubert Devonish and Andre Sherriah

Philosophical Transactions Royal Society B, 2018

One contribution of 16 to a theme issue 'Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in hum... more

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Andre Sherriah

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