Leonora posted:Hey Gil, I heard some Irish people conversing, then turned around to give them a second look because it sounded like Guyanese Creole.
Yes the "English" who the enslaved people encountered were Irish, and from parts of England where the dialect is similar. So we didn't learn English from the English, but from other British people who were also learning English. "Ting," "dem" and waak (walk) comes from the Irish. Jamaicans and people from the Leeward Islands have high Irish influences in their speech.
Based on the names of the plantations Guyana had a high Scottish involvement as some one mentioned. For some reason we sound a bit like people from the Virgin Islands, St Maarten and Belize.