VishMahabir posted:I notice here that some people use words (I have been keeping a list since I been on this site) like poke, chum chum, punani, sumutoo, nara, aloo, baigan, choka, dharu, roti, karaila, loli, paglee, prappa, etc
My observation is that they are primarily used by Indos (I think). I notice too that some people (non-Indos) simply don’t use them. Ronan, Iguana, etc don’t seem to use any of them. Some of them are not in a dictionary, so they are not necessarily English words. So here are my questions:
Are these words part of the Afro or Indo language they brought from Africa or India?
Are they based on the original Hindi language?
Are they “creole” words that develop over the years of mixing with Afro and Indo words?
Why does it look like one set of Guyanese use them?
There are some Hindi words in regular creole usage, paglee definitely one and punani another. Especially food names have entered the Guyanese/Trinidadian creole lexicon. I am not sure that prappa is a Hindi word. At least not when used by non Indians.
And in fact rural Caribbean Indians have built a dialect on a creole language base which its itself linked to the various West African pidgin English. Urban Indians speak straight Afro Caribbean creole English. So yes there has been much linguistic interchange between the two groups. Note that Creolese rides on a West African grammatical system using English as its lexicon. The English words adjusted to a West African mouth.
The amount of African (as adjusted to the Caribbean) influences in the behavior of known Indo KKK on GNI would drive most of them to suicide if they really knew what they were doing.
I have already mentioned before that over time many Caribbean Indians respond to drum music in an Afro Caribbean way.