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Maroons (people)
Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery, through flight or manumission, and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with Indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into separate creole cultures such as the Garifuna and the Mascogos. Etymology ''Maroon'' entered English around the 1590s, from the French adjective , meaning 'feral' or 'fugitive', itself possibly from the American Spanish word , meaning 'wild, unruly' or 'runaway slave'. In the early 1570s, Sir Francis Drake's raids on the Spanish in Panama were aided by "''Symerons''", a likely misspelling of '. The linguist Leo Spitzer, writing in the journal ''Language'', says, "If there is a connection between Eng. ''maroon'', Fr. ', and Sp. ', Spain (or Spanish America) probably gave the word directly to England (or English America)." Alternatively, the Cuban philologist José Juan Arrom has traced the origins of the word ''maroon'' further than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English-based Creole Languages
An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the '' lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the creole's lexicon. Most English creoles were formed in British colonies, following the great expansion of British naval military power and trade in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The main categories of English-based creoles are Atlantic (the Americas and Africa) and Pacific (Asia and Oceania). Over 76.5 million people globally are estimated to speak an English-based creole. Sierra Leone, Malaysia, Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, and Singapore have the largest concentrations of creole speakers. Origin It is disputed to what extent the various English-based creoles of the world share a common origin. The '' monogenesis hypothesis'' posits that a single language, commonly called ''proto–Pidgin English'', spoken along the West African coast in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
