Caribbean, The typology of creoles in the

There are a few dozen creoles in the circum-Caribbean region, all as a consequence of forced population displacement in connection with colonialism and slavery. The English-lexifier creole languages of the Caribbean all go back to a single intermediate stage of transformed English. Creoles in general have been argued, with massive data, to be typologically distinctive, and this distinctiveness has also been shown for Caribbean English-lexifier creoles. The most widespread and most diagnostic features in which creoles differ from non-creole varieties of English are discussed in this entry. They cover phonology, lexicon, and morphosyntax.