“Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande”: Extending the horizon on documented contact language use in the Virgin Islands with a quote in incipient Dutch Creole from 1681

Kristoffer Friis Bøegh; Mikael Parkvall; Peter Bakker

doi:10.1075/jpcl.24004.bxe

“Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande”: Extending the horizon on documented contact language use in the Virgin Islands with a quote in incipient Dutch Creole from 1681

Kristoffer Friis Bøegh^*
, Mikael Parkvall
, Peter Bakker

^*Corresponding author for this work

ILS - Language Structure: Variation and Change

Aarhus University
Stockholm University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

A 1681 letter written by Jørgen Iversen (1638-1682), the first governor of Danish St. Thomas, unearthed from the Danish National Archives, contains a quote in incipient Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (VIDC). The quote, Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande, lit. ‘I die/dead, I go, in my country’ (free translation: ‘If/when I die, I will go back to my own country’), predates other early VIDC sources by over half a century. This finding shows that a Dutch-related contact variety was in use on St. Thomas a mere decade after the island’s colonization in 1672. Assessing historical-demographic evidence alongside the linguistic evidence, the most plausible scenario, we argue, is one in which VIDC formed locally on St. Thomas rather than having been imported before the 1680s. The quote is among the earliest fragments of a European-lexifier contact language in the Caribbean, and among the earliest in any Dutch-related contact language.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.24004.bxe
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 6 Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Funding

The work presented here is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (Grant CF23-1162 for Kristoffer Friis Boegh) and the Independent Research Fund Denmark (Grant 10.46540/4256-00026B for Peter Bakker and Mikael Parkvall). Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Utrecht University.

Funders	Funder number
Carlsberg Foundation	CF23-1162
Independent Research Fund Denmark
Utrecht University

Keywords

Danish West Indies
demography
historical textual evidence
Jørgen Iversen
St. Thomas
Virgin Islands Dutch Creole

Access to Document

10.1075/jpcl.24004.bxeLicence: CC BY

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title = "“Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande”: Extending the horizon on documented contact language use in the Virgin Islands with a quote in incipient Dutch Creole from 1681",

abstract = "A 1681 letter written by J{\o}rgen Iversen (1638-1682), the first governor of Danish St. Thomas, unearthed from the Danish National Archives, contains a quote in incipient Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (VIDC). The quote, Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande, lit. {\textquoteleft}I die/dead, I go, in my country{\textquoteright} (free translation: {\textquoteleft}If/when I die, I will go back to my own country{\textquoteright}), predates other early VIDC sources by over half a century. This finding shows that a Dutch-related contact variety was in use on St. Thomas a mere decade after the island{\textquoteright}s colonization in 1672. Assessing historical-demographic evidence alongside the linguistic evidence, the most plausible scenario, we argue, is one in which VIDC formed locally on St. Thomas rather than having been imported before the 1680s. The quote is among the earliest fragments of a European-lexifier contact language in the Caribbean, and among the earliest in any Dutch-related contact language.",

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note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} John Benjamins Publishing Company.",

year = "2025",

month = feb,

day = "6",

doi = "10.1075/jpcl.24004.bxe",

language = "English",

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T2 - Extending the horizon on documented contact language use in the Virgin Islands with a quote in incipient Dutch Creole from 1681

AU - Bøegh, Kristoffer Friis

AU - Parkvall, Mikael

AU - Bakker, Peter

PY - 2025/2/6

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N2 - A 1681 letter written by Jørgen Iversen (1638-1682), the first governor of Danish St. Thomas, unearthed from the Danish National Archives, contains a quote in incipient Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (VIDC). The quote, Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande, lit. ‘I die/dead, I go, in my country’ (free translation: ‘If/when I die, I will go back to my own country’), predates other early VIDC sources by over half a century. This finding shows that a Dutch-related contact variety was in use on St. Thomas a mere decade after the island’s colonization in 1672. Assessing historical-demographic evidence alongside the linguistic evidence, the most plausible scenario, we argue, is one in which VIDC formed locally on St. Thomas rather than having been imported before the 1680s. The quote is among the earliest fragments of a European-lexifier contact language in the Caribbean, and among the earliest in any Dutch-related contact language.

AB - A 1681 letter written by Jørgen Iversen (1638-1682), the first governor of Danish St. Thomas, unearthed from the Danish National Archives, contains a quote in incipient Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (VIDC). The quote, Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande, lit. ‘I die/dead, I go, in my country’ (free translation: ‘If/when I die, I will go back to my own country’), predates other early VIDC sources by over half a century. This finding shows that a Dutch-related contact variety was in use on St. Thomas a mere decade after the island’s colonization in 1672. Assessing historical-demographic evidence alongside the linguistic evidence, the most plausible scenario, we argue, is one in which VIDC formed locally on St. Thomas rather than having been imported before the 1680s. The quote is among the earliest fragments of a European-lexifier contact language in the Caribbean, and among the earliest in any Dutch-related contact language.

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KW - demography

KW - historical textual evidence

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KW - St. Thomas

KW - Virgin Islands Dutch Creole

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JO - Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages

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ER -

“Mij dodte, mij loppe, in mijn lande”: Extending the horizon on documented contact language use in the Virgin Islands with a quote in incipient Dutch Creole from 1681

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

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