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Caribbean Journal of Education

Phonological Variation in the Jamaican Continuum by Glenn A. Akers, Karoma Publishers, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1981.

Pages: 
338-341
Publication Date: 
September 1981
Issue: 
Abstract: 

Jamaica Creole has been more thoroughly analysed than any other Caribbean vernacular with the possible exception of Haitian Creole. The book under review is a worthy successor to Beryl Bailey's Jamaican Creole Syntax (1966) in that, at the very least, it may be considered to have accomplished for the sound structure of the Creole what that earlier book did for its sentence structure. Indeed, it might justifiably be said to have done far more. For it is not only as stated on the back cover 'the most detailed investigation to date of the phonological properties of a creole'; it is also a bold attempt to explain the systematic phonological variation existing within the Jamaican speech community. Thus its importance extends beyond the confines of Creole studies to variation theory in general.

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