The suspicion confirmed
J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong’s 1923 linguistic fieldwork in St. Thomas and St. John on Virgin Islands Dutch Creole
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/sss.v15i2.152268Keywords:
Virgin Islands Dutch Creole, US Virgin Islands, Danish West Indies, J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, linguistic fieldwork, Creole languages, metalinguistic commentsAbstract
The Danish-Dutch archaeological expedition to the US Virgin Islands in 1922 to 1923 included the Dutch anthropologist J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong. In addition to his archaeological work, he pursued a secondary aim: confirming the survival of Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (VIDC), a contact language spoken when the islands were a colony of Denmark, known as the Danish West Indies. De Josselin de Jong identified several native speakers. He recorded their narratives, later published in his 1926 volume Het Huidige Negerhollandsch. This collection provided a rare vernacular source, supplementing the predominantly missionary literature available at the time. In 2023, marking the centenary of the expedition, De Josselin de Jong’s daily diary entries were published in Dutch on www.diecreoltaal.com. The present article examines the diary as an egodocument and its metalinguistic insights, exploring how the notes enhance our understanding of the conditions and authenticity of the 1926 VIDC collection. Through examples of the fieldwork process and interactions with informants, this study reveals the diary’s value in affirming the reliability of De Josselin de Jong’s documentation of VIDC, and it offers a closer view of the language as spoken in the early twentieth century.
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