I served in the mission in Limón, Costa Rica.....in the late 1890's, Minor Keith got a contract to build a railroad from Limón to San José....as the landscape was a gigantic malarial swamp, he hired sickle-cell malaria-resistant Jamaicans of African ancestry to come to Costa Rica to build his railroad.....he wound up planting bananas along the railway to feed the workers....later he tried importing some to the USA via Boston....he made more money on it that he could imagine....going on to form the United Fruit Company (Chiquita).....the Jamaicans liked it so much that they decided to stay.....their English, already a borderline Creole English, evolved with a little Spanish influence into what they now call, "Mekatelyu" or, "What language do you speak?" "Make I tell you."
I learned to speak this more or less while I was there, "Jesus Christ, Him die for we," though now when I try I just sound like Miss Cleo. The greeting that they give to each other on the street is either "Ahright" if you don't really know the person, or "Wuapin" (What happen?) if you're friends......every sentence in Caribbean English ends in "mon." Put them together and you get, "wuapinmon," a username that I guarantee will never be taken when it's time to register at a site.
I learned to speak this more or less while I was there, "Jesus Christ, Him die for we," though now when I try I just sound like Miss Cleo. The greeting that they give to each other on the street is either "Ahright" if you don't really know the person, or "Wuapin" (What happen?) if you're friends......every sentence in Caribbean English ends in "mon." Put them together and you get, "wuapinmon," a username that I guarantee will never be taken when it's time to register at a site.
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