Liberian English

Liberian English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Liberia. There are four such varieties:

• Standard Liberian English
• Liberian Settler English the language of the descendants of the 16,000 African Americans who immigrated to Liberia in the nineteenth century
• Kru Pidgin English the language of Kru migrant workers and mariners. It is now moribund.
• Kolokwa the creolized variety spoken by most Liberian speakers of English. It is the Liberian descendant of the West African Pidgin English that developed all along the West African coast in the eighteenth century. It has been significantly influenced by Liberian Settler English ().

Prior to the twenty-first century, Liberians referred to all these varieties simply as "English." In the present century, however, the term "Kolokwa" (from the English word "colloquial") has become widely used.

Standard Liberian English

Standard Liberian English is the language taught in secondary and tertiary institutions and used in oratory and by television newsreaders..

The vowel system is more elaborate than in other West African variants; Standard Liberian English distinguishes [i] from [ɪ], and [u] from [ʊ], and uses the diphthongs [aɪ], [aʊ], and [əɪ]. Vowels can be nasalized. The final vowel of happy is [ɛ]. It favors open syllables, usually omitting syllable-final [t], [d], or a fricative. The interdental fricatives [θ, ð] appear as [t, d] in syllable-initial position (such as thing and this having respective pronunciations of ting and dis), and as [f, v] finally. The glottal fricative [h] is preserved, as is the voiceless labio-velar fricative [ʍ] (in such words as whit and which in contrast to voiced [w] in wit and wish). Except in word-initial position, affricates have lost their stop component, thus [tʃ] > [ʃ]. The liquid [r] is not pronounced at the end of a word or before a consonant, making Standard Liberian English a non-rhotic dialect.

Additionally, Liberian English includes additional vocabulary and sounds at ends of a clause to represent the tone of statements that can differ. The most commonly occurring particle is o, which is a feature generally of Kru and Kwa languages but shows up in other neighboring Niger-Congo languages as well as in West African varieties of English more generally, including pidgins and creoles. In Liberian English (and in the other languages of the region), o emphasizes that a proposition is of current relevance to the speaker and hearer. Beyond its use to mark emphasis, o frequently occurs to correct a hearer's mistaken assumption or to indicate what will happen next.

Kru Pidgin English

Kru Pidgin English is a moribund variety that was spoken historically by Krumen. These were individuals, most often from the Klao Bassa people and Grebo ethnic groups, who worked as sailors on ships along the West African coast and also as migrant workers and domestics in such British colonies as the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Nigeria. The Krumen tradition dates back to the end of the eighteenth century. With the end of the British colonial presence in West Africa in the mid-twentieth century, however, the tradition came to an end, and with it the ongoing use of Kru Pidgin English.

Kru Pidgin English is quite distinct from other forms of English in Liberia and has numerous unique traits. Plural marking, for instance, is done solely by the suffixal -z, while other variants will also integrate a postponed den as another plural marking form. Another feature of Kru Pidgin English, perhaps one of the most distinct, is the lack of tense-marking that even often extends to copulas in many cases. An example of the lack of tense marking is "he feel hot" instead of "he had felt hot." When it comes to other markers, Kru Pidgin English almost exclusively has de to mark aspect, such as in the statement "we de go na" in the place of "we had gone to."

Kolokwa

Prior to the twenty-first century, Liberians used the term "English" for all Liberian varieties with an English lexicon. However, linguists used the term "Vernacular Liberian English" for the variety that was generally spoken. Now Kolokwa has become the general term for this variety. Kolokwa developed from the West African Pidgin English spoken all along the West African coast. It has been significantly influenced by Liberian Settler English, the variety that African American immigrants brought to Liberia in the nineteenth century and is spoken today by the immigrants' descendants. Kolokwa phonology owes much to the Niger-Congo languages, especially those spoken along the coast, primarily such Kru languages as Bassa and Klao but also the Mande language Vai. Kolokwa has been analysed having a post-creole continuum. As such, rather than being a pidgin wholly distinct from English, it is a range of varieties that extend from the Caribbean English to Americo-Liberian English and African American Vernacular English to one that shows many similarities to English as spoken elsewhere in West Africa.

Role of English in Liberia

Since many settlers brought English into Liberia and established the language as a primary mode of communication across different groups in the country, English continues to play a crucial role in understanding the cultural development of the country. The economic benefits of English were evident, as the language became crucial for trade with Europeans and Americans.

English has historically been central to the overall development of the country. During America-Liberian rule, the Department of Education adopted a policy to provide education in English despite not having similar rules for any indigenous language. Commitments to raising English literacy rates represent a larger national commitment to economic and social progress. One adverse effect of these attempts is that, while knowledge of English did spread across the country and did establish the known varieties, there became a stigma to speaking in local languages.

A 1999 study found that of Liberian immigrants across the United States, nearly 73 percent spoke English at home, and many children just spoke English. There are a few reasons attributed to this trend. Two main reasons are intertribal marriages inspiring people across tribes to have a common way to communicate and parents wanting their children to be proficient in English, especially those parents who are educated themselves. There are currently some pushing for native languages to be taught in schools as a way to preserve the culture, but these tribes do continue to have their own impact on how English is spoken across the country.

Bibliography

• Singler, John Victor (1997), "The configuration of Liberia's Englishes", World Englishes: 16.205-231

• Singler, John Victor (1986), "Copula Variation in Liberian Settler English and American Black English", in Smitherman, Geneva (ed.), Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America, Wayne State University Press, pp. 129–164, ISBN 0-8143-1805-3
• d'Azevedo, Warren (1979), Gold, Michael (ed.), Some Terms from Liberian Speech, Cornell University
• Singler, John Victor (2000), "Optimality Theory, the Minimal-Word Constraint, and the Historical Sequencing of Substrate Influence in Pidgin/Creole Genesis", in McWhorter, John (ed.), Language Change and Language Contact in Pidgins and Creoles, John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 335–354, ISBN 90-272-5243-2
• Hancock, I. (1974). English in Liberia. American Speech, 49(3/4), 224–229. doi:10.2307/3087801
• Ballah, H. (2019). Liberia: A Colonized Nation and the Role of English in that Process. Journal of West African History, 5(1), 29–52.
• Ngovo, B. (1998). English in Liberia. English Today, 14(2), 46–50. doi:10.1017/S0266078400010191