Bonin English

Bonin English, or the Bonin Islands language, is an English-based creole of the Bonin Islands south of Japan with strong Japanese influence, to the extent that it has been called a mixture of English and Japanese (Long 2007).

History

The Bonin Islands were first settled in the early nineteenth century by speakers of eighteen European and Austronesian languages, including American English. This resulted in a pidgin English that became a symbol of island identity. It creolized among second- and third-generation speakers as thousands of Japanese speakers settled the islands. The islanders became bilingual, and during the early twentieth century Bonin English incorporated elements of Japanese (Long 2007). Throughout the 20th century, most islanders used Bonin English at home. During the US occupation of 1946–68, the so-called "Navy Generation" learned American English at school. While Bonin English vocabulary skewed toward English during this period, a trend towards Japanese resumed after the occupation ended. Today younger residents tend to be monolingual in a variety of Japanese closely resembling the Tokyo standard. A bilingual spoken dictionary was published in 2005.

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