The Karifuna language is more commonly known as Carib, though
this is sort of a misnomer because it is not a Cariban language but an Arawakan one, in the same family as Taino, Arawak and Garifuna. Although Carib is also used to refer to the people, a more accurate term would be Kalinago, the name they called themselves.

The Karifuna language was spoken in Dominica, St. Lucia and parts of Trinidad by the Kalinago, (or Karinaku) people, also incorrectly called Caribs. The Kalinago people still exist on all these islands, however the last speaker of Karifuna died in the 1920s. There are roughly 3,000-3,500Kalinago in Dominica, the largest amount in the Caribbean, and lesser amounts on the islands of St. Lucia and Trinidad.

I have come across many inaccuracies concerning the Kalinago people. The main one pertains to cannibalism. (They weren't cannibals. Talk about this myth in the forum.) Concerning the language, it is often repeated that men and women spoke a different language. This is only half true. When the Caribs first came to the Caribbean they brought no women with them and took Arawak wives. At that point the men and women did speak different languages. But it was a different case with their children. Since children were raised primarily with their mothers, the children of these mixed marriages grew up speaking Arawak, however at puberty boys went to live with their fathers and learned the Carib language. What effect did this have? While girls were mainly monolingual in Arawak the boys learned both Arawak and Carib. So the difference was that the females were monolingual and males were bilingual. All could understand each other however.

As the connection to their Carib homeland waned, more Arawak words began to filter in to the Carib language that the men spoke. Conversely, many Carib words began to filter into the Arawakan languages the women spoke. After many years, the Carib language of the men turned into a Carib creole which they used to communicate with the Caribs of Trinidad and South America for trade.

Even though the Karifuna language is not spoken today, revival efforts are underway. If you are Kalinago and are interested in helping with the language revival please contact me!

WORDLISTS:

These words and phrases can be downloaded to your computer and listened to. Just click the link. (If you want the soundfiles to open in an new window press SHIFT and click at the same time. To save the files to your computer, right click the link and choose "Save Target As..." or "Save File As...")To play these files you will need speakers and a (free) program that plays mp3 files, such as Winamp, Windows Media Player, Apple Quicktime, Real Player, or other third-party mp3 players.

Notes:

• Consonants (except for r)are sounded as in English and the vowels generally as in Spanish, though the vowels e and i sometimes have a short sound as in the words bet and bit, usually when they are unstressed.
• The vowel ë sounds like you're saying the "oo" sound in the word "pool" but without rounding your lips. It is also the sound of the "i" in "fir".
• The letters "tj" and "sj" are pronounced together like English "ch" and "sh".
• Stress is generally on the first syllable for words with 2 syllables before the second to last (antepenultimate) syllable for words with more than 2. When a word doesn't follow this pattern, an accent mark is placed over the vowel that is stressed.
• When the letter "n" comes before a consanant or at the end of a word, it means the vowel before the n is nasalized (like in French). For example in the word hahón, "thank you" the last "o" is said nasalized.
• Click to hear all the words in a single file.

General Nouns

Parts of the Body

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The words above need a possesive prefix in front of them in order to be used. The Karifuna possesive prefixes are:

So you might be asking "Okay, how do I use them exactly?" Well it's easy just tack them on to nouns. For example

If the noun starts with a consonant, then you have to use the prefixes plus the letter "i" before the verb (wa and nha are excluded from this rule.) Take, for example, the noun sapatoni, shoes (from the spanish word zapato):

If the noun begins with the letter "e" then wa- and nha- lose their "a".

esje shoulder

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SOME KARIFUNA VERBS:

Conjugating the Verbs

To conjugate these verbs for the present tense use the following suffixes attached to the verb below. These suffixes can be used for all regular verbs. (All the verbs given above are regular by the way.)

ariha to see

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LINKS AND RESOURCES:

• The Santa Rosa Carib Community: Homepage of the Santa Rosa Carib community in Trinidad


• Carib Generations: From the website above. An absolutely beautiful website full of photos from the Trinidadian Carib community throughout the generations.


• Carib Territory Cultural Website: The official website of the Carib Territory in Dominica


• Kalinago Barana Aute: The Kalinago Barana Aute is a living museum, a place where the Carib community in Dominica display their craft, culture and way of life.


• A Virtual Dominica- The Caribs : A short synopsis of the Caribs of Dominica.


• The Carib Territory Guest House: If you ever decide to visit the Carib Territory in Dominica, Chief Charles Williams and his wife run a guest house where you can stay.

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