Linguist Cefas van Rossem, visiting researcher Virgin Islands Dutch Creole at the Meertens Institute, together with a group of researchers, has received a grant from the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands to draw attention to the Virgin Islands Dutch Creole on the islands themselves.
Virgin Islands Dutch Creole version of
‘O Head Full of Blood and Wounds’: manuscript 1749-1753
In addition to Van Rossem, the research team consists of Gylchris Sprauve, musician and promoter of Virgin Islands heritage, Gilbert Sprauve (em. University of the US Virgin Islands), who recorded the last spoken Virgin Islands Dutch Creole since the 1960s and Peter Stein (em. University of Bremen), discoverer of many slave letters and authority on eighteenth-century Creole material. In the coming period they will record the most original and authentic texts, chants and conversations in films. These are, for example, old slave letters, slave songs and folktales, translated psalms, sample conversations from language descriptions, and the latest stories and conversations of the last speakers.
You can listen to a recording via the following link from the song ‘O Head Full of Blood and Wounds’, by Gylchris Sprauve, one of the team members of this project. https://werkgroepcaraibischeletteren.nl/beurs-voor-project-virgin-islands-dutch-creole/
