A deeply informed Afrocentric view of language and cultural retention under slavery.

Maureen Warner-Lewis offers a comprehensive description of the West African language of Yoruba as it has been used on the island of Trinidad in the southern Caribbean. The study breaks new ground in addressing the experience of Africans in one locale of the Africa Diaspora and examines the nature of their social and linguistic heritage as it was successively retained, modified, and discarded in a European-dominated island community.

Maureen Warner-Lewis is professor of African-Caribbean languages and orature at the University of the West Indies, Mona. She is the author of four books, including Guinea's Other Suns: The African Dynamic in Trinidad Culture.

“An important and innovative contribution to several related fields of study ranging from social sciences to African and creole linguistics. . . . Carefully researched and well written.”

—American Speech

“Challenges hitherto untested assumptions concerning the preservation of African languages in the New World.”

—Mid-America Folklore

“Warner-Lewis argues that the inimical conditions of slavery, rather than leading to deprivation of culture, led culture bearers of central African descent to resolutely hold onto aspects of their cultural identity. . . . [This book] contains a wealth of information for any scholar.”

—Latin American Research Review