w/v alternation

The alternation of /w/ and /v/ is a highly marked feature of Bahamian speech. While this feature is found in both black and white speech, it is especially prominent among Anglo-Bahamians. The historical background for this type of alternation, which can be found in scattered varieties of English throughout the world, suggests that v, or more phonetically specific, a labiodental approximant [ʋ], may replace [w], creating items such as vatch for watch or vaste for waste. A w or labial approximant may also replace v, yielding wiolence for violence or wase for vase. Childs, Reaser and Wolfram (2003) find that w→v tends to be much more frequent than the converse, and that Anglo-Bahamian communities tend to have more alternation in both directions than Afro-Bahamians. Wells (1982: 58) suggests that the pattern for this alternation among the white Bahamians is “the phonemic merger of standard /v/ and /w/ into a single phoneme with the allophones [w] and [v] in complementary distribution. The [w] allophone occurs in initial position … but the [v] allophone elsewhere.” Although this pattern may be found in some white Bahamian communities, it does not appear to be representative of the majority of communities. Research on Abaco Island (Childs, Reaser and Wolfram 2003) in The Bahamas and with Bahamian transplants (the so-called Conchs) in the Florida Keys of the US (Huss and Werner 1940) indicates that the [v] allophone can and does occur more frequently in initial position, though it also occurs elsewhere. Most descriptions of Bahamian English (Shilling 1978, 1980; Holm 1980; Childs, Reaser and Wolfram 2003) agree that it is a relatively salient trait associated with Bahamian speech vis-à-vis English-based Caribbean creoles and North American and British English varieties of English.

There is some dispute as to the origin of this feature in Bahamian English. Holm (1980) suggests that the founder source for this phonological process appears to be African language contact, noting that Gullah and West African languages do not maintain a /w/-/v/ phonological contrast. For example, Gullah speakers use the approximant for both v and w. If this were the source of the alternation in Bahamian English, the use of this feature by the white population would have been the result of accommodation to the broader black Bahamian majority. An alternative explanation for this feature is the founder dialects of Anglo-Bahamians. Although w/v alternation is not a widespread feature of most contemporary British and American English varieties, it was fairly common in some earlier varieties of British English, including Cockney (Trudgill et al. 2003). Wolfram and Thomas (2002: 127) note that w/v alternation was also a characteristic of earlier Mid-Atlantic coastal speech in the US, so that it is possible that some loyalists from the Carolinas may have exhibited this trait.

One of the strongest arguments for a primary Anglo source for w/v alternation comes from the fact that this trait is more prominent in Anglo-Bahamian communities than in cohort Afro-Bahamian communities. Both earlier (Huss and Werner 1940) and more recent (Childs, Reaser and Wolfram 2003) studies of Bahamian speech observe that w/v alternation is more widespread in Anglo-Bahamian than in Afro-Bahamian English. The African- and British-based explanations are not, however, mutually exclusive and it is quite possible that Gullah influence, transfer effects from West African languages, and English founder dialects converged in the development and maintenance of this trait as a distinctive feature of Bahamian English.