Dominica
Dominica takes its name from the Spanish word for Sunday, the day of the week on which it was first sighted by Columbus who sailed these waters on his second voyage of exploration in 1493. However, Spanish is not spoken here today; instead the inhabitants of the island are bilingual in English and Creole. The latter was developed as lingua franca by African slaves from French and a variety of native west African sources, the former is now established as the lingua franca for the greater part of the world's business community.
At the end of the sixteenth century English was just one of the Babel of languages that were spoken in the patchwork quilt of ethno linguistic groups that made up the European continent. Queen Elizabeth would not have been understood by many of her own subjects in Cornwall, Wales, Ireland or large parts of Scotland, most of who were monolingual in languages other than English. Yet this was a time of great creativity and productivity in English which by 1611 had given us the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible, a significant milestone in English literature as much as in Biblical translation. It was the work of a committee; over fifty divines divided into six companies, none of whom had ever traveled outside England, save for John Layfield who had served as a chaplain on a vessel bound for Puerto Rico. Calling in at Dominica, he had been so impressed with the tropical verdure of the island that when he came to translate the book of Genesis his description of Eden bore a remarkable resemblance to passages in his travel journal.
In these same waters, in April 1782, was fought the greatest naval battle of the eighteenth century, the Battle of the Saints. Before the battle, the French had helped the American colonists defeat the British at Chesapeake Bay and had moved triumphantly through the Caribbean with the result that the English only retained their hold on only four islands. Moving towards Jamaica, the French fleet was intercepted by the British who made good use of two recent technical advances, copper sheathing for their ships and the new carronade. Both were used to good effect, however, as a result of an unexpected squall that disrupted the formal lines of the French fleet. The English won a famous victory, leaving us with one of those tantalizing might-have-beens in history. Had the French won they would have secured a monopoly of the sugar trade. They would not have experienced the financial crisis that precipitated the French Revolution. There would have been no Napoleon and no need for the Louisiana Purchase. With English imperial progress stopped in its tracks, maybe French would occupy the place that English do in our world today.
These at least were the musings of the ship's historian at the end of a rich day that had included a walk in the rainforest at the Syndicate Nature Trail, a visit to the ruined British Fort Shirley and some fine snorkeling off the coast at the Cabrits National Park.
Dominica takes its name from the Spanish word for Sunday, the day of the week on which it was first sighted by Columbus who sailed these waters on his second voyage of exploration in 1493. However, Spanish is not spoken here today; instead the inhabitants of the island are bilingual in English and Creole. The latter was developed as lingua franca by African slaves from French and a variety of native west African sources, the former is now established as the lingua franca for the greater part of the world's business community.
At the end of the sixteenth century English was just one of the Babel of languages that were spoken in the patchwork quilt of ethno linguistic groups that made up the European continent. Queen Elizabeth would not have been understood by many of her own subjects in Cornwall, Wales, Ireland or large parts of Scotland, most of who were monolingual in languages other than English. Yet this was a time of great creativity and productivity in English which by 1611 had given us the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible, a significant milestone in English literature as much as in Biblical translation. It was the work of a committee; over fifty divines divided into six companies, none of whom had ever traveled outside England, save for John Layfield who had served as a chaplain on a vessel bound for Puerto Rico. Calling in at Dominica, he had been so impressed with the tropical verdure of the island that when he came to translate the book of Genesis his description of Eden bore a remarkable resemblance to passages in his travel journal.
In these same waters, in April 1782, was fought the greatest naval battle of the eighteenth century, the Battle of the Saints. Before the battle, the French had helped the American colonists defeat the British at Chesapeake Bay and had moved triumphantly through the Caribbean with the result that the English only retained their hold on only four islands. Moving towards Jamaica, the French fleet was intercepted by the British who made good use of two recent technical advances, copper sheathing for their ships and the new carronade. Both were used to good effect, however, as a result of an unexpected squall that disrupted the formal lines of the French fleet. The English won a famous victory, leaving us with one of those tantalizing might-have-beens in history. Had the French won they would have secured a monopoly of the sugar trade. They would not have experienced the financial crisis that precipitated the French Revolution. There would have been no Napoleon and no need for the Louisiana Purchase. With English imperial progress stopped in its tracks, maybe French would occupy the place that English do in our world today.
These at least were the musings of the ship's historian at the end of a rich day that had included a walk in the rainforest at the Syndicate Nature Trail, a visit to the ruined British Fort Shirley and some fine snorkeling off the coast at the Cabrits National Park.
