Where does the accent fall in the word Caribbean? Most English speakers stress the second syllable, not the third. The word derives from the name of the Caribs, also the source of the word cannibal. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Pronunciation of Caribbean”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Yeah, hello.
This is Larry Ogden in White Thorne, California.
Hi, Larry. How you doing?
Doing good.
What are you thinking about?
Oh, my question was about the difference between the pronunciation of Caribbean and Caribbean.
And it seems like most of the radio announcers say Caribbean, but I say Caribbean.
And why do you say Caribbean?
Oh, that’s just the way I’ve always heard it.
And I was wondering if maybe people are saying Caribbean because it’s like for the Caribbean or the natives there.
Well, there is a connection.
Yeah, there’s totally a connection.
It’s a tangly, messy, and in places, ugly connection.
So your question is about the pronunciations Caribbean versus Caribbean, right?
Right.
And you say Caribbean.
Right.
That pronunciation tends to be the preferred one when people have an opinion.
In North America, both pronunciations are very common, but Caribbean is used widely in the Caribbean.
Most of the English-speaking people there will say Caribbean.
And for what that’s worth, if you want to think that the locals’ own name for their place or own pronunciation for their place is probably the most correct one, Caribbean is the best choice.
And it’s also historically the most consistent choice.
Somewhere in this last hundred years or so, Caribbean just pops up out of the blue, and we’re not quite sure why or how.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, I’ve heard that people there said Caribbean, so I was wondering why.
It seems like the radio announcers almost all say Caribbean, so I was wondering if that’s something they were being taught.
Well, it might be a little bit of a hypercorrection where they feel like it sounds a little more sophisticated than Caribbean.
It does have a vaguely British air to it.
Yeah, I’m wondering, too, if it has to do with the spelling, because that word is one that has bedeviled me for years.
I’ve often made the mistake of putting in two R’s when it’s actually two B’s.
Yeah, one B and two R.
Yeah, it’s messy, right?
Yeah.
I want to go back, Larry.
You mentioned about the Native Americans who gave their name to the region, the Caribs.
Do you know the story behind that name?
No, I don’t.
When Columbus came to the New World, he found on these islands, I believe it was on Hispanola, this tribe that he called the Canibs, C-A-N-I-B.
And that word came to be used in two different ways.
One was corrupted to be Carib, to refer to the people themselves, and then later to be Caribbean, to the region.
But also it’s the root of the word cannibal.
Because one of the things that he brought back from the New World was these utterly invented tales of how the locals, how the natives were savages.
And that they had dog tails and they ate each other and they were savages.
And the reason he did this, he went back to the New World so that he could then have evidence that they were not civilized and could be turned into slaves.
And so it was kind of this really cynical effort to describe them in such a derogatory way that he would be permitted to have them work on the cane fields or to dig for gold.
And that’s how it turned out.
Okay, yeah, that’s really interesting.
It’s where we get the word cannibal.
All right, well, that’s great.
Yeah, so you’ve been using the preferred pronunciation all along, Caribbean.
Caribbean, right.
Yeah, Caribbean’s fine, but Caribbean is generally more widely accepted.
Yeah, that’s what Johnny Depp uses.
There we go.
Right.
All right. Well, thank you so much for calling, Larry.
All right. Well, thanks for taking my call.
Okay. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Yeah, I’ve pronounced it both ways through my life.
Caribbean, Caribbean.
Sometimes in music, they’ll use whichever pronunciation works best in the song.
Oh, that makes sense.
Caribbean queen. Does that work?
There you go.
Because if you said Caribbean queen, no, it doesn’t really quite work, right?
Right.
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