Growing up and to this day, people from my home country and abroad often ask me, “Was that Miskito you were speaking? Sometimes I hear you speaking English, and other times a strange kind of English. What language is it? Is it true that people from the Caribbean of Nicaragua don’t know how to speak English?”
To clarify, I have decided to respond to these and related questions with some historical facts and insights from my research and personal experience.
Not all Nicaraguans from the Caribbean speak Miskito, Creole English, and Standard English, but these languages are widely spoken depending on where you are.
Generally, in black or Afro-descendant and European-descendant communities, most people speak Creole or Creole English (also called Caribbean English) due to the influence of the British, who settled in the Nicaraguan Caribbean between the 17th and 19th centuries. Creole has a lot of influence from Standard English (both American and British versions), but its phonetics and grammatical structure are very different due to the mixture of words from other languages spoken by Western Africans when they were brought as slaves to Central America.
Creole emerged out of the necessity for enslaved people to communicate with each other because they were brought from different regions of Africa and did not speak the same language. They combined words from their own languages—and over time, more from English, which was their masters’ language—creating a pidgin language (a combination of languages). Then, their descendants were born speaking Creole, as it was the native language created by their parents.
Creole has been structurally forming as an independent language since the 1990s in Nicaragua, and efforts have been made to teach it in schools in Afro communities. However, the number of public early childhood education institutions that teach it is limited, although it is taught at the University of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua and the Normal School in Bluefields, depending on the student's career or field of study.
Standard English has existed on the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast since the arrival of the British, being the first language in which locals were literate if they had the privilege of attending school. This language remained official in the Caribbean, along with Miskito, until 1894, when the Mosquito Coast (today’s Caribbean Coast) was annexed to the Republic of Nicaragua by the government of José Santos Zelaya.
Currently, many black and European-descendant communities still use English as a language for reading and sermons in churches, especially traditional ones like the Moravian, Episcopal, Anglican, and Baptist. Moreover, in formal matters, Caribbean governments, educational centres, and universities also use Standard English, apart from the country’s official language, Spanish.
The same goes for academic training in Creole communities. Most children are initially educated in Standard English, especially those who have studied in subsidised or private schools (mostly religious), and are later introduced to Spanish as a second language. Although students usually interact at home, in their neighbourhood, or with friends in non-standardised English—in this case, Creole—they learn and know how to read and write in Standard English, although they do not speak it regularly due to cultural reasons.
State educational centres also teach Standard English as a subject, prioritising Spanish. However, classes are explained in English or Creole for better understanding by the students.
Many academic centres teach in Spanish but strive to ensure that students learn English properly. There isn’t an educational centre in the Caribbean that solely educates in English (I know of only one). There will always be a combination of English, Creole, or another indigenous language, provided that language is predominant in the area.
There is a division regarding whether Creoles speak Creole or English. Personally, I believe that the answer depends on individual learning and oral expression. However, most black people speak Creole daily, even though they know how to speak, read, and write in English due to their education; it is a cultural matter.
In the case of Miskito, it is the most spoken indigenous language in Nicaragua, and the Miskito people have been able to preserve it due to their resilience and the role they played in the history of the Caribbean Coast. This language is widely spoken throughout the Nicaraguan Caribbean, but there are communities and towns where it is more dominant due to the large Miskito population living there. Other indigenous groups also speak Miskito because of its influence.
Most Nicaraguans from the Caribbean can speak Spanish because it is the country's official language and they are educated in it. Others can speak English alongside Spanish or Miskito because their education was bilingual, while some have even had trilingual schooling.
It is important to remember that the Nicaraguan Caribbean has various languages and ethnic groups, and the Political Constitution (Article 11), the Autonomy Law (Law 28), the General Education Law of Nicaragua (Law 582), and the National Language Law (Law 162) all recognise the multi-ethnic and multilingual nature of the Caribbean.
So, depending on which person from the Caribbean Coast you interact with, they may speak two or more languages because that is our nature as Caribbean Nicaraguans. Most of us are bilingual or polyglots.
In my case, I learned to read and write in English when I started preschool. Spanish was added later in primary school, and I have heard and spoken Creole since I can remember. I am not ashamed to speak it, but, like any other language, I know when to use it.
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