The present and future state of Creole in Saint Lucia

1. Online presence means future presence: Using language processing tools to look at Saint Lucian tweets, and so find out how much patois is being used online.

   • An analysis of 1,500 patois tweets would assist with determining if there is noticeable activity present, and if so, is the online usage is leading to new linguistic trends emerging.
   • There is a base for such a study using indigenoustweets.com/.

Inspiration: Source1, Source2, Source3

1. In-person or virtual survey on the demographics of current speakers, and the varying levels of creole fluency:

Quantifiabily exploring the degree of “language shift”.

CITI rating/concerns: Research That is Exempt Category 2:

Research that only includes interactions involving educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures etc …Information obtained is recorded in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects cannot readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects.

• Participants will be shown a short video of spoken creole dialogue, and will be asked to translate the message.
• Participants will also be given a phrase in english and asked to translate to creole.
• Syntactic structure, vocabulary, and emotional sensitivity/sentiment analysis among other factors may be observed.

1. Language hotspots: Establishing areas of speaker clusters on the island Mapping of areas of high fluency; it is said that endangered languages are often clustered in small geographic areas, called “Language Hotspots”.

CITI rating/concerns: Research That is Exempt Category 2:

Research that only includes interactions involving educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures etc …Information obtained is recorded in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects cannot readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects.

* The goal is to identify factors that impact the reduction in the level of the language being spoken.

1. Using interactive activities to boost endangered languages; music and games taught in schools.

CITI rating/concerns: Research That is Exempt Category 3

Research involving benign behavioral interventions in conjunction with the collection of information from an adult subject through verbal or written responses (including data entry) or audiovisual recording if the subject prospectively agrees to the intervention and information collection, and the information obtained is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects cannot readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects;

So far there is no set way to reinvigorate a language, but there are many techniques that can be tested against and quantified. Additionally there is the opportunity to take some lyrics of currently available Saint Lucian nursery rhymes, songs, and cultural jokes, and perhaps attempt to create word clouds or visualize their structures. Inspiration: Source1, Source2

1. Possible anthropological study on the French-Lexicon Creole of Saint Lucia:

History, Language and Culture:

Inspiration: Source1, Source2, Source3

1. Write a paper on the difficulties of surveying in Saint Lucia:

   • There are security, infrastructural (roads and technology), geographical, educational (literacy), and motivational obstacles to surveying in a developing country; arguments for, and obstacles to, citizen science.

2. Write a paper on utilizing Youtube and commentary as a survey platform for creole studies:

   • A purely creole video will be posted on Youtube, and participant data will be gathered from the commentary/like buttons of It might be interesting to see the countries of origin, if responses are in creole/ english and grammatical complexity (using accurate written characters etc.).