ABSTRACT
Ideophones are ‘marked words that depict sensory imagery’ (Dingemanse 2012: 655). In this chapter, we first present a list of ideophones that the senior author, Edwards, grew up using as part of his Guyanese Creole (GC) vernacular. We present the list in part to show that mid-twentieth-century GC shared with many West African languages a penchant for using ideophones to convey vividness in language. The chapter argues that over time the number of African-derived GC ideophones has diminished, although GC speakers have retained the habit of using ideophones to embellish their speech. This development suggests that the GC has decreolized away from African-derived ideophones, while retaining its character as a depictive language. The chapter shows as well that Guyanese speakers also use reduplication in their ideophones as a way to add vividness to their language, thus using a strategy that is employed in many African languages.
