Introduction: Creole Comes to Britain

The Caribbean community in Britain is not a new arrival. Some British cities such as London, Cardiff, and Liverpool have long-established black communities ¹ . Caribbeans who have come to Britain from abroad have probably always brought with them their own distinctively Caribbean varieties of language; yet it is only in the last two or three decades that educators and policy makers — and to some extent, the general public — have taken an interest in ‘Black English’ (also called Creole or Patois) in Britain.