Keeping in Touch

This chapter introduces and linguistically evaluates a hitherto unexplored source of earlier Caribbean vernacular English. It comprises more than one hundred letters written in 1963 by former Panama Canal workers as part of a competition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Canal. I first provide an overview of some of the non-standard features evident in the letters and then zoom in on a single variable, i.e., past inflection. Applying the principles of comparative socioling