Grammaticography of Virgin Islands Dutch Creole (Negerhollands) from the Danish West Indies

The writing of grammars of creole languages started in the 18th century in the Danish colony of the Virgin Islands, where a Dutch-based creole was spoken. The grammars were written as part of the activities of the Moravian missionaries as well as by the missionaries of the Danish Lutheran church. The historian C.G.A. Oldendorp describes the Creole language on 50 pages of the manuscript of his Historie der caribischen Inseln… This manuscript was published in its complete form in 2000/2002. Only a very abridged version of the grammatical description had already been printed in 1777. A few years earlier, in 1770, the Grammatica of the Creole by the Danish colonist Magens was published in Copenhagen, in Danish. This was the first grammar of a creole language ever printed as a book. The following article will present the three early grammatical works in their historical context. It will provide a comparative study in order to show the merits as well as the weak points of the three texts.