Liberia

Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. The official language is English.

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Demographics

During the 14 years of the civil crisis, all of Liberia's statistical databases were lost: social, economic demographic, population and housing census data. Since the end of the second consecutive civil war in 2003, data from ancillary sources report that there have been tremendous adverse changes in Liberian society including: partial or complete destruction of villages/towns; massive displacement of people; breakdown in family, law and order; increase in unemployment and poverty, etc. The 2008 census was the first one conducted since 1984 but it has not been published in its entirety as of yet.

The 2008 national census reported that 3,476,608 people live in Liberia, 1,118,241 of which live in Montserrado County, the most populous county in the country and home to the capital of Monrovia. Founded in 1822, Monrovia is named after the American President James Monroe in honor of his support during colonization efforts. As of 2006, Liberia has the highest population growth rate in the world (4.50% per annum), with half of the population under the age of 18.

The Liberian population includes 16 indigenous ethnic groups and various foreign minorities. Indigenous groups comprise about 95% of the population. The 16 officially recognized ethnic groups include the Kpelle, Bassa, Mano, Gio or Dan, Kru, Grebo, Krahn, Vai, Gola, Mandingo or Mandinka, Mende, Loma, Fante, Dei or Dewoin, Belleh, and Americo-Liberians or Congo people. The largest of these groups is the Kpelle, located in central and western Liberia.

Liberians in the U.S: There is an estimated 250,000-500,000 Liberians living in the U.S. This number includes legally sanctioned immigrants, U.S. born Liberians, those on Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and an estimate of those residing in the U.S. illegally. The highest concentrations of Liberians living in the U.S. are in Rhode Island, Minnesota, New York (specifically Staten Island), and California.

During 1989-2003, the U.S. experienced several waves of thousands of Liberian refugees seeking asylum in order to escape the death and destruction that ravished their country as a result of the civil wars; as many as 800,000 Liberians sought asylum in other countries. Prior to Liberia's two consecutive civil wars, very few Liberians immigrated to the U.S. with the exception of former students.

Liberians in Oregon: According to the American Community Survey (ACS) 2008-2012 estimate, there are approximately 400 confirmed Liberian people living in Oregon.

Liberians in Portland:According to the American Community Survey (ACS) 2008-2012 estimate, there are approximately 156 confirmed Liberian people living in Portland, OR.

Language

English is the official language, with over 31 indigenous living languages spoken throughout the country. Only a small percentage of the population considers their indigenous language to be their first language. Liberia's indigenous ethnic groups may be classified into four language groups: Manding, Kru, Mel, and Gola.

Liberians speak a variety of dialects of English which are collectively known as Liberian English: Standard Liberian English or Liberian Settler English; Kru Pidgin English; Liberian Kreyol language (the vernacular or most common dialect used); Merico language (Americo-Liberian). Each English dialect influences the other, with the normalizing effect of standard English in all of them. Even though the Liberian English dialects fall on a wide continuum, they seem to have essentially the same phonological system and the same phonological representations of morphemes, but they differ along the "realization of that system and of those morphemes," especially with consonants (Singler, 1997).

The following is a list of characterisics shared among the indigenous Liberian languages with some comparisons to American English:

• Open syllables are predominant; a few indigenous Liberian languages allow a nasal consonant at the end of a syllable, but not as part of a cluster.

• Consonant clusters tend to be reduced; when allowed they only occur at the beginning of a syllable and the second constituent can only be an [r, l, m, n, b]. If the cluster contains an [s] which is commonly found in American English, the [s] is either dropped or a vowel is inserted between the two sounds.

• Syllable final clusters do not occur.

• Consonant inventories do not include [θ, ð]

• They have a 7 vowel system, which is common throughout West Africa [i, e, ɛ, a, u, o, ɔ]

• The prosody in all dialects except for Liberian Settler English, dictates that every syllable gets equal weight, therefore vowel reduction rarely occurs.

• For nouns whose plural is formed by adding 's' or 'es', plurality is usually not marked when: plurality of the nouns has been established by other words within the noun phrase (i.e. 'three bus'); plurality has been established by context (i.e. 'cut the meat in piece'); a noun's plurality is either not established or not crucial (i.e. 'he fell down on the rock'). Exceptions to this rule will be seen. As a rule, the more standard a person's English is, the more likely they are to mark the noun.

• 'Them' is used as an association plural; for example, 'The Minister them coming tomorrow' = (The Minister and his or her entourage are coming tomorrow).

• The indefinite determiner is often not present in contexts where Standard American English would use 'a' or 'an'.

• When a Standard American English demonstrative (this, that, these, those) is present, 'here' or 'there' is often placed after the noun; for example, 'this Monrovia here'.

• 'There' often occurs after a noun of location as in 'right Education there' = 'right there at the Ministry of Education'.

Standard Liberian English: is a dialect of African American Vernacular English spoken by descendants of African American ancestors who immigrated to Liberia in the nineteenth century. This vowel system is more elaborate than in other West African variants:

• It distinguishes [i] from [ɪ], and [u] from [ʊ], and uses the diphthongs [aɪ], [aʊ], and [əɪ].

• Vowels can be nasalised.

• The final vowel of happy is [ɛ].

• The interdental fricatives [θ, ð] appear as [t, d] initially, and as [f, v] finally.

• The glottal fricative [h] is pronounced as is the sequence [hw].

• Affricates have lost their stop component, [t͡ʃ ] -> [ʃ].

• Between vowels, [t] may be flapped (> [ɾ]) as in North American English.

• Liquids are lost at the end of words or before consonants, making Standard Liberian English a non-rhotic dialect.

• This dialect's prosody is more stress-timed than syllable-timed.

• Marks plural irregular nouns as in "three women".

• When a plural is marked, it is done either as it would be in Standard American English (the boys) or by inserting 'them' [dɜ̃] after the noun (the boy them) and occasionally by doing both (the boys them).

Kru Pidgin English: Historically, it was spoken by sailors and migrant workers along the West African coast referred to as 'Krumen'. This traditional English dialect dates back to the end of the eighteenth century. It is no longer widely spoken in Liberia; however it, or variations of it, can be heard along the southern coast line where it orginated.

The following is a list of notable features to be aware of:

• Kru contains 2 additional vowels, one front and one back.

• Kru pronouns lack gender distinction; it generally uses 'he' as the subject pronoun.

• It uses 'no' as a negator; for example, "I no talk that one" = "I didn't say that."

• Kru uses "for" instead of the infinitive, "to" as in the example, "Pekin try for go school, yah" which equates to "Child try to attend school."

• This language also uses "for" in place of all other prepositions.

• Kru relies almost exclusively on the uninflected form of the verb; for example, it will use "take" instead of "takes, took, taking, etc." regardless of the context.

• It never uses tense marking of main verbs and almost never with copulas.

• Does not mark plural irregular nouns as in "three woman".

• Kru speakers often place 'the' before proper names and place names.

• When indefinite determiners are overtly marked, 'one' is often used as the singular marker and 'some' is usually the plural; for example, 'He sold the meat to one man' versus 'He sold the meat to some men them'.

• Frequently uses 'we' as an object pronoun and as a pronominal adjective as in 'God help we'.

• Never uses past tense verb forms.

An example of Kru:

wi wɔn go drɔ wata fɔ hin plɛs we i de drɔ wata

we want go draw water for him place where he drew water

‘We wanted to go draw water at the place where he drew water.’

Liberian Kreyol language: Also known as Liberian Pidgin English or Vernacular Liberian English, it is the most common of the four English dialects and it is the one taught in schools. This language was developed by the freed slaves, Americo-Liberians, who migrated to Liberia from the United States in the 19th century. It has since assumed a French influence as well as aspects from other West African languages. This distinct dialect of English extends from the 'highly pidginized' to one that shows many similarities to English, similar to those spoken in other parts of West Africa. Piginization generally results in the simplification of the language as demonstrated by the reduction in morphology and syntax. It is "...based on, but differing from [Standard American] English used by various parts of the world as a lingua franca among speakers of different languages, but native to none of them" (Singler, 1997). Although the vocabulary is predominantyly English-based, the "lexical forms have changed their meaning to fit into the value system and world view of the African people" (Singler, 1997).

The 1984 census reported that there were 1.5 million speakers of Kreyol as a second language. It is spoken mostly as an inter-tribal lingua franca in the interior of Liberia. Only about one-fifth of Liberia's residents claim Liberian Kreyol language as their native tongue.

Note the similarities between Vernacular English and American English. Vernacular consonants include:

• stops: [p, b, t, d, k, g] and labiovelar stops: [kp, gb]

• fricatives: [f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ]

• nasals: [m, n, ng] and palatal nasal: [ny]

• liquids: [l, ɹ]

• glides: [w, j]

Unlike Kru, Vernacular English generally observes pronoun gender distinctions.

Merico: An English-based creole language spoken until recently by Americo-Liberians. Merico may be linked to Gullah and Jamaican Creole.

Culture

Music

Liberian culture embraces its own unique form of ancient music and instruments. Overall, Liberian music is part of broader West African music heritage, however, it is also very distinct. Drums and beaded gourd rattles, called Saasaa, are the two most widely used instruments in both official and nonofficial ceremonies. The songs are sung both in English and in all indigenous languages. Music is a main highlight of Liberian culture. In addition to being a form of entertainment, music is used as a means to educate society on issues ranging from culture, to politics and history, to human rights.

Art

Liberia is worldly renowned for its sculptures made from wood carvings. The sculptures incorporate detailed decorative masks of people's faces, scenes of daily life, and common household items such as a spoon or fork. Liberian sculptures are heavily influenced by ancient history predating modern Liberia. They depict folklore, proverbs, spirituality, and rural life and illustrate the artist's connections to the people and objects sculpted.

Religion

Liberia is considered a Christian state in practice, however the people are afforded the right to freedom of religion. According to the 2008 National Census, 85.5% of Liberia's population practices Christianity. Muslims comprise 12.2% of the population. Traditional indigenous religions are practiced by 0.5% of the population, while 1.5% are reported to subscribe to no religion.

Beliefs

The indigenous religions are diverse, however they do share several common characteristics of all of the African cultures: generally, they are oral rather than scriptural, include belief in a supreme being, belief in spirits and other divinities, veneration of ancestors, use of magic as well as traditional medicine, and the role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural.

Followers of traditional African religions pray to their ancestors and various secondary deities. These deities act as intermediaries between humans and the primary god. The majority of the indigenous African societies believe in a single creator god, however, there are others that recognize a dual or complementary twin Divinity.

Cuisine

Rice, the country's staple food, is heavily incorporated into Liberian cuisine along with other ingredients, which vary depending on the regions and ethnic groups living there. Coastal people tend to cook with fish, whereas inland groups eat more meat. Cassava (starchy root), fish, bananas, citrus, fruit, plantains, coconut, okra and sweet potatoes are commonly eaten throughout the country. Incorporating United States cultural cooking methods, Liberia also has a tradition of baking that is unique in West Africa.