The Bahamian and American Cultures

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Marcus Garvey said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” (Vinod, 2013, p. 358). According to (Cole, 1986) Culture is “a people’s patterns of behavior; the totality of values, ideas and means by which a people deals with its geographical, social, political and economic environment” It is considered as way of life adopted and exercised over a given period of time some bordering to centuries. Different communities have different cultures which are essential in assigning each of these communities an identity. With globalization and modern trends, cultures have been shared among countries leading to determination of newer cultural practices corresponding to the society in question. Cultures give rise to behaviorism and inform the social relations among people and countries. Cultural pundits have argued that the Bahamian culture and the American culture are highly similar and related in terms of dialects, beliefs and values. However, major differences in language, religion and traditions show that the Bahamian and American cultures are more different than many people believe. Bahamian Creole vs. Standard English According to (Donnelly, 1997, para. 1), “Bahamian Dialect appears to be a dialect of English, it is actually more a creole – though it has decreolized over the years.” It is true that Bahamian English has decreolized somewhat. However, Bahamians still use their dialect on a regular basis to communicate and express themselves. There are major Lingual differences between the Bahamian and American cultures. “Bahamians use the Creole based Bahamian English language. This is the main language exercised by more than 300,000 people” (Olsen, 2008, p. 67). Languages ... ... middle of paper ... ...rican language largely depends on the racial composition of the speakers. The Bahamian language is more conserved, traditional and Christian than the American religion. There exists clear difference between religions in the two cultures with the Bahamian religion being dominated by the Baptists, Anglicans and the Creole-based traditional religion. However the American religion is more liberalized with Americans embracing many religions that are less known in Bahamas. The American culture customs has major difference with the Bahamian culture. The Bahamian culture is more pronounced with customs than in America. Bahamians are individualistic and do not attach their lifestyles to income but on ethnicity. It is therefore clear that the American and Bahamian culture have clear underlying differences than earlier believed pointing to major variations between the two.

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