Berbice Creole Dutch (also known as Berbice Dutch) is a now extinct Dutch creole language, once spoken in Berbice, a region along the Berbice River in Guyana. It had a lexicon largely based on Dutch and Eastern Ijo varieties from southern Nigeria. In contrast to the widely known Negerhollands Dutch creole spoken in the Virgin Islands, Berbice Creole Dutch and its relative Skepi Creole Dutch, were more or less unknown to the outside world until Ian Robertson first reported on the two languages in 1975. Dutch linguist Silvia Kouwenberg subsequently investigated the creole language, publishing its grammar in 1994, and numerous other works examining its formation and uses. History Berbice was settled in 1627 by the Dutchman Abraham van Peere. A few years later, Suriname was settled by Englishmen Lord Willoughby and Lawrence Hyde under a grant from the English King, Charles II. In the beginning, therefore, Suriname was a British and Berbice a Dutch possession. On 22 April 1796, the British occupied the territory. On 27 March 1802, Berbice was restored to the Batavian Republic (the then-current name of the Netherlands). In September 1803, the British occupied the territory again. On 13 August 1814, Berbice became a British colony. The colony was formally ceded to Britain by the Netherlands on 20 November 1815. Throughout the 1700's sugar and cacao plantations were numerous throughout the Berbice region. These plantations created close contact between numerous language groups as slaves were transported in from surrounding areas. The enslaved populations largely consisted of the indigenous Arawak Amerindian people of the surrounding Berbice region, and enslaved people shipped in from the Bight of Biafra. Thus, the initial contact situation consisted of Indigenous Arawak speakers, Eastern Ijo varieties from the Bight of Biafra, and Dutch colonizers mostly speaking southwestern varieties from Zeeland. A Dutch Arawak pidgin was developed early on in this time period and later contributed in the development of Berbice Dutch. It is believed that the language was largely constructed by children born locally into these plantations. Many of which are thought to be of mixed ancestry between the enslaved population and the mainly single Dutchmen. One-third of the basic words in Berbice Dutch Creole, including words for 'eat', 'know', and 'speak' are of Niger–Congo origin in West Africa, from a single language-cluster, the Eastern Ijaw languages. The language borrowed its lexicon largely from Dutch (57%) and Eastern Ijo (38%), with only 1%