At the time of European contact, the
Kalinago lived throughout the
Windward Islands of the
Lesser Antilles, from
Guadeloupe to
Grenada. Contemporary traditions indicated the Kalinago were related to the
Kalina people (mainland Caribs) of South America and had conquered these islands from their previous inhabitants, the
Igneri. As such the Kalinago were also known as Caribs or Island Caribs, and it was long assumed that they spoke
Carib or a related
Cariban language. However, studies in the 20th century determined that the language of the Antillean Caribs was not Cariban, but
Arawakan, related to the
Lokono language on the South American mainland and more distantly to the
Taíno language of the Greater Antilles. Modern scholars have proposed several hypotheses accounting for the prevalence of an Arawakan language among the Kalinago. Scholars such as
Irving Rouse suggested that Caribs from South America conquered the Igneri but did not displace them, and took on their language over time. Others doubt there was an invasion at all. Sued Badillo proposed that Igneri living in the Lesser Antilles adopted the "Carib" identity due to their close economic and political ties with the rising mainland Carib polity in the 16th century. In any event, the fact that the Kalinago language evidently derived from a pre-existing Arawakan variety has led some linguists to term it "Igneri". It appears to have been as distinct from Taíno as from mainland Arawakan varieties. During the period of
French colonization in the 17th century, and possibly earlier, male Kalinago used a Cariban-based
pidgin in addition to the Arawakan Kalinago language. The pidgin was evidently similar to one used by the Kalina to communicate with their Lokono neighbors. Berend J. Hoff and Douglas Taylor hypothesized that it dated to the time of the Carib expansion through the islands, and that males maintained it to emphasize their origins. However, scholars who doubt the existence of a Carib invasion suggest this pidgin was a later development acquired by contact with indigenous peoples of the mainland. According to Douglas Taylor, when he visited
Dominica in 1930, he was told by informants that the last speaker of the language had been Ma Gustave, a woman who had died twelve years before. Douglas has stated that half a dozen older people told him that they had spoken or understood the language as children, but could only speak bits of the language with difficulty as adults. == Phonology ==