From Anansi to the tales from Crooked Tree and Gales Point there are already countless story books written in Kriol, there is even a bible, and now you can add to your collection a Kriol travel book. And though it is a "travel book" - the writers say it is not only for tourists, in fact the 100 pages read like a survival guide to communicating in a Kriol world from where to eat, to asking for help, to looking for a job, and traveling around Belize. The travel book was launched and Kriol language proponent Silvana Woods gave us one of the first copies fresh off the press.
Silvana Woods, Belize Kriol Project
"You know every time you go somewhere you usually have a quick guide book on how you do and say different things in the language. So the Belize Kriol Project came out with this and you can see lots of different headings. In this book the things which we saw all the time translate into useful expressions. So you will get things like, 'sari,' and the translation is 'I am sorry,' and, 'dat okay,' the translation is 'it's okay,' for 'kohn ya,' translation is 'come here.' So it's a quick guide book and we think it'll be a nice seller.
It's a quick little book that gets you into the literacy of Kriol and you know so much people come, Belizean-Americans, Peace Corps Volunteers, and people who have a reason to be in Belize for say more than a three or four months, and some of them come and pay me and others $25 an hour to teach them to talk Kriol. So having the literature really and truly is a big help but we really do it for our Kriol people. But when you have hot items like these, it helps to popularize to make more and more people know about it."
The Kriol Travel Book is available now at bookstores countrywide.
