Caribbean peopleCaribbean people are the people born in or inhabitants of the Caribbean region or people of Caribbean descent living outside the Caribbean. The Caribbean region was initially populated by Amerindians from several different Kalinago and Taino groups. These groups were decimated by a combination of enslavement and disease brought by European colonizers. Descendants of the Taino and Kalinago tribes exist today in the Caribbean and elsewhere but are usually of partial Amerindian ancestry.
LamanaiLamanai (from Lama'anayin, "submerged crocodile" in Yucatec Maya) is a Mesoamerican archaeological site, and was once a major city of the Maya civilization, located in the north of Belize, in Orange Walk District. The site's name is pre-Columbian, recorded by early Spanish missionaries, and documented over a millennium earlier in Maya inscriptions as Lam'an'ain. Lamanai is renowned for its exceptionally long occupation spanning three millennia, beginning in the Early Preclassic Maya period and continuing through the Spanish and British Colonial periods, into the 20th century.
Miskito peopleThe Miskitos are a native people in Central America. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande de Matagalpa, Nicaragua, along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone. Their population is estimated at 700,000 people as of 2021, according to the official Miskito Database. The Miskito people speak the native Miskito language, but many can also speak Miskito Coast Creole, Spanish, English, and German. Spanish is the language of education and government, but some families educate their children in English, German, or Miskito.
Calypso musicCalypso is a style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to the mid-19th century and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the French Antilles in the 18th century. It is characterized by highly rhythmic and harmonic vocals, and was historically most often sung in a French creole and led by a griot.
Belizean CreoleBelizean Creole (Belizean Creole: Belize Kriol, Kriol) is an English-based creole language spoken by the Belizean Creole people. It is closely related to Miskito Coastal Creole, San Andrés-Providencia Creole, and Jamaican Patois. Belizean Creole is a contact language that developed and grew between 1650 and 1930, as a result of the slave trade. Belizean Creole, like many Creole languages, first started as a pidgin. It was a way for people of other backgrounds and languages, in this case slaves and English colonisers within the logging industry, to communicate with each other.
