Marcus Garvey said, "A people without knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots." (Vinod, 2013, p. 358). According to (Cole, 1986) culture is “the behavior model of a people; the set of values, ideas and means with which a people faces their geographical, social, political and economic environment”. It is considered a lifestyle adopted and practiced over a given period of time, some bordering on centuries. Different communities have different cultures which are essential to assigning each of these communities an identity. With globalization and modern trends, cultures have been shared between countries leading to the determination of new cultural practices corresponding to the society in question. Cultures give rise to behaviorism and inform social relationships between people and countries. Cultural experts have argued that Bahamian culture and American culture are very similar and related in terms of dialects, beliefs and values. However, major differences in language, religion and traditions show that Bahamian and American cultures are more different than many people realize. Bahamian Creole and Standard English According to (Donnelly, 1997, para. 1), “The Bahamian dialect appears to be a dialect of English, in reality it is more of a creole, although it has decreolized over the years.” It is true that Bahamian English has become somewhat decreolized. However, Bahamians still regularly use their dialect to communicate and express themselves. There are major linguistic differences between Bahamian and American cultures they use the Creole-based Bahamian English language. This is the primary language spoken by more than 300,000 people” (Olsen, 2008, p. 67). racial composition of the speakers. The Bahamian language is more preserved, traditional and Christian than the American religion. There is a clear difference between the religions in the two cultures with the Bahamian religion dominated by Baptists, Anglicans and traditional religion based. on Creole. However, American religion is more liberalized and Americans embrace many lesser-known religions in the Bahamas. The customs of American culture have great differences with the culture of the Bahamas. Bahamian culture is more pronounced with customs than in America. Bahamians are individualistic and do not attribute their lifestyle to income but to ethnicity. It is therefore clear that American and Bahamian cultures have clear underlying differences from what was previously believed, indicating important variations between the two.
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