"Is it" appended to questions

[Joel S. Berson]

Does the origin "in London-based Caribbean-influenced varieties" of
English English antedate the 1940s "How Green Was My Valley" and "The
Corn is Green"?  The only two movies set in Wales I can remember at
the moment, and which I now intend to rent, view, and listen to for
"is/isn't it?".

Joel

At 5/14/2007 09:32 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>See also Peter Trudgill's ADS-L post in a Sep. 2003 thread on "innit":
>
>-----
>http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0309b&L=ads-l&P=8735
>There is an enormous body of literature on the invariant tag innit in
>English English, The origin appears to be in London-based
>Caribbean-influenced varieties, where it seems to have served
>originally as a 'translation' of Caribbean English Creole 'no?".
>It is worth noticing that such invariant tags are very common in
>areas where English has a history of being learnt as a second
>language e.g Welsh English invariant "isn't it?"; broad South African
>English "is it?"; West African English "is it?", Indian English
>"isn't it?"; Singaporean English "isn't it?/ is it?"
>[etc.]

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