In the well-known Disney movie franchise, the daring and devious Captain Jack Sparrow

is not just any old pirate, but specifically a pirate of the Caribbean.

But what was striking to a lot of people when they heard that title was not just Captain

Jack's lack of manners, but also that the disneyified pronunciation was a bit different

than the one many English speakers use, which is Caribbean.

So who's right?

Grammar girl here, I'm a neon-fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language.

Stick around, because after we engage in some pirate adjacent fun, we're going to talk

about tricky problems that come up when you're writing about math.

Back to the Caribbean.

It turns out most dictionaries list both pronunciations, Caribbean and Caribbean, and say both are

widely accepted.

But this is a situation where looking back at the origin of the word itself can help

tease out how it was originally pronounced.

And if we go back a few centuries, it can help reveal if Disney got it right.

The story of the Caribbean islands goes back centuries when they were inhabited by a number

of different indigenous peoples who had settled the islands, likely having come from South

America.

When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, he happened upon these islands in some

of their inhabitants, and spent time particularly in the company of one of these indigenous tribes,

the Arawac.

He tried to communicate using gestures smattered in with a bit of their language, Taino,

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