Wuri Gold Earrings

Wuri, meaning woman in the Garifuna language.

In 1635, a hurricane in the Caribbean Sea sank two Spanish slave ships carrying Nigerian captives off the coast of present-day Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Survivors mingled with the native Arawak and Kalipuna peoples, developing a new language that combined elements from both indigenous languages: Arawakan and Kalipuna. Their descendants, known as Garifuna or Garinagu in their language, were referred to as "Black Caribs" by English enslavers.

Although the phonetics of the Garifuna language have African origins, its structure incorporates words from Arawakan, Kalipuna, French, English, and Spanish, with Arawakan words constituting the majority of the vocabulary.