| Summary: | Original data from an ethnographic study on the indexical meanings of language in a multilingual and
ethnically highly diverse context in Belize, Central America, demonstrate that ascribing language to
ethnic belonging does not necessarily work. The Belizean language Kriol, an English-lexified Creole
that is Belize's dominant oral lingua franca, is a vehicle for several indexes. On the basis of social
discourses on Kriol, which are interrelated with the culturally complex history of Belize – involving
transnational ties to the former coloniser, to surrounding countries and to the US – I argue that Kriol
has multiple indexical functions – as ‘the language' of Belizeans, as expressing ties to race and place,
and as creating a space of resistance towards Western ideologies of standardization. The case shows
that, where social categories are not focused and naturalized, we find multiplex orders of indexicality
and non-teleological processes of enregisterment.
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