Paper on Jamaican english

 

                                                                        Pedro Samuel de Moura Torres

1 PRESENTATION
 

 

There are approximately 400 million native speakers of English around the entire world.  Almost all, but mainly the least educated, have considerably little difficulty in understanding the English of one another, despite the fact that, there are many quite substantial differences in the forms of spoken English used by different groups. People usually notice right away when they hear a different accent from their own. There are some who like the different variations of accents and get impressed by it and there are others who react with prejudice. Some kinds of foreign accents are largely regarded as “chic” or charming, some as quaint or clumsy. There is certainly a hierarchy; however the classification depends very much on the listener's own education and mainly on the cultural prestigious of the variation. In general, there are more preferences and acceptances for the American and European English accents considering that they are dominant cultures.

 

2 INTRODUCTION

 

 

The essential idea of this paper is to write about the Jamaican English which has become official when the island was colonized and took into power by the British Crown. It is recognized as Jamaican English and it is used in formal spoken communication. It is an esteemed language in Jamaica which is grammatically similar in some aspects to British Standard English and it typically uses British English spellings rejecting American English spellings. Jamaican Standard English is somewhat considered as a dialect of English, seeing that, it is a combination of American and British spoken English with a lot of influences of other languages. According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaica English. 2009), in spite of Jamaican English be an association of American and English language, there is a very strong influence of American English being expanding intensely in its culture by the fact that there is an assimilation of American culture and essentially consumption of entertainment products such as cable TV, movies and popular music and due also to the migration. Consequently, British English spelling is losing its preponderance and being replaced by American ones. American culture has been widely accepted that has influenced even over their grammar structure preference, for instance: instead of saying:

 

 “I haven't got”/“you needn't” (British English)

They would use the American grammar most used structure as:

“I don't have”/“you don't need” (American English)

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaican English. 2009), Jamaican English vocabulary is in a process of mutation since the island is situated very close to United States of America which impels the importation and the adoption of American new lexicon and terms, e.g. “cribs”, “diapers” and “apartments”; in general, the established vocabulary inclines to be like British as: “nappies”, “bonnets” and “maths. Moreover, Jamaican Standard also uses a lot of native words borrowed from Jamaican Creole, such as: "duppy" for ghost, "higgler" for 'informal seller', and many words that concern to local products and edible components like “guinep”, “callaloo” and “ackee”. Jamaican English has a very different pronunciation and accent from the Caribbean English and Jamaican Creole. There are some attributes of the pronunciation’s aspects which comprises the pronunciation of diphthong in some words that are similar to American and British English.

 

3 HISTORIC COMMENTS

 

 

According to the site (Brief History of Jamaica. 2009), the Jamaican history begins in 1494 when the island was discovered by Christopher Columbus. The start of the colonization and the imposition of British culture bring along the history of Jamaican English in 1655 when the British Admiral William Penn and General Venables conquer Jamaica from the Spaniards. Therefore, English was compelled to be dominant over many already existing languages as Arawakan languages and the languages of the African slaves which were entirely despised by the colonizers.

 

According to the site (Brief History of Jamaica. 2009), Tainos were the first Jamaica natives and they used to speak Arawak dialect, nevertheless, they were annihilated at the time that the island was controlled by Spaniards. This first native people did not have a large influence in the formation of Jamaican English language but they have contributed to the acquirement of some terms like guava, hammock, callaloo, cassava, and hurricane. The legacy of Spaniards was especially some names of places as: Rio Bueno, Puerto Seco, Ocho Rios, Seville and Rio Cobre.

 

According to the site (Brief History of Jamaica. 2009), the British colonizers set up the Basic English lexicon in the island and furthermore, by the reason of the arrival of soldiers and sailors settlers with their overseers, book-keepers, indentured servants and missionaries, the Jamaican English had gained some lexicon contribution from the Irish and Scottish, dialects of English. African languages have also collaborated in the systematization of Jamaican language even though being completely ignored because they wanted to prevent possible rebellions and mainly because they wanted to obstruct the Jamaican Creole influence.

 

 

4 HISTORICAL DATA OF THE JAMAICAN POLITICS 
 

 

According to the site (Brief History of Jamaica. 2009), throughout the epoch of 1494 and 1655, Spanish used Jamaica as the main settlement to hold the possibility of conquering all the Americas. Spain has also contributed for the Jamaican life; it has influenced relevantly the Jamaican economy, social and political life. The political organization was constituted by a governor and its executive council with a group of members that were chosen in a restricted vote determined by the owners’ properties. In the government policy they have created a sort of alliance between the governor and the Assembly of planter in opposition to the slaves. Nevertheless, this alliance has not had always a positive result due to the plantation’s taxes.

 

According to the site (Brief History of Jamaica. 2009), the abolition of slavery was in 1838 but the revolution has started in the 18th century in 1831. Afterward, several ex-slaves have turned into small farmers which have instigated the colonists to initiate in October 11, 1865, the rebellion denominated Morant Bay. Jamaica has become independent from the United Kingdom in 1962. Jamaica acquired a constitution in the style of Westminster, with a Governor-general representing the British Crown, and a bicameral Parliament. It contains a House of Representatives which has elected representatives and a Senate chosen by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The prime Minister leads the government, and he has to consult the Governor General and the Leader of the Opposition in some subjects.

 

5 CULTURAL APPROACH

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaican English. 2009), the Jamaican society has so many varieties and influences of many people. It is a mixture of British, Spanish, African, Chinese and Indian, without saying the native’s ones, like Arawak culture. In spite of Jamaica being so varied in cultures, their best representation is focused in music, religion and literature around the entire world. In Jamaica, religion and music have a sort of connection since the majorities of musicians develop abilities and initiate their career by means of the Christian churches. There is another religious very vehement which is named Rastafarian that is based in some teaching of the Christian Bible with influence of Ethiopian Coptic culture. Jamaican Music is very productive which has become famous around the world with genres like  reggae, rocksteady, ska, dub, mento,  and currently ragga and dancehall.

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Music of Jamaica. 2009), the Unites States also influenced in Jamaican songs with their rhythms like rock and roll and soul, like R&B etc. Robert Nesta Marley, known as Bob Marley has introduced to the world the most important popular genre in Jamaica which has become widely well-known as Reggae Music. Such music was used mainly to express the social dissatisfactions, to argue about Jamaican general problems, and to spread messages about the oppression of the colonists, suggering an ideal and better world with fraternity and peace for everybody. Marley has been also responsible of diffusing Jamaican Creole and the Dread Talk, the language of Rastafarian Movements. It is possible to see those messages in his lyrics like the song “Duppy Conqueror”:

 

“Yes, me friend, me friend
Dem set me free again
Yes, me friend, me friend
Me deh 'pon street again

Yes, I've been accused
Wrongly abused now
But through the powers of the Most High
They've got to turn me loose

Yes, me friend, me good friend
Dem set me free again, mm
Yes, me friend
Dem turn me loose again

(Yes, me friend) Me friend, me friend, me friend
We deh a street again
Yes, me friend, me friend, me friend
Dem set me free again”

“Duppy Conqueror“, Bob-Marley lyrics.2009.

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaican Literature. 2009), Jamaica has also been successful in the domain of literature with many influential authors which a great part of the work is written in Jamaican Creole and Jamaican English. Those works has been a central element of their literature and arts which they have began with the folktales that become widely appreciated by the slaves. Such stories have many mentions about the origin of slaves, mythology and folklore and there are some tales with European influence brought by the British. It was through the Jamaicans writers Claude McKay and Louise Bennett-Coverly that their literature became renowned around the world. The writer Claude McKay engaged in a radical black group who were not satisfied with the middle class reformist NAACP and with the patriotism of Marcus Garvey. Claude McKay wrote tales, many poems, two autobiographical books and novels. He used to write about the existing difficults and injustices in Jamaica proposing an ideal life. His first book of poems was “Harlem Shadows” and the most successful was “Home to Harlem”, that’s one of his many poems called “Harlem Shadows”:

I HEAR the halting footsteps of a lass

In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall

Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass

Eager to heed desire’s insistent call:

Ah, little dark girls, who in slippered feet

Go prowling through the night from street to street

Through the long night until the silver break

Of day the little gray feet know no rest,

Through the lone night until the last snow-flake

Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast,

The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet

Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street

Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way

Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,

Has pushed the timid little feet of clay.

The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!

Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet

In Harlem wandering from street to street.

 

“Home to Harlem”, MCKAY, Claude. 2009.

 

According to the site (BENNETT-COVERLY, Louise. Independence. 2009), Louise Bennett-Coverly is a revolutionary who struggle a lot for the independence and Jamaican Freedom and she wrote revolutionaries poems which were a mark for the literature in English. She was also the responsible for the officialization of the Jamaican English language and the acceptance of the writing and performing Jamaican literature. She used to writes many poems which display the situation of Jamaican regime such as slavery, colonialism, and all the misery of the Jamaican subjugation. It is plausible to see her manifestations about the dissatisfaction of Jamaican subjugation and slavery through this poem:

 

I cry for Jamaica

 

In the dark when everyone’s asleep

I lay crying for Jamaica

In silent tears flow from my eyes as

I cry out to my maker

An island that was once full of life has divided-separated

No more one love, no more one heart, no more getting together

The beautiful sun has turned into a living hell

And the light that was, has now diminished and God’s son is weeping

I hear the prophet’s voice calling “come back people, return to God”

For it was God’s hand that brought you out of slavery

On boats our ancestors were shipped to be sold

To be worked like a mule doing task they could not refuse

Blood stains are still on the ground and high on the hills

Where they were slaughtered and killed

Deep within the soil where they lay, they wonder if there fight was in vain

Where tortured bones lie still, their spirits cry in heaven for Jamaica

Come my African descendants, return to God Have you forgotten his mighty hands? African people come together and unite

Fill the church listen to God’s word Worshippers who worship in red open the eyes of the dead in the dark when everyone’s asleep

I lay crying for Jamaica In silent tears flow from my eyes as

I cry out to my maker

Marcus Garvey where are you…does your spirit cry at nights too?

Hit another great milestone.

 

“I cry for Jamaica”, Louise Bennett-Coverly poem. 2009.

 
 

6 JAMAICAN CREOLE
 

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaica Creole. 2009), Jamaican Creole is a composition of languages spoken by Negros, the Europeans and American natives. All this mixture of language has resulted in the Jamaican Creole language which has had many denominations such as: Patwa or Patois, Bongo talk, southwestern Caribbean Creole English, Quashie talk. Jamaican Creole was aim of discrimination and prejudice for being considered as a popular speech and for the usage of minor and inferior groups established by the politic of supremacy. Jamaican Creole is original in its languages criteria since the grammar includes its own syntax, morphology, orthography and a large vocabulary.

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaica Creole. 2009), the variations of the Jamaican Grammar do not differentiate in gender, nominative and object, however it has distinction for the second person in the singular and plural, since in the Standard English you have not differentiation from the forms of singular and plural it is you and you for both, but in the Jamaican English it does, which are (thou, thee) = yu and you, you =unu. The form “fi” is added to the adjective possessive and possessive pronouns like my, mine = fi-mi, and it is also used in front of nouns to show possession.  Jamaican Creole has its essence from the English, but it has also taken up words from others languages like Spanish, Hindi, African languages, and Portuguese in order to denominate natives things, like objects, plants, animals, people, activities and religious.

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaica Creole. 2009), there are not past tense forms as English past forms in Jamaican Creole. The tense/aspect system of Jamaican Creole is basically different from English.There are no morphological marked past tense forms corresponding to English -ed -t. There are 2 preverbal particles: 'en' and 'a'. These are not verbs; they are simply invariant particles which cannot stand alone like the English ‘to be’. Their functions differ also from the English.

 

 

The Jamaican Creole particle 'a' is required.

 Mi a write (I am writing)

 

The preverbial particle “a” also is used to express the future tense:

                                          

                                            Mi a go run (Jamaican Creole)

         I am going to run (Jamaican English)

 

The use of the copula in Creole, also known as linking verb, corresponds to the verb to    be. It is also illustrated by the preverbal particle “a” and a separate locative verb “deh”:

                                         Wi deh ina America (Jamaican Creole)

   We are in America (Jamaican English)

 

The negative form uses “no” in the present while “neba” and “neva” are used only in the past and there’s also the insertion of a “y” in a word in order to negate:

                     Wi no deh a London (We are not in London) for the present;

                     Mi neba knuow dat (I didn’t know that) for past.

Insertion of a 'y' in a word

                    Mi kya do dat (I can do that)

                 Mi kyaa do dat (I cannot do that)

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaica Creole), phonology features consist in the reduction of the consonant “strong” /tran/, the inclusion of intrusive vowels and consonants only /uondli/”. The intervocalic / t / that becomes / k / such as little /likkle/, bottle /bahkkle/. The coupling “sit down” /sidong/. The metathesis; film /flim/. Suppression of word-initial /s/: “pit”=spit, “pen”=spend, “tumok/tomok”=stomach. According to prosodic features, the syllables have almost the same time of duration and in consequence of this, stress does not have contrastive function. Intonation can be distinguished between question and statement, negation and assertion, and difference between the modals “can” and “can’t”. Jamaican Creole has not an official way of writing and the words are pronounced as the speakers hear them:

 

Mama, a jus couldn't stan up an no dhu notin (Jamaican Creole)

Mom. I just couldn't stand there and do nothing (Jamaican English)

 

 
 

7 STANDARD ENGLISH VERSUS CREOLE LANGUAGE

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaican English. 2009), Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole cohabit in Jamaica as spoken languages. Yet they have a lot of influence of many other languages such as Arawk, Spanish, West African, Dread Talk, the language of Rastafarian movement and others. However they are different and seen as inferior from Jamaican English which is the languages with more high prestigious in the society, in the government and the communications, symbol of upper crust, civilized and educated people, whereas Jamaican Creole is a language more diffused among the people in colloquial occasions.

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaican English. 2009), there are many complexities in the history of the English language in Jamaica because of some problems that circulates surround the linguistic variation. At the back of this fact remain plenty of problematic matters in the social, racial, political, education affairs. Some movements are trying to make a reform in the spelling and thus, to officialize the Creole. On the other hand, some conservatives attempt to interfere on their plan since they think that Creole has contaminated the authentic English.

 

According to the site (Wikipedia, Jamaican English. 2009), independently of Standard or Creole language, the Jamaicans have to speak the language which they identify with. Jamaican English is a symbol of inter-cultural influence in such a place and its history is very rich in their configuration. As a process, the Jamaican Creole and the dread talk have been spread step by step and becoming used regularly in the dominant society. It might be possible that all this prejudice against those minority groups can vanish and be recognized also for belonging and for being the root and the source of this island.

                                                                                              Pedro Samuel de Moura Torres
 

8 REFERENCES

 

“Jamaican English”. Website. On-line. Internet. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_English: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

“Brief History of Jamaica”. Website. On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.jamaicans.com/info/brief.htm: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

BENNETT-COVERLY, Louise. Independence. Website. On-line. Internet. Available : http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/DEBCLASS/INDEPE~1.HTM: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

“Jamaican Creole”. Website. On-line. Internet. Available:   http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Jamaican_Creole: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

MCKAY, Claude. Harlem Shadows. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. Website. On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.bartleby.com/269/77.htmlz: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

“Jamaican Music”. Website. On-line. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_music: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

“Duppy Conqueror“, Bob-Marley lyrics, Website, on-line, Availible:

http://www.rizkyonline.com/Bob-Marley/Bob-Marley-Duppy-conqueror-lyric.html: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

“I cry for Jamaica”, Louise Bennett-Coverly poem, Website, on-line, Available: http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/poems/poemThehiddenTreasure-2.shml: Accessed in May, 2009.  

 

MCKAY, Claude. Home to Harlem. The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922. Available: http://www.bartleby.com/269/77.html: Accessed in May, 2009.