Jamaican Creole

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Jamaican Creole

Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patois/Patwa or simply Jamaican, and called Jamaican Creole by linguists, is an English/African-based language—not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English—used primarily on the island of Jamaica. Jamaican is the descendant of a 17th century creolization process which, simply put, consisted of West and Central Africans acquiring and nativizing the vernacular and dialectal British Englishes (including significant exposure to Irish and Scottish varieties), with which their forced labour brought them in contact. Of course it must be understood that all languages are derived from usually more than one already existing language. In the sense that Italian, Catalan, French, Spanish, and Portuguese are all derived from Latin, no one would call any of these languages Latin creole or Patois. Modern day Jamaican creole is what is called a linguistic continuum in linguistics terms. That is, there is no cut-and-dry division between the standard language (the acrolect) and the most divergent, rural form (the basilect). The intermediate form is called the mesolect.

Significant Jamaican-speaking communities exist among Jamaican expatriates in Miami, New York City, Toronto, Washington D.C., Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama (in the Caribbean coast), and London. There is also a very similar, mutually intelligible variety found in San Andres Islands, Colombia, brought to the island by decendants of Jamaican maroons in the 18th century. Jamaican creole exists mostly as a spoken language. Although standard British English is used for most writing in Jamaica, Jamaican has been gaining ground as a literary language for almost a hundred years. Claude McKay published his book of Jamaican poems Songs of Jamaica in 1912.

Jamaican pronunciation and vocabulary are significantly different from most other English dialects, despite heavy usage of English words or derivatives. It is to the point where a native speaker of a non-Caribbean English dialect can only understand a heavily accented Jamaican speaker if they talk slowly and forego the use of the numerous idioms that are common in Jamaican.

This is due to the fact that many Jamaican words have their origin in various African languages and the language syntax is mostly derived from the various African languages. Pluralisation of nouns is done by either prepending a cardinal—de five bud = the five birds—or by appending the plural indicator, "dem"—de bud dem = the birds. Similarly, verb tense is specified using prepended tense indicators—mi swim, mi a go swim, mi beh~ swim, mi a fi swim, etc.

Interest in Jamaican culture outside of Jamaica was heightened by the proliferation of the Rastafari movement and reggae and ska music throughout the world beginning in the 1960s.

Contents

[edit] The pronominal system

The pronominal system of Standard English has a four-way distinction of person, singular/plural, gender and nominative/objective. Some varieties of Jamaican Creole do not have the gender or nominative/objective distinction, though most do; but usefully, it does distinguish between the second person singular and plural (you).

  • I, me = mi
  • you, you (thou, thee) = yu
  • he, him = im or ihn (nasilized in the basilect variety)
  • she, her = shi or ihn (nasilized, with no gender distinction in the basilect variety)
  • we, us = wi
  • you, you = unu
  • they, them = dem


To form the possessive adjectives and the possessive pronouns, simply add "fi-" to the pronouns above. Note, though, that most varieties of Jamaican Creole use merely the nominative/objective pronouns in place of these possessive variants, which are used for emphasis.

  • my, mine = fi-mi
  • your, yours (thy, thine) = fi-yu
  • his, his = fi-im
  • her, hers = fi-shi (also fi-'ar, and fi-im in basilect variety)
  • our, ours = fi-wi
  • your, yours = fi-unu
  • their, theirs = fi-dem

Often, fi- is used in front of nouns, to indicate possession (replacing 's).

e.g. a fi-Anne daag dat, that is Anne's dog.

[edit] Vocabulary

Naturally, Jamaican Creole contains many words borrowed from English as well as from Spanish, Portuguese, Hindustani, and African languages. Examples of such words include "duppy" meaning 'ghost' from Twi adope, id; "pickney/pickiney" meaning 'child' (may have been taken from an earlier form "piccaninny" and ultimately borrowed from Portuguese "pequenino" or most likely from the Spanish "pequeño"); "obeah" (also from Twi) referring to a type of spell-casting, voodoo or witchcraft native to Africa (and also used as a popular scapegoat for common woes); and even "seh" meaning 'that' (in the sense of "he told me that" = "im tel mi seh") and taken from a west African dialect. Words from Hindustani include "nuh", "ganja" (marijuana), and "janga" (crayfish).

[edit] Tense and aspect marking

The tense/aspect system of Jamaican Creole is fundamentally unlike that of English. There are no morphological marked past tense forms corresponding to English -ed -t. There are 2 preverbial particles: 'en' and 'a'. These are not verbs, they are simply invariant particles which cannot stand alone like the English ‘to be’. Their functions differs also from the English

       *'en' is called a ‘tense indicator’
       *'a' is called the ‘aspect marker’
       *'go' is used to indicate the future

There are no morphological marked past tense forms corresponding to English -ed -t.

  • Mi run
    • I run (habitually); I ran
  • Mi a run or Mi deh run
    • I am running
  • A run mi dida run or A run mi ben/(w)en a run
    • I was running
  • Mi did run
    • I have run; *Mi a go run
    • I am going to run; I will run

[edit] Use of the copula (equivalent to "to be")

  • the Jamaican Creole particle 'a' is required
    • e.g. Mi a write (I am writing)
  • the Jamaican Creole equative verb is also 'a'
    • e.g. Mi a di teecha (I am the teacher)
  • Jamaican 'deh'
    • e.g. Wi deh a London (We are in London)
  • with true adjectives in Jamaican Creole, no copula is needed; adjectives are a special class of verbs
    • e.g. Mi tyad now (I am tired now)

[edit] Negation

  • negator ‘no’ used in present
    • Wi no deh a London (We are not in London)
    • Mi naah (no +a) run (I’m not running)
  • 'neba’ or ‘neva’ used only in past
    • Mi neba knuow dat (I didn’t know that)
    • Nobaddy neva si him (Nobody saw him)
  • insertion of a 'y' in a word
    • Mi kya~ do dat (I can do that)
    • Mi kyaa~ do dat (I cannot do that)

[edit] Phonology

Characteristic features include the absence of /ɒ/ (as in British English "got"), which fell together with /ɑː/, as in most US Englishes. Jamaican Creole developed two palatal plosives, namely /kʲ/ and /ɡʲ/, they derive from English palatal allophones of /k/ and /ɡ/. Due to African influences, /kʲ/ and /ɡʲ/ are now phonemes in Jamaican Creole. Furthermore, Jamaican Creole has no /θ/ (as in Standard English "thing") phoneme; /θ/ fell together with /t/. Other features of many Jamaican dialects include:

  • /v/ being pronounced as /b/,
  • Word-initial /h/ being dropped (Have becomes 'ave) in many dialects, but may also be added to words beginning with vowel sounds: "eye" becomes "hi."
  • Intervocalic /t/ becoming /k/, little = likkle, bottle = bahkkle
  • Occasional metathesis; film = flim
  • Deletion of word-initial /s/: 'pit=spit, 'pen'=spend, 'tumok/'tomok=stomach

[edit] Orthography

Because of its status as non-standard, there is no standard or official way of writing Jamaican Creole; (for example the word 'there' can be written 'de', 'deh' or dere'; and the word for 'three' is most commonly spelt 'tree', but it can be spelt 'tri' or 'trii' to distinguish it from the noun tree). Often, Standard English spellings are used even when words are pronounced differently. At other times though, a spelling has become widespread even though it is neither phonetic nor standard (eg. 'pickney' = 'child'; in this case the spelling 'pikni' would be more phonetic).

[edit] Examples

  • That man was swimming
    • Da man de did a swim.
  • Three men swam.
    • Tree man did a swim.
  • I do not like what you are saying about your girlfriend.
    • Mi nuh like wah yu a seh bout yu gyal.
  • I did not say anything about you.
    • Mi neva seh nuttn bout yu.
  • Nyam- v. to eat ex: "Mi a go nyam" (I'm going to eat)
  • Pickney- n. a child or children ex: "Ey pickney, wha you name?" / "Dem pickney deh 'aad-ears"
  • Seh- that (as in: "'im tell mi seh you shi boops" (He told me that you're her sugar-daddy)

(Note that double negatives in Jamaican Creole are used as intensifiers)

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Jamaican_Creole"