Jamaica is one of the largest Caribbean Island in the Greater Antilles. Jamaica is known for its warm weather, high mountains tops, agriculture, broad diversity and of course their Rasta's. The population of Jamaica is 2,709,300; with nearly a half-million living in Kingston, the capital and largest city in Jamaica. The people residing in Jamaica: 90% are of African descent, with the other 10% are mostly Caucasians, East Indians and Chinese (Barrett, page 3). Their mainstream culture is heavily influenced by the African heritage, while the "upscale behavior" is British. The unofficial language of Jamaica is English, but the form of English spoken there is different from 'American' English, which can hardly be understood if you are not familiar or from Jamaica.
In Jamaica, over half the population suffer from poverty because majority of the money is controlled by the upper class. The poor live in houses made from scraps in the slums of the inner city, while the upper class lives outside of the city in the mountainous suburbs. This division is represents the two social classes of Jamaica. This living difference promotes fear and hatred with the rich, while the life of the poor only grows worse. It is from these roots that a new dialect has grown.
In the Jamaican dialect, there are specifics in that have formed. There are four major terms used to describe this type of language: lingua franca, pidgin, creole, and creolization. The first term, "lingua franca", is a ordinary language used for communication or trade language. This is used when people 'with different mother tongues' wants to communicate with each other. For example someone with parents that speak another language. (Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1 p 356).
The next term is a complex type of lingua franca called "pidgin". Pidgin is to make communication easier between speakers of different languages, who are in constant contact with each other, such as trade or plantation situations (International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol.3 p 224). There is a distinction made between endogenous and exogenous pidgins. Endogenous pidgins are born from the contact between the natives and foreign traders. Exogenous pidgins develop from contact 'between non-indigenous people, speaking mutually comprehensible languages' (Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol.1 p356).
The next term is also used to describe the development of dialect is, "Creole". Creole, in contrast to pidgin, is a native or first language for its speakers. For example, a child who is born to pidgin speaking parents on a plantation would speak Creole.
The last term is "creolization". Creolization is a creole word that is within a standard/ordinary language that then evolves to a word that has a variety of meanings. This would be an example of dialect.
Sociologists call the transformation from lingua franca to creolization "morphology".
This is also a complex breakdown of the language, because the transformation from pidgin to creolization consists of four different phases. The phases are referred to as the jargon or pre-pidgin, the stabilization phase, the expanded pidgin and the creolization and the post-pidgin or post-creole.
The first phase is the jargon or pre-pidgin phase. During this phase the pidgin form is created. "Logical formatives in words from the parent language are generally dropped. The few that remain are forms which the root and its affix have been frozen". (Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol.6, p 3186). The second phase is the stabilization phase. This is where they reanalyze the grammatical development of the pidgin. The third step is the expanded pidgin and creolization phases. In this phase the language continues to develop, even when it has creolized the language still remains changing. Changes continue with creolization and restrictions continue to be more relaxed. "Creole languages generally evince a hodgepodge of diverse word formation processes and devices" (Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics,Vol.6 p 3188). The final phase is the postpidgin/postcreole phase. This phase intertwines some of the original language into the new developing language. These are the phases of the developing Jamaican language.
History has a great impact on the Jamaican language. 'Jamaican-English' was created because the British plantation owners, who spoke English, needed communicate with their slaves. This is an example of lingua franca. Since the slaves lived on the plantations, lingua franca developed into pidgin; because the plantation owners needed to communicate with the slaved on a regular basis. When the slaves started to bear children the dialect began to change again. Since the children's native language would be pidgin of the Africans and the British, it became a creole. They created new words from both languages.
The thing that makes 'Jamaican English' more difficult than many other pidgin dialects is the variations within the dialect and its relationship to the class structure of Jamaica. "Linguists use the term 'creole continuum' to describe this range between the proper English and the African sound". (Trainor) In the Jamaican society the people who speak more British sounding dialect is associated with the upper class, while the speech used by those living in poverty has more African influences. This is an example of the separation of the classes' impact on the language. The upper class stereotypes the lower class as unintelligent. Also in the creole continuum is a mixture of "Jamaican rhythms and intonation". (Ringo)
In today's Jamaican society, the Rastafarians- who are known for their dreadlocks, have a strong influence on the community and the language. Rastafarianism is a religious movement that view Ethiopia, or as they call it "Zion", as the Promised Land of the Bible. They are called rebels because of their attempts to overcome oppression. There is also a significant connection between Rastafarianism and reggae music. It is through reggae that 'Rastas' have expressed their beliefs and spread their message to Jamaica and other places. The Rastafarian impact led to another dialect called, "Rasta dialect". Their dialect is known for having a double meaning, so this way Rastas are able to communicate among themselves without authority figures knowing what they are talking about. This is another example of the class division, because the authority figures are the upper class.
One of the main ideas within the Rasta dialect is the concept of I and I. Rasta's believe that by saying I and I instead of the 'they, us or we'; they are putting everyone on the same level, getting rid of the separation between classes. They also believe that by adding I to a word makes it more holy, for instance "supreme would be Ipreme". Another example of the Rasta dialect is to change words to sound negative. For example, the word understand, they would change the word to overstand because over is the negative of under. They thought by doing this, they would stray away from their English roots and back to their ancestors.
Language in Jamaica today reflects the history of the country's interaction with different cultures and languages from other ethnic and social backgrounds. The local Jamaican language is from a variety of different speakers and different way of speaking, but all in all it is standard English.
