Re: There's no place like Jamaica and I havn't even been there yet
This comes from my "dictionary"
"Jamaicans have their own language, a dialect of English with African influences. Many Jamaican words passed from common usage in main-stream English over a hundred years ago. And because of the African origin of most Jamaicans, there is a widespread avoidance of constructions like th. Th at the beginning of a word is therefore substituted with a d. Thus the becomes de, them becomes dem, and that becomes dat. Th at the end of a word is simply reduced to t, so teeth becomes teet. Stress is placed differently than in main-stream English so mattress becomes "mat-rass." The pronoun, him, is a substitute for most other pronouns regardless of gender or case.
Plurals are often expressed by adding "dem" (them) to the singular form, so two or more cars become "de car dem" which means "the cars." In recent years, Rastafarian influence has added the use of "I" (and the plural "I and I") to emphasize the importance of the individual. Words of African origin also pepper the language.
Then, of course, there is the accent and rhythm of the language, probably a mixture of African forms and patterns of speech used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in British seaports. Some hear echoes of Welsh. Others are too busy trying to figure out how the language could possibly be related to any form of English. A form of the Jamaican dialect is also spoken in Belize."
This sounds like too much Study.
What I really need someday is a Live Human Jamaican Friend To Talk With.
Oh well....
|
Linear Mode
Similar Threads
