Jamaican Creole is a language like any other language for two reasons:
- It possesses the features of a language.
- It performs the functions of a language.
Jamaican Creole is a product of Jamaica’s long history with colonialism. A big part of the Jamaican population is of African origin, but most of the influence on Jamaican Creole came from European languages, mainly English. Ever since slaves were being brought to work on the cane plantation in Jamaica, Standard English was only spoken by a minority. However, this small minority held all the political power. The status of Jamaican Creole as opposed to Standard Jamaican English led to the post-creole continuum.
Regarding the phonemic system of Jamaican Creole, Barber, Beal, and Shaw (2009) state that The number of phonemes is usually reduced: for example, in Jamaican Creole many speakers use the same vowel in block as in black (both [blak]), the same vowel in beer as in bare (both [biεr]), the same vowel in pour as in poor (both [poːr]), the same vowel [aː] in caught, cross, farm and form, and the same vowel in both syllables of matter (which is ['mata]). Among the consonants, /θ/ and /d/ are phonemes of a type rare outside English, and in pidgins and creoles they are commonly replaced by /t/ and /d/. Thus in Jamaican Creole thin is [tɪn] and father is ['faːda]. There is also a tendency to simplify consonant-clusters: in Jamaican Creole, the final consonant is dropped from such words as act, bend and left. It is also common for/h/ to be lost, even in stressed syllables, so that health is [εlt]. (p. 261-262)
According to Patrick (2007), Jamaican Creole verbs do not usually carry the past form inflection –the suffix –ed-. Many linguists attribute the occasional presence of the past inflection to interference from Standard English. This shows that Standard English grammar is not familiar to JC speakers, but it holds a degree of control on structures.
London Jamaican is a non-standard variety spoken in London. This variety, which immerged with the migration movements from Jamaica, carries some features of Jamaican Creole. Here are some mentioned in Jenkins (2009, p. 113).
Some features of Jamaican Creole:
- The sound /h/ is added at the beginning of words which start with a vowel sound.
- The suffix –dem is added to nouns so as to mark the plural.
- Both the present and the past are expressed by the present tense.
- Subject and object pronouns –I and me- are used interchangeably.
- Tense suffixes --s and -ed- are eliminated.
- Word-final clusters are dropped.
- Weak vowels –especially schwa- are not generally used.
- The sound /b/ is labialized after certain vowels.
I have chosen this video to show the many differences between Standard Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole. The Speaker uses SJE to teach some JC phrases.
‘Patois’ speakers, who are a majority, generally understand Standard Jamaican English, eventhough thy do not necessarily speak it. So with some practice Standard Jamaican English speakers can understand Jamaican Creole (Pilewski, 2014).
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