5 1. Introduction (b) Cashew neber bear guyava [A cashew-nut tree never bears guyava. – Implying a threat “you will get what you deserve”] (c) Daag can’t bark when his back is broken [A dog can’t bark when its back is broken – Employed as a threat]. (Koss [1996] 2008: 306) 1.2. STRUCTURE OF JAMAICA TALK This chapter discusses the characteristic semantic elements of Jamaican Creole and the origin of the vocabulary shaped during the early period of the English invasion. A part of the Jamaican Creole word repertoire was shaped and influenced by the 17th century English, often of Shakespearean origin that has remained hardly unchanged until modern times. Jamaican Creole is one of the major Atlantic lexifier creoles in the Caribbean. In Jamaica the creole is known as Patois (Mufwene 1988; Nero 2000; Bryan 2004). It is the native language there, widely spoken and gaining more national status besides the official, standard English. However, “[…] English is the de facto official language but […] Jamaican Creole, a largely oral, low status vernacular, not highly mutually intelligible with English, is the dominant language for a majority of Jamaicans” (Brown-Blake 2008: 32). The structure of Jamaican Creole is not monolithic; it is rather a conglomerate of intermediate varieties in the different regions. The English language of the British and selected elements of the West African dialects contributed to the creation of linguistic varieties in Jamaica. Most of the English varieties were formed during the slavery period of the sugar plantations. The approximate time period for the intensive changes and formation of these forms was 150 years, counting from the British takeover of the island in 1655 until 1838, when slavery was entirely abolished. Following the establishment of sugar estates by the British and the continuous export of slaves, the English language developed its own local forms and “[i]t was the slaves’ need to communicate with the Europeans and with each other that led to the establishment of the Creole that has survived alongside English and is known on the island today as Patois or the ‘dialect’” (Christie 2003: 1). However, the language of the diaspora, according to Cassidy, is neither unified nor homogeneous: [i]t exists in two main forms, which may be imagined as lying at opposite ends of a scale, with every sort of variation between, but each variant inclining
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