7 1. Introduction ing, an English word dated to the year 1795, meaning ‘hold (one’s) road,’ ‘catch (to).’ Cassidy states that these words “[…] were undoubtedly brought by early English settlers and preserved among the common folk” (1961: 4). He adds that, to his surprise, these preserved words in Jamaica could be read only in English literature from the 16th and 17th centuries. Cassidy reports that some of the examples of such words were uttered with true Shakespearean pronunciation (sic!) (see Cassidy 1961: 4). Cassidy’s research took place almost half a century ago, however, numerous archaic terms have survived until today and can still be heard2 on the island, e.g. chain is an old English measurement (22 yards) that is still used in Jamaica nowadays, although hardly ever accurately, nonetheless the term still exists. Instead of in a glass, one may be served a drink in a goblet. These preservations reflect not only Shakespearian language but are also reminders of slave times, e.g. massa ‘master’ or pickney ‘a child,’ and the commonly used African word nyam ‘to devour.’ The second group in Cassidy’s typology comprises borrowings. Examples of words of non-English origin are, e.g., from French – cashew, légume, leggings. Christie writes about a number of borrowings from Spanish, such as gizada (guisada ‘a sweet tart filled with coconut’); the Hindi word juuta ‘a shoe’; or Chinese peaka peow (the name of a gambling game) (2003: 10). New formations constitute the third kind of “Jamaicanisms.” These are divided into three subgroups: alternations, compositions and creations (Cassidy 1961: 5). There can be alternations in pronunciation, e.g. scallion (a vegetable) is skellion in Jamaica and Spanish elm among the common people changed into panchalam. Beheading, in which the initial letter is lost, is another type of alternation, e.g. alone – ’lone, away – ’way, star – ’tar, defence – ’fence. Some words have been constructed due to the process of metathesis, such as cruffy from scruffy. Composition is another form of word creation. It consists in composing new words and phrases out of existing ones, e.g. garden egg, egg-plant, macca-fat, macca yam, tief-tief, fenky-fenky, kas-kas (ibidem). Another mode of word formation is onomatopoeia, or echoing (it can be observed in a number of proverbs), e.g. kap-kap, fee-fee, gimme-me-bit (ibidem). Transferred meaning is, according to Cassidy, “a common type in all new lands, where it is easier to use a familiar word in a new way and to adopt or invent an unfamiliar one” (1961: 6). The example concerns the name of the plant dandelion, which has been transferred to name several other plants. 2 The examples come from Koss (2008) Jamaica. Lonely Planet; 304.
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