Analysing Jamaican Creole Through English Language Essay

Analysing Jamai arse Creole Through side of meat Language renderCreoles eject be gener solelyy defined as genuinely multi spring languages, which emerged from the blending together of two or more different languages and became the mother tongue of a new generation of speakers, acquiring the full frame of communicative functions that a native language needs (Svartvik 2006 p.183). Most Creoles actual as a result of colonialism and lived side by side with the preponderating language. As a consequence, these contact varieties were reduced to lower functions and seen as pervert or broken forms of the language from which they derived. Nevertheless, since postcolonial times, there has been a shift towards the identification and acceptance of field languages and identities, which has given rise to a new emplacement and opportunities for those stigmatised varieties (Schneider 2007). Jamaican Creole, generally have a go at itn as Patwa, can be considered as a good example of Englis h- stalkd creole which has begun to over be stigma just somewhat its example and be recognised as a fully substantial language, as well as a symbol of Jamaican identity operator ( Schneider 2010 p.102).Jamaican Creole has its descents in the late 17th century, when British colonize the territory (1655) and imported slaves from westward Africa to work in the plantations. Those Africans soon started to number white race and became the linguistic models of the new slaves, contributing with this to spread the creole (Schneider 2007). During the decades of colonialism, Jamaicas language and culture were dominated by the British norms. In this sense, Standard English was considered as the highest conversion, acquired through formal education and apply in public and formal scene (Devonish and Harry 2008 p. 256) for its part, Jamaican Creole was stigmatised as a bastardized distortion of English, to be avoided at all costs in public discourse (Schneider 2010 p.102). After ind ependence in 1962, a sense of nationalism emerged and led to new attitudes towards Jamaicas national culture and language. However, this way for acceptance was non easy and Jamaicans had to fight against prejudices and an exonormative orientation which favoured the Standard renewing without taking into account realities of language use and the Jamaicans identity (Schneider 2007 p.234). The figure of Louise Bennett may be used to represent the spirit of this decimal point and can help us to understand the current linguistic bunk in Jamaica. Therefore, taking unity of the Bennetts most famous meters covering to Africa (1966), we are going to analyse the feature articles of Jamaican Creole, as well as the reason that led the poet to use this variety and the ideas she wanted to transmit.The poem deals with a young lady, called Miss Mattie, who wants to go rump to Africa because she thinks that her homeland is there. The poetic voice develops a group of arguments to try to per suade the girl not to emigrate to that upright and, at the said(prenominal) time, offers the reader a good description of Jamaicas essence.Firstly, Bennett presents Jamaicas population as a combination of different cultures () you smashing large(p) large/ Granma was African/ But Mattie, doan you big gravid large/ Granpa was Englishman? ()/ You social unit generation ()/ oonoo all is Jamaican According to Holm (2000 p.93) Ethnic origin of the population in the 1960 census was 76% African, 15% Afro-European, 3.5% East Indian, 1% European, 1% Chinese and 3% other. Nowadays, it is estimated that over 90% of Jamaicas population are of African origin (Schneider 2008 p.610). Secondly, the poet alludes to Jamaicans facial brags and colour, which reflect their African hereditary pattern and distinguish them from English people oh, you view the countenance/ and between you an de Africans/is great resemblance. Therefore, Bennett introduces in this poem the defining characteristics o f the Jamaican population their hea thusly melting pot and their strong African roots.Finally, the poetic voice claims that the girl does not need to look for her homeland because Jamaica is already her home you dah go fe seek you homelan/ for a right deh so you deh. In this sense, the poet considers that the real homeland is the place where one is born, rather than the country of genetic origins. In the same vein, Bennett excessively seems to encourage Jamaicans to accept their African heritage and make the island their own home, as it is the only way to achieve self-identification do Sure a whe you come from so you got/ somewhe fe come back toRegarding the language, the poem is entirely written in basilectal creole. Jamaican Creole has West African languages as its substrate (Startvik 2006 p. 183) which means that languages from Akan, Kwa and Buntu families are likely to redeem influenced part of Jamaican basic grammar and pronunciation (Patrick 2008 p.610). In this sense, a s it can be seen in the poem, Jamaican Creole shares several characteristics with the rest of Atlantic Creoles and differs in some boldnesss from the English grammar.Firstly, in Jamaican Creole, tense and face are not marked by inflectional morphology, but by context. Therefore, neither the third person singular -s nor the past form of the verb come were found in the poem Ef the whole worl start starts fe go back/ whe dem great granpa come came from. In the same vein, progressive aspect is only signalled by pre-verbal dah (you no know wha you dah seh?) and the base form of the verb is used to express participle function in do/Sure a whe you come have come from () however, non-concord was appears in the poem to express the past form of the verb to be () you great great great/ Granma was Africa.Secondly, auxiliary verbs were not found in interrogative or prejudicial sentences. Negation is marked by means of the preverbal negator no, both in damaging declaratives sentences and in i mperative ones. The use of no is a distinctly creole feature (Scheneider 2010 p.106), which is also very common in other languages, such as Spanish, and can be seen in the early stages of the grammar of second language learners, as well as in child language acquisition. Other negative structures are the use of doan in negative tags (But Mattie, doan you great great great/ Granpa was Englisman?) and the presence of double negations (But no tell nobody say) which is a feature that appears not only in other creoles, but also in other non-standard English varieties (Schneider 2010 p.106).Regarding pronouns, first and second personal forms were found Me, you, oonoo (unu) and also interrogative pronouns such as weh/whe (where), as well as the genitive form who-fa (whose). Furthermore, as Patrick (2008 p.633) claims, bare personal pronouns sometimes fulfil possessive functions in this sense, you can refer to the personal pronoun you or to the possessive you Ef a hard time you dah run fro m/Tek you (your) chance. In the same manner, a single preposition can also cover a roll of functions (Schneider 2010 p.106) Mus go back a (to) Englan, de balance a (of) you family. The use of a single form playing several roles is a characteristic that all the linguistic systems possess as a result of applying one of the most fundamental principles of the language economy.Another feature of Jamaican Creole is the lack of grammatical suffixes (Schneider 2010 p.106). In this sense, possessive -s is avoided and, as Patrick (2008 p.633) says, possession can be expressed by juxtaposition (possessor+ possessed), as in great granmader fader, or by the use of the preposition a (of), as in de balance a you family. In the same vein, plural of nouns are generally not marked or they are expressed by means of the morpheme dem, although it was not found in this poem rather, Louise Bennett alternates zero-marking of plural (American), very common in basilectal speech, with the plural allomorph - s (Africans), which is closed to mesolectal and acrolectal forms. Finally, it is necessary to point out the use of unresisting meanings in active form (as in oonoo all barn goop a Bun Grung), as well as the use of fe (to) as the infinitive marker and the presence of say and seh as the complementizer (correspoding to that) to introduce a finit object clause after verbs of thinking or talking (Schneider 2010 p. 106) Me know say dat I know that ()Apart from the grammar, the manner in which some words were written contributes to reflect locally pronunciation features. In this sense, it was found that the diphthong /ei/, as in take, is monophthongized, giving rise to the form tek. In the same manner, fricatives , and do not exist in Jamaican creole (Devonish and Harry 2008 p. 285) therefore, they are substituted by stops (Schneider 2010 p.105), as in the case of dat (that), fader/mader (father/mother) or den (then). Finally, as in other varieties, word-final or syllable-final consonan t clusters are usually omitted (Schneider 2010 p.105) this can be seen in words as granpa/granma (grandpa/ granny knot), an (and), mus (must) or homelan (homeland).Writing her poems in Jamaican Creole and talking about a national identity, Louise Bennett shows her commitment to a language and a culture that have been undervalue and marginalised throughout time. In this sense, she demonstrates that Jamaican Creole is neither a broken or substandard variety, but, as it was analysed, one fully developed language with its own grammar and language (Svartvik 2006 p. 176) and consequently, as able as the Standard English to express the whole range of human experiences, thoughts and emotions.Figures as Louise Bennett contributed to instil pride in Jamaicans national language and culture that is why, nowadays the linguistic government agency in this country is totally different from past decades. Although, Standard English is expected to be the variety used in ex officio contexts and b y educated speakers (Schneider 2007), most Jamaicans speak a kind of mesolect, a variety which is midway on the continuum between creole and the standard language (Svartvik 2006 p.181) and they move towards acrolectal or basilectal forms depending on several factors, such as the formality of the context or the social relationship between the interlocutors (Schneider 2007). This lack of correspondence between expectations and reality has led to more tolerant attitudes which have result in new education policies, more presence of creole in political and literary contexts, as well as in the media. Furthermore, attempts to codify the variety with the elaboration of grammars (Cassidy) and dictionaries (Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage) reflect the efforts to make Jamaican Creole an official language (Schneider 2007). However, fifty years after the political independence, some prejudices and debates about the use of Creole still remain and it is only in the exponent of Jamaicans to make creole a stronger language and a symbol of their identity. modal auxiliary verbs, such as mus (must), and the infinite marker fe (to) were also found in the poem, both fulfilling the same function as in Standard English.