Love, laughter and music #3
March 15th, 2002 by freddie96
Jamaica talk
It is highly unlikely that you will ever encounter people quite as friendly as Jamaicans. A defining characteristic of Jamaican culture is its love of conversation – everyone loves to talk, whether it’s the rasta keen to reason with you, the taxi-man who check you out or the schoolgirl who ax where yuh from. This is one reason why tings appen slow in Jamaica. Nothing appen without a likkle talk – or se se and su su, for that matter (gossip and whispering) – and a whole heap of laughter. Few conversations take place on that gorgeous island unseasoned by laughter.
You can try to account for this with patronising explanations about how Jamaican poverty and unemployment – it is still regarded as a Third World country much of the time – gives people empty time to fill with gossip and jokes. But this mek no sense. The reason why Jamaicans make such impressive, entertaining conversationalists is because they have one of the richest, most eloquent and inherently musical languages to be found on this planet. As Frederic Cassidy says in ‘Jamaica Talk’ (1961), a staggeringly well-researched enquiry into three hundred years of the English language in Jamaica, words unused in Britain since the time of Shakespeare are used on a daily basis there. Fi true.
As in Shakespearean England – a similarly social culture not in thrall to TV and shopping – language in Jamaican is simultaneously an instrument of power and a source of entertainment. Hence Jamaicans love to use language as a playful assertion of self over others. Go to a live music event and you will hear DJs and MCs battling it out through the sheer power of lyrical invention. Man-of-the-moment Shaggy’s No.1 hit ‘It wasn’t me’ has already been answered by two scorching ripostes from Beenie Man (‘It was me’) and Lady Saw respectively. (For my money, Lady Saw’s feminist talkback wins hands down.)
Go to dancehall and similarly you may well hear a war of words between two friends, trading insults and witticisms. Politeness is ranked high amongst the virtues by the majority of ordinary Jamaicans, but playfulness is that much more important. These verbal duels continue until one combatant eventually admits defeat – amongst a hail of laughter. This kind of behaviour is indicative of the way in which language is loved, honoured and obeyed in Jamaica as the root of all human interaction. It is ‘serious’, to use another favourite Jamaican expression, a word invariably pronounced – as so many others also are – with depth and gravity so as to extract maximum meaning from it.
While I was there, the annual Spelling Bee competition was being held amongst schoolchildren all over the island. The final was big news – front page news on The Gleaner, Jamaica’s principal newspaper (established in 1834). 12-year-old Daniel Thomas of Ardenne High School triumped by spelling ‘amanuensis’ correctly, after his closest rival failed with ‘agapemone’. Other finalists stumbled over ‘temerarious’, ‘heterogeneous’ and ‘uxurious’. What words for 12-year-olds to know and use!
Hence it is almost impossible not to be ravished by the rhythm and wit of Jamaica talk. Phrases, sounds and locutions used by great vocalists like Marley, U-Roy and Sizzla are on everyone’s lips. Tek a likkle poff o weed and you might well find they are on yours too. During moments of lucidity you might think you sound like a complete prat – quite possibly the case if you also tek a likkle overproof rum wid your weed – but the extraordinary thing is, no-one will look askance at you or take the piss. They will just grin, and think ‘anudda Henglish in love wid Jamaica’.
Example. I was walking through the backstreets of Port Antonio one day when a remarkably well-groomed young rasta beckoned me over for a chat. ‘Where yuh fram man?’ he ax me. ‘Inglan,’ I say. ‘Yuh sure don’t soun like no Inglishman,’ he frowns. ‘Ya man,’ I admit, ‘but me come on holiday and jus feel real different.’ ‘Ya man,’ he smiles. ‘Yuh gaan fram home an yuh jus eeze up. Mi unnerstan that. Is a good ting. Man haf fe eeze up.’
A good thing it is indeed. How many strangers do you talk to in the course of your daily life? In Jamaica, you will lose count – for in a very real sense, no-one there is a stranger. Not for nothing do you hear ‘one blood’ and ‘one love’ said an awful lot. They are the foundation of an intense sociability that overrides any scruples of race, class or nationality.
If you get into this sociable mood yourself, you will very rapidly find yourself saying hello – or ‘ya man’, ‘respek’, ‘blessed’ and ‘guidance’ – to an awful lot of people. Acknowledgment of others comes naturally in a relatively underpopulated island where it sometimes feels like everyone knows everyone else. But it is done with a wonderful economy and grace that at times can only be described as spiritual. One of the most frequent words of acknowledgment used between men is simply ‘yes’. Pronounced with a very deep ‘e’ and a full ‘s’ (more like ‘Yeah-ss’) , it is transformed from a simple word of affirmation into an act of deep connection and pure utterance.
Which is what Jamaican talk is all about.
Freddie B, April 2001
Further reading…
Oddly enough, not that many good books on Jamaica have been written – possibly a side-effect of the island’s relaxing qualities. Should you be looking to get a taste of the place, however, I’d recommend you start with the following:
‘One People’ Guy Kennaway (Payback)
A hilarious ‘novel’ – actually a sequence of vignettes and self-contained stories – about life in a fictional Jamaican fishing village. Brilliantly captures the speech patterns of Jamaican talk as well as the darker underside to life on a sun-kissed island. Based on close firsthand experience of Jamaica, it has apparently outraged a number of people who believe they are in it…’
Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King’ Lloyd Bradley (Viking)
‘At last Jamaican music has the book it deserves,’ wrote Prince Buster – and he of all people should know. Although this is a bit of a tome (not exactly a light beach read), it is packed with so much excellent research and artist interviews that it is clearly the product of a passionate appreciation for reggae. A wonderful book about music that also tells the history of Jamaica over the last hundred years wonderfully well.ny of its cultural myths. So don’t take this as gospel! It is, however, a very good introduction to the island from the perspective of a music lover.
‘Rude Boy: Once Upon a Time in Jamaica’ Chris Salewicz (Gollancz)
As the subtitle suggests, this is a somewhat fanciful book. Although Salewicz has been travelling to Jamaica for some years now, he is still sufficiently enamoured of it to believe a few too many of its cultural myths. So don’t take this as gospel! It is, however, a very good introduction to the island from the perspective of a music lover.
