Some New Light on Old Jamaicanisms

Abstract

T HE SOURCES of a number of well-known Jamaican terms have long reSmained in doubt for a variety of reasons. One is the general tendency, no more absent from Jamaica than elsewhere, to treat etymology as a sort of amateur sport, in which the object is to make lively guesses without caring much about plausibility or knowing for certain how to recognize it. With this tendency has gone a disposition to seek for origins only in the more familiar European languages. Another and serious reason has been the inaccessibility of works, especially dictionaries, on American, African, and the lesser known European tongues. Yet etymology requires a high degree of linguistic sophistication and an understanding of the sound laws which have operated in the formation of Jamaican folk speech (Jamaican Creole). Fortunately, the past fifteen years have seen considerable improvement in both the facilities for this study and the awareness that it is not a guessing game. Working chiefly at the University of the West Indies library in preparing the Dictionary of Jamaican English,' Dr. Le Page and I were happily able to consult a goodly number of the most important American and African language dictionaries, as well as other studies, and hence have succeeded in clearing up many formerly obscure or puzzling questions. Some of our results follow.