As for this debate between pidgin, creole, and patois, I think what's important (specifically to Jamaica--I don't claim to have tons of knowledge about any other creole) is to recognize that just because a language has a written set of rules doesn't mean it is superior. Jamaican Patois (Creole and patois being near synonyms) IS a language. It's grammatical structure happens to be closer to some African languages (it's hard to trace back--we are talking about a history of slavery and slave masters didn't really seem to care where they were procuring their slaves). Just because its surface morphology and phronology seem to reflect a "slang" or "dialect" version of English doesn't eliminate the fact that its has a grammatical and syntactical structure of its own.
As Professor Braithwaite at UWI wrote, Jamaican Patois (or, more properly, Jamaican) should be considered a "nation-language." Yes, there are similarities between English and Jamaican, just like there are similarities between, say, German and Yiddish (would you like to argue that Yiddish isn't a real language too?), but Jamaican does have many of its own linguistic properties and words--such as verbs like "nyam" meaning "to eat" or nouns like "pickney" to mean child.It is also the source of much pride in Jamaica and hell, I don't care how angry some of you get, but it's bloody upsetting to me to even have to make this argument.
― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 3 July 2003 18:41 (twenty years ago) link
― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 3 July 2003 18:44 (twenty years ago) link
― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Thursday, 3 July 2003 18:48 (twenty years ago) link
― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 3 July 2003 18:53 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 19:01 (twenty years ago) link
but of course i agree w/you entirely that this patois is no less "valid" or any such thing than standard american english.
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 19:03 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 19:05 (twenty years ago) link
― Sonny A. (Keiko), Thursday, 3 July 2003 20:00 (twenty years ago) link
Jamaican Patois is in fact a creole. Creoles are languages. Patois isn't broken English any more than English is broken German. Standard English is not a creole, although the majority of its lexicon is from other languages. If this sounds confusing, well, it is. Read "Word on the Street" or "The Power of Babel" by John McWhorter if you want a well-written explanation of how linguists classify languages, dialects, and all that.
Since Black English has been mentioned, it's probably worth pointing out that Black English is not a creole as many people (including the Oakland School Board at one point in time) believe, it's a dialect.
Also, slang and language are very different things. Languages have slang, no languages are slang.
In my professional opinion you can safely ignore anything russ t says about Jamaican Patois or English.
-fh (a linguist)
― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Thursday, 3 July 2003 20:52 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 21:13 (twenty years ago) link
― phil jones (interstar), Thursday, 3 July 2003 23:02 (twenty years ago) link
I guess it might be a case of dancehall sounding so thoroughly exotic to me in all of its elements that I can't easily connect its dramas to the real world, and the bogeymen homosexuals are as unreal and outlandish and cartoonish to me as Elephant Man himself is. This is not a defence of course... I strongly feel that i should be more disturbed than I am.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 4 July 2003 04:15 (twenty years ago) link
Russ why should black homophobia be *more* difficult to "get your head round* than white homophobia? Can you in any way justify this comment other than resorting to hackneyed and hopelessly dimwitted "all oppressed people should unite" arguments? (Yeah, maybe they should but they don't, you know - it just doesn't happen.) It's true, ethically speaking, this is an incredibly thorny issue for me, as outlined in the pots above, but as someone who won't even recognise the validity of patois, well, you just don't have an awful lot to debate.And Tim, as ever I can't help but agree with you. Despite being concerned about this issue and making an attempt to understand/rationalise/reconcile my feelings on *any* kind of prejudice with my love of this music, there's something so extreme and *ridiculous* about all the posturing in dancehall that it's just pretty damned difficult to take totally seriously. Remembering that dancehall is an intensely theatrical and contrived, with deejays taking on the most absurd performance personae etc, makes me think that, to a large degree, these views are merely a front and not to be taken literally. I know this doesn't make it much better, but it does mean that given time they may disappear - however, I wouldn't hold your breath for this.
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 08:53 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Friday, 4 July 2003 09:33 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 09:44 (twenty years ago) link
― russ t, Friday, 4 July 2003 10:23 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 11:07 (twenty years ago) link
ding ding ding. The scapegoats (the Hated) find themselves their own scapegoat (Hated). Now they can be the bullies.
― Sean M (Sean M), Friday, 4 July 2003 12:12 (twenty years ago) link
rest assured that we all do not
― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Friday, 4 July 2003 13:00 (twenty years ago) link
― gareth (gareth), Friday, 4 July 2003 13:11 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 13:23 (twenty years ago) link
this all comes down to whether one believes homosexuality is a choice or part of our genes. (i believe the latter) obv the equals argt will never apply, but it becomes less problematic to conflate the two in terms of biology. culturally on the other hand...
― disco stu (disco stu), Friday, 4 July 2003 13:53 (twenty years ago) link
― russ t, Friday, 4 July 2003 13:55 (twenty years ago) link
― disco stu (disco stu), Friday, 4 July 2003 14:00 (twenty years ago) link
i don't really know one way or the other and don't care much as both views have their pros and cons. the bottom line is that if it's genetic or a choice, people should have the right to conduct their lives freely and without discrimination. the notion that homosexuality is a sin, has little to do with the nature/nurture debate, it's more about a changing perceived notions of morality - obv when this morality is as heavily tied to religion as in this instance, you start to encounter serious problems...
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 14:11 (twenty years ago) link
― disco stu (disco stu), Friday, 4 July 2003 15:07 (twenty years ago) link
I do think, though, that the huge rise in clubs/drugs have done a great deal in building bridges between the straight and gay communities.... there's a lot more people who would never have set foot in a gay club or spoken to a gay person before now regul,ars in many clubs I go to - drawn there by the great music and the hassle free atmosphere. And that's a good thing.
― russ t, Friday, 4 July 2003 15:19 (twenty years ago) link
in this instance i think it would make comparatively little difference. but this whole issue is all about people judging one another and who is right/whi is wrong? i just find it horrendously condescending that people have kneejerk "homophobia = evil = end of debate" reactions when there is so much inetresting stuff to be discussed here: music, sociology, theology, history etc... that's why i love dancehall - for all its limitations, it's an incredibly rich vein to mine if you're of a mind to.
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 15:31 (twenty years ago) link
I think and inclusive society must also be a society in which there is time and space for reflection. When you think about the artificial divisions different groups construct between themselves and others, they really seem arbitrary and ridiculous. Where I live, in Montreal, I have the time and space to think about issues and to evaluate my positions and outlook regarding religion, race, homosexuality, feminism, etc. When I lived in Kingston, I found that a lot of this time and space was taken up by maintaining my level of personal safety. One particularly difficult day, after having been yealled at by dozens of people on the street (I was walking from a church to a bus stop), I called a friend and tried to explain just how hard it was for me to be in Kingston. Waking up every day I knew I'd be in for a challenge...I'd psych myself up if I wanted to go and buy a paper or if I had to leave campus.
One of my dread friends there talked to me about how much he wished he could sit down and write about his experiences. I said "Why not?" to which he responded "There's too much noise in my community." Read: I can't sleep because of shootings, I have to bleech (Jamaican for staying up late in order to make sure nothing out of order happens) all night, I have to make money to eke by, there is no time. Ghetto youth and dancehall performers talk often about how they feel "under pressure" (think Super Cat's wicked mid eighties tune). The pressure one feels in a garrison community (like Hope Tavern, August Town, Hermitage, Trenchtown, Seaview Gardens Grant's Pen, Waterhouse, Southside....i.e. the majority of communities in Kingston) removes the time and spcae necessary for reflective thought. Hell, when I first came back I had to keep reminding myself that I didn't have to feel uncomfortable walking around my parent's rural community. Fundamentalist belief and faith is, to me, a reaction to the intense pressure many Kingstonians find themselves under. It provides a sense of comfort and safety...perhaps the way to eliminate homophobia in dancehall (and in Jamaica--and perhaps other southern developing nations) is to slam liberal economic policies--the forces of globalization that have led to the incredible poverty and desperation in so many areas around the world.
― cybele (cybele), Friday, 4 July 2003 15:38 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 15:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 15:52 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 4 July 2003 16:02 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 4 July 2003 21:55 (twenty years ago) link
― Nellie (nellskies), Sunday, 6 July 2003 07:01 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Sunday, 6 July 2003 07:17 (twenty years ago) link
― stevem (blueski), Sunday, 6 July 2003 10:18 (twenty years ago) link
Artist: Beenie Man Song: "Thats Right" Submitted By: Miss Kalunji http://www.dancehallarea.com
Intro:Zo, hey, zagga sing, hey, ziggy zagga zow!Clap your hands to this, then get ready fi do all of itZagga zagga go na na na na na, all rudebwoy wave oonu hands up like thisAlright, cool
Chorus:A from mi bun chi chi man and we go bun sodemiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And when mi bun hypocrite and we mi bun parasiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And when mi boom dung corruption wid a stick a dynamiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)Mi go a stage show a DJ and tune yah last nightAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right
Verse 1:Cause when we bun chi chi man nuttin nuh wrongAnd when we bun lesbian nuttin nuh wrongBun a borrow taste and a bite nuttin nuh wrongBun Susan from she a sleep wid SharonAnd from yuh know yuh straight let mi see your two handCause yuh nuh mix up inna nuh bangarangStraight and di narrow road a dat mi deh ponThat he gwaan one leap to destruction, sing this song
Chorus:A from mi bun chi chi man and mi go bun sodemiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And we go bun hypocrite and we go bun parasiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And when mi boom dung corruption wid a stick a dynamiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (Bun Wey!!!)Mi go a stage show a DJ and tune yah last nightAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right
Verse 2:So when mi put a fire pon a few and everybody bawl (That's Right)Bun a sodemite and everybody bawl (That's Right)Bun a parasite and everybody bawl (That's Right)Bun a bwoy wey meet anotha man dung a (Stoplight)Nuff bwoy sell out fi get a piece a di (SpotlightDa people dem a bawl and a shout (That's not right)Give mi one a dem gal rather flop all di (Hot type)Day and night now mi gal a long time
Chorus:Cau when mi bun chi chi man and mi go bun sodemiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And we go bun chi chi man and we go bun sodemiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And when mi boom dung corruption wid a stick a dynamiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)Mi go a stage show a DJ and tune yah last nightAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right
Verse 3:Mi bun a bwoy from wey a blow anotha man flutePerson ago nyam cherry and fruitCaught drop pants inna club a him a don yuteAnd seh that him a bad that was untrueA chi chi baboon and chi chi tranquilTry to send mi court fi get a one suitBut dem waan march and protest discueWords sound and power mi put dem pon muteBeenie Man a talk di truth
Chorus:A when we bun chi chi man and we go bun sodemiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And when we bun hypocrite and we go bun parasiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (It's alright)And when mi boom dung corruption wid a stick a dynamiteAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right (That's right)Mi go a stage show a DJ and tune yah last nightAnd everybody bawl out seh that's right
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Sunday, 6 July 2003 15:34 (twenty years ago) link
― phil jones (interstar), Monday, 7 July 2003 19:05 (twenty years ago) link
This grabs at something I have often thought about in larger contexts as well, about how there is a space (or seen to be a space) for people to express or work through questions of reflection and self-study but that there is so much in the way of outside pressure, social stigmatization, stereotyping in general and so forth that can either prevent that space from flourishing or not let that space allowed to be seen for what it is. If I may draw a comparison (and I hope Dan doesn't mind what I'm doing here but I'm sure he agrees), both Dan and I in our teen years in particular were nerdy, had wacked out senses of humor, didn't really approach girls, lost ourselves in music and books and so forth. Thanks to America being what it is, I would have been seen as 'just another teen geek' or the like, but Dan in many peoples' eyes would have been seen first and foremost as an African-American teenager, while that essential part of his personality would either be secondary or simply not addressed at all in favor of limiting stereotypes -- a bit of Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison style) in miniature. Anyway, pardon my interruption and continue...
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 7 July 2003 19:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 7 July 2003 20:13 (twenty years ago) link
i don't think we should romanticize conscious roots music, even if we do prefer its lyrical content to that of contemporary dancehall. first of all, conscious music has always struck me as a species of gospel music (even if it rejects Christ etc., the lyrical fixations and overall form owes much to Christian music as The Harder They Come takes some pains to illustrate) and it shares with that genre a certain denseness and monomania when it comes to social commentary. The moralism common to gospel and conscious reggae easily shades over into denunciations of homosexuality--the particular violence with which this ideas is expressed in contemporary dancehall seems part and parcel of the violent quality of that music overall.
As for conscious reggae, I get tired of all the "back to Africa" obsessions (which continue to this day, albeit not making so many appearances on the charts), which begins to ring as hollow as Jews ritualistically saying "next year in Jerusalem" every passover. Now of course Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and others wrote songs of unusual clarity and incisiveness...and Burning Spear took the religious concerns of Rasta to a sublime, almost abstract plane of loose signifiers... but the majority of conscious reggae is hardly that inspired and if it weren't for the general brilliance of pop production/performance in Jamaica I don't think it would come across as all that profound/meaningful.
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 7 July 2003 20:23 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 08:19 (twenty years ago) link
Amst surely "back to Africa" is *precisely* a ritualistic thing, a working through of Garveyism into rasta symbolism. 'Hollow' is maybe not the most helpful way to think about it.
I was listening to "Rod Of Correction" the other day. It's an allegorical (only in Jamaica!) PNP election song from the (?72) in which Michael Manley is set up as Joshua, beating Sodom and Gomorrah with his Rod of Correction. I always assume that in the 70s most of the corruption rhetoric was aimed at the West but it occurs to me that it's not far from identifying "Sodomites" as the corrupt forces in Jamica...
I remain fascinated by this and uncomfortable about it.
― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 09:29 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 09:44 (twenty years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 09:49 (twenty years ago) link
do these people proseletyse at all? i like this idea of kinda uber-flamboyant billy graham types laying on hands! flippancy aside what exactly do you mean mark?
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 09:54 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 09:55 (twenty years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 10:02 (twenty years ago) link
Other point I find interesting is homophobia's relation to masculinity. I've always thought that hip hop is homophobic partly because subdued people try to overcome their situation by emphasizing their personal strength, and with men this often means accentuated masculinity, which can lead to homophobia (and misogyny). However, this probably doesn't apply to Jamaica per se, since homophobia has different connotations there than just emphasizing your manhood. Perhaps Cybele would have more to say on this.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 10:02 (twenty years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 10:08 (twenty years ago) link