Abstract
This contribution seeks to shed light on global dimensions of language contact and language change with regard to African youth languages. Looking at the influences of Jamaican speech forms on youth language practices in Africa, the focus will be on transatlantic linguistic ties that link Africa and its Diaspora. As the case studies will illustrate, Jamaican has a huge impact on youths in Africa and is used extensively in their communicative practices. Music, in this regard, plays an important role: Reggae and Dancehall music are highly popular in many (especially Anglophone) African countries, and these Jamaican music genres are quite influential with regard to language practices among African youth and beyond. Music thus represents an important site of language contact, and also serves as a means to learn the Jamaican language. In our paper we will draw on examples from different African countries to illustrate the wide spread of Jamaican influences. Our focus will be on case studies in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa and the Gambia. We will discuss selected song examples from a sociolinguistic perspective that takes these various language practices as a base and then looks at the contexts and motivations for the use of Jamaican speech forms.
Discography and Sitography
(all webpages accessed March 2019)
KENYA
Nazizi – Wedding Ring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuIIQKg8puA
ZIMBABWE
Winky D ft. Guspy Warrior – Buss di shot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xv6W1EFPP8
Spiderman – She love me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P05_pQ5-5c
Bounty Lisa – Basa Rangu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuA0Tp_5quo
UGANDA
Ratigan – Luzinda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpYPZE0_nNU
Pallaso ft. Queen Sheebah – go down low
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do16VB5cBAo
Bebe Cool – Wasibukawa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEntyvcJs04
Queen Sheebah – Nkwatako
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBl2bEerZlw
ETHIOPIA
Ras Jany & Don Deltafa – Feeling Irie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZByy0IOJpk
Ras Jany – Mi phone a ring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HJhsqY_uuc
Haile Roots – Melkam Yamarech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LmiVSGMtHA
Jonny Ragga – Kulfun Seching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE6uUFRu_VU
Ras Biruk – More Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLYeGwsI6_s
SOUTH AFRICA
Daddy Spencer – Youth Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz_49CddLcc
Jahseed – Time so hard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQABI4qhFmg
L-titude interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h48LVn18AG8
THE GAMBIA
BenJahmin – Soon or later
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA9nJq9h3zc
Dr. Shaka – Life’s so serious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uirv7Hcv3po
Junior King – Tell me now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-_9samlXQw
Lady Quincy – Follow you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOYno9VnAo
Ras Pyton – Jah will see us through
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idYLItHVrV4
Rebellion D Recaller – We must rebel -
References
Bonacci, Giulia. 2015. Exodus! Heirs and pioneers, Rastafari return to Ethiopia. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press.Search in Google Scholar
Chawane, Midas. 2012. The Rastafari movement in South Africa: Before and after apartheid. New Contree 65. 163–188.Search in Google Scholar
Devonish, Hubert & Harry G. Otelemate (eds.). 2004. Jamaican Creole and Jamaican English: Phonology. In Bernd Kortmann & Edgar W. Schneider (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English: A multimedia reference tool. Volume 1: Phonology. Volume 2: Morphology and syntax, 450–480. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110197181-032Search in Google Scholar
García, Ofelia & Li Wei. 2014. Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137385765Search in Google Scholar
Githiora, Chege. 2018. Sheng: Rise of a Kenyan Swahili vernacular. London: James Currey.10.2307/j.ctv1ntfvmSearch in Google Scholar
Hollington, Andrea. 2015. Traveling conceptualizations. A cognitive and anthropological linguistic study of Jamaican. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/clu.14Search in Google Scholar
Hollington, Andrea. 2016. Reflections on Ethiopian youths and Yarada K’wank’wa: Language practices and ideologies. Sociolinguistic Studies 10(1–2). 135–152.10.1558/sols.v10i1-2.27928Search in Google Scholar
Hollington, Andrea. 2018. Transatlantic translanguaging in Zimdancehall: Reassessing linguistic creativity in youth language practices. The Mouth 3. 105–123.Search in Google Scholar
Hollington, Andrea. 2020. Zimdancehall: Jamaican music in a transatlantic and African perspective. In Sonjah Stanley Niaah (ed.), Dancehall. A reader on Jamaican music and culture. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press.Search in Google Scholar
hooks, bell. 1990. Yearning. Boston: South End Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jansen van Rensburg, Claudia Elizabeth. 2013. Institutional manifestations of music censorship and surveillance in apartheid South Africa with specific reference to the SABC from 1974 to 1996. Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch MA Dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Järvenpää, Tuomas. 2015. The voices of Azania from Cape Town: Rastafarian Reggae music’s claim to Autochthonous African belonging. Etnomusikologian Vuosikirja 27. 112–141.10.23985/evk.66778Search in Google Scholar
Kanana Erastus, Fridah & Hilda Kebeya. 2018. Functions of urban and youth languages in the new media: The case of Sheng in Kenya. In Ellen Hurst-Harosh & Fridah Kanana Erastus (eds.), African youth languages: New media, performing arts and sociolinguistic developments, 15–52. London: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-3-319-64562-9_2Search in Google Scholar
Martin, Denis-Constant. 1992. Reggae and the Jamaican society. Jamaica Journal 24(2). 40–43.Search in Google Scholar
McNeill, Fraser G. 2012. Rural Reggae: The politics of performance in the former ‘Homeland’ of Venda. South African Historical Journal 64. 81–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/02582473.2012.648769.Search in Google Scholar
Nassenstein, Nico & Andrea Hollington (eds.). 2015. Youth language practices in Africa and beyond, 23–49. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9781614518525-004Search in Google Scholar
Oloruntoba-Oju, Taiwo. 2018. Contestant hybridities: African (urban) youth languages in Nigerian music and social media. In Ellen Hurst-Harosh & Fridah Kanana Erastus (eds.), African youth languages: New media, performing arts and sociolinguistic developments, 181–203. London: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-3-319-64562-9_9Search in Google Scholar
Pollard, Velma. 1994. Dread talk: The language of Rastafari. Kingston: Canoe Press.Search in Google Scholar
Pollard, Velma. 2000. Dread talk: The language of Rastafari. Kingston: Canoe Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rüsch, Maren & Nico Nassenstein. 2016. Ethno-regional ideologies and linguistic manipulation in the creation of the youth language Leb Pa Bulu. Critical Multilingualism Studies 4(2). 174–208.Search in Google Scholar
Schrenk, Havenol M. 2015. The positive-negative phenomenon and phono-semantic matching in Rasta talk. In Nico Nassenstein & Andrea Hollington (eds.), Youth language practices in Africa and beyond, 271–291. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9781614518525-015Search in Google Scholar
Senft, Gunter & Ellen B Basso (eds.). 2009. Ritual communication. Oxford/New York: Berg.Search in Google Scholar
Tomei, Renato. 2015. Jamaican speech forms in Ethiopia: The emergence of a new linguistic scenario in Shashamane. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Vierke, Clarissa. 2015. Some remarks on poetic aspects of Sheng. In Nico Nassenstein & Andrea Hollington (eds.), Youth language practices in Africa and beyond, 227–256. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9781614518525-013Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
