Why did it take so long? Well, among other things, it got me thinking about issues that couldn't be answered by the book itself. At the core of these is "where exactly did the Bajan (slang for Barbadian) dialect from?"
What am I talking about? Courtesy of TotallyBarbados.com, here is a taste of some of the things I read in the book
• Jug is somethin' ya eat and not somethin' ya does put ya food in
• Ya does move scruffy
• Cheese on bread aint got nuttin to do wid being hungry
• Ya uses words like fowl cock, rock stone and ram goat
• Somebody stupid is actually a poppit
• Every childhood game can be played for licks
• Soup is a bit of water and nuff dumplings, potatoes, yams, eddoes and any other ground provision ya could find
• Any hot beverage is considered tea - cocoa tea, coffee tea, tea tea, green tea
• You finish sentences wid de word dennn
• You take sick people to the horsepital
• IMF means I man father
• You have a bad fall and ya either lick up, break up, skin up or catspraddle
• The word horn does not conjure up images of Dizzy Gillespie or Jazz music
• Tek is more than the name of a toothbrush
• Dub is the force, dub is...the.....force!!!!
• Yuh does see the humour in a cartoon named "gumby and pokey"!!!
• De cardinal points is eass, wess norf and sowf!!
• Yuh constantly explaining dat de dolphin you does eat is a fish and not a mammal!
• Nuh fish doan taste like a fish from Baxter's road!! A bread and two is not 3 breads!!!
• De word "foop" is not a "sound word like "voop" and "woosh"!!!
• A cutter is not a sharp utensil
• All de seasons uh de year start wid "C" - Congaline, Crop Over, Cricket and Christmas!!!
• Choice bread doan mean a good selection!
• A snakebite does only mek you drunk or tipsy - depending pun how much bites yuh have!!!
• Liming in front Cave Shepherd is a integral part a growin' up
• Yuh pun a "brasion"!! Even ef yuh only goin' tuh de beech, yuz be dress dung in bare hard
gear
• Yuh doan got tuh be mystical tuh be gypsy
• Yuh just cyant guh town an' doan see someone yuh know
• When somebody call ya pun de phone and sa 'wait you still home?' or when da see ya pun de road and ask ya if ya still living
• Yuh don't have to be drinking to ask for a scotch
• Yuh don't have to be spiteful to be malicious
• Yuh call every stranger either boss man, partner or skipper
Of course, there's always the temptation to oversimplify the answer. My gut feeling was the fact that there are traces of Irish influences. The author of the book (Harold Hoyte) posits there are traces of Scottish influences. However, experts argue that the Bajan dialect the result of English and West African syntax with pronunciation sharing accents with those in Liverpool, England!
Maybe that's why I often don't get it...
3 comments:
Made me laugh. Not sure of origin of dialect as there is always speculation. But you represented well since u copied directly from HarHoyte's book. ☺
I must admit I didn't always understand what I read
Then you need to come to barbados (bim) again and immerse yourself amongst the bajans. You'd be surprised to know that although barbados is only 11 parishes and 166 square miles the dialect varies slightly from parish to parish.
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