Jamaican Creole has a very rich history, and there are many events that eventually make out the current-day island we call Jamaica. The original denizens of this island were called the Arawaks. They lived on it for around seven centuries before the arrival of Europeans. The eventual settlement of the Spanish happened due to the exploration of Columbus in 1494. Both the population and its decline are hard to grasp and vary widely, with some researchers claiming that it could be as many as 600,000 to as little as 20,000. The Spanish induced forced labor upon these people, making them mine, farm, and build. This treatment of the Arawak people led them to dwindle, and an epidemic around 1520 also led to many deaths. As stated before, it is hard to measure at what rate or proportion the population died, but in 1615 the abbot of Jamaica reported there only being 74 Arawaks left.

According to Farquharson’s article: “Jamaica was a Spanish possession from 1494 right up to 1655.” He later goes on to say that during “1655 an army of 4,000 colonists from Barbados and an additional 1,200 from the Leeward Islands was recruited to capture the Spanish side of the island of Hispaniola.” They failed and decided to try capturing Jamaica. The Spaniards who survived the failed capture, fled to Cuba while African slaves fled into the mountains and formed “Maroons,” (Farquharson). The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures states that “during the second half of the seventeenth century, the European population was made up of soldiers, merchants, and colonists from the eastern Caribbean, Ireland, England, and Scotland,” (Farquharson); hence, prior to being imported to Jamaica during Britain’s occupation of the island, the African slaves were somewhat exposed to English-based languages.

Scholars hypothesize that Jamaican Creole could have started to emerge and take shape during the period of 1660 to 1700, however there is no definite answer or confirmation as to when it could have actually formed. Author Barbara Lalla states that there was: “little evidence of speech of the time, and the easiest and most intriguing period of all, the seventeenth century, granted only enigmatic scraps of discourse and little description.” Lalla also said: “we have been able to suggest a picture of what Jamaica’s speech community must have been like in the formative years of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” So, while there is little evidence that shows when Jamaican Creole formed, there are reports that say black and white creoles, along with enslaved Africans had already been speaking Jamaican Creole during the eighteenth century, (Farquharson). Europeans noted that it was much easier for creoles and newly imported Africans to communicate using Jamaican Creole as opposed to learning English.

 

Works Cited

Farquharson, Joseph T. “The African Lexis in Jamaican: Its Linguistic and Sociohistorical Significance.”Academia.edu, www.academia.edu/2307005/The_African_Lexis_in_Jamaican_Its_Linguistic_and_Sociohistorical_Significance.

Farquharson, Joseph T. 2013. Jamaican.  In: Michaelis, Susanne Maria & Maurer, Philippe & Haspelmath, Martin & Huber, Magnus (eds.)  The survey of pidgin and creole languages. Volume 1: English-based and Dutch-based Languages.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lalla, Barbara, and Jean D’Costa. Language in Exile Three Hundred Years of Jamaican Creole. Univ of Alabama Pr, 2009.

 

Some Helpful Links for finding more information: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBKoDaR12UQ

http://apics-online.info/contributions/8