Iyaric, also called Dread Talk, is a
pseudo-dialect of English consciously created by members of the
Rastafari movement
Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of ...
. African languages were lost among
Africans when they were taken into captivity as part of the
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, and adherents of Rastafari teachings believe that
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
is an imposed
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
. Their remedy for this situation has been the creation of a modified vocabulary and
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
, reflecting a desire to take language forward and to confront what they see as the confusion of a corrupt and decadent society they call "
Babylon". This is accomplished by avoiding sounds and words with negative connotations, such as "back", and changing them to positive ones. Iyaric sometimes also plays a liturgical role among Rastas, in addition to
Amharic and
Ge'ez.
Features
Phonology
Iyaric shares phonological features with
Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. A majority of the non-English wo ...
, with certain sounds, such as /a/, being stressed for the purpose of group identification distinct from Jamaican Creole.
In 2015, Doctor of linguistics Havenol M. Schrenk adapted a phoneme inventory from the President Emeritus of the International Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics,
Rocky Ricardo Meade
Lieutenant General Rocky Ricardo Meade is a Jamaican military leader who was the third Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), serving from December 2016 to January 2022.
Military service
Meade joined the Jamaica Defenc ...
, as follows:
Pronominal system
Iyaric's lexical departure from the pronominal system of Jamaican Creole is one of the dialect's defining features.
Linguistics researcher Benjamin Slade comments that Jamaican Creole and Standard English pronoun forms are all acceptable in Rasta Talk, but speakers almost always use the I-form of first-person pronouns, while I-form usage for second-person pronouns is less frequent.
He details his findings in the table below:
Vocabulary
Some Rastas avoid using certain words in the English language because they contain phonetic sounds that invoke negative connotations. Iyaric vocabulary developed in response to this, resulting in a dialect that challenged the negative colonial framework Rastas perceive in Jamaica's vernacular English.
Morphology
The base word forms for Iyaric are imported from
Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. A majority of the non-English wo ...
,
and the constituent phonemes for those words are analyzed for positive or negative connotation against an English
lexifier
A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a pidgin or creole language's vocabulary (lexicon). Often this language is also the dominant, or superstrate language, though this is not always the case, as can be seen in the ...
. Words whose phonetic connotations conflict with the word's overall semantics are called the "Babylon" (colonial English) form of the word, and Iyaric uses a system called "Iformation" (''"I" + transformation'')
to substitute those incongruously connoted phonetic matches with new phonemes that match the connotation of the overall word. This process of
phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words o ...
results in a lexicon containing only Zionic word forms, which exclude negative phonemes from positive words and positive phonemes from negatively connoted words.
The purpose for favoring Zionic word forms over Babylonic word forms is to
influence the speaker's cognition through the structure of the dialect, with the intent to challenge colonial biases that may be inherent in the structures of English.
For example, the word "hello" is not used because they see it as containing phonetic matches for the negatively connoted English words "hell" and "low". Instead, expressions such as 'wa gwaan', 'yes I' and 'cool nuh lyah' (or 'cool alyuh'. 'alyuh'-all of you) are used because they uplift people. If at a Rastafari church, they would use their formal church greetings. For instance, the Rastafari branch known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel would say, "Greetings in that Most Precious and Divine Name of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has revealed Himself through the wonderful personality of H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie the 1st of Ethiopia".
I words
*''I'' replaces "me", which is much more commonly used in
Jamaican English
Jamaican English, including Jamaican Standard English, is a variety of English native to Jamaica and is the official language of the country. A distinction exists between Jamaican English and Jamaican Patois (or Creole), though not entirely ...
than in the more conventional
forms
Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens.
Form also refers to:
*Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data
* ...
. ''Me'' is felt to turn the person into an
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
whereas ''I'' emphasises the
subjectivity of an individual.
* ''I and I'' (also spelled ''I&I'', ''InI'', ''I-n-I'' or ''Ihi yahnh Ihi'') is a complex term, referring to the oneness of
Jah (God) and every human. In the words of Rastafari scholar E. E. Cashmore: "''I and I'' is an expression to totalize the concept of oneness. 'I and I' as being the oneness of two persons. So God is within all of us and we're one people in fact. I and I means that God is within all men. The bond of Ras Tafari is the bond of God, of man." The term is often used in place of "you and I" or "we" among Rastafari, implying that both persons are united under the love of Jah. Also in the
Twi language
Twi () is a dialect of the Akan language spoken in southern and central Ghana by several million people, mainly of the Akan people, the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Twi has about 17-18 million speakers in total, includ ...
(in which patois uses a lot of Twi loan words) of Ghana, Me ne me is also said, which literally translates to "I and I".
* ''
I-tal'' or ''Di food fula itality'' is spiritually blessed food that has not touched modern chemicals and is served without preservatives, condiments or salts.
Alcohol,
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
,
milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...
, and flavoured beverages are generally viewed as not I-tal. Most Rastas follow the I-tal proscriptions generally, and many are
vegetarians
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetarianism ma ...
or
vegans
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. D ...
. Even meat-eating Rastas abstain from eating
pork
Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE.
Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...
, as
pig
The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus ...
s are scavengers of the dead, as are
crabs,
lobsters, and
shrimp (whose banning coincides with the restrictions of
Kashrut).
* ''I man'' is the inner person within each Rastafari believer.
* ''Irie'' refers to positive emotions or feelings, or anything that is good. Specifically it refers to high emotions and peaceful vibrations. This is a phonetical representation of "all right".
* ''Ites'' derived from English "heights", means "joy" and also the colour "red". It can also be short for "Israelites".
* ''Itesquake'' replaces "earthquake".
* ''Irator'' replaces "creator", and ''Iration'' replaces "creation".
* ''Idren'' or ''Bredren'' and ''Sistren'' refer to the oneness of Rastafari and are used to describe one's peers (male – "bredren", female – "sistren").
* ''Itinually'' replaces continually. It has the everlasting/everliving sense of I existing continuously.
* ''Inity'' replaces "unity", demonstrating a general pattern of replacing "you" and similar sounds with "I".
* ''Iya'' (higher): Rastafari vocabulary is full of references to the "iya man", "stepping higher and higher", etc. It is not a reference to the "high" normally associated with cannabis, but to stepping into higher realms of reality, as in higher awareness. Iya is also used to refer to a friend. As in "Yes Iya", or "Cool (no) Iya".
* ''Iyaric'' is the self-applied term for Rastafari language. It is formed by a combination of ''Iya'' (higher) and ''
Amharic,'' the language spoken by Haile Selassie I. Other terms for Iyaric include ''I-talk,'' ''Livalect,'' and ''Wordsound.''
* ''Iwa'' replaces "time" or more accurately, "hour": ''"Inna this ya iwa."''
Other words
*''
Dreadlocks
Dreadlocks, also known as locs or dreads, are rope-like strands of hair formed by locking or braiding hair.
Origins
Some of the earliest depictions of dreadlocks date back as far as 1600–1500 BCE in the Minoan Civilization, one of Europe ...
'' describes the locks commonly worn among Rastas, now universally called dreadlocks in English. The 'dread' component refers to the fear of the Lord, as well as the fear inspired when Rastas first began to grow locks in the 1940s in Jamaica. To Rastas, dreadlocks can be a deeply spiritual part of their identity. The
Nazirite
In the Hebrew Bible, a nazirite or a nazarite ( he, נָזִיר ''Nāzīr'') is one who voluntarily took a vow which is described in . "Nazarite" comes from the Hebrew word ''nazir'' meaning "consecrated" or "separated". Those who put themselves ...
vow in the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
and the story of
Samson
Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...
are commonly cited: "And she made a vow, saying, 'O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head'." . Rastas see this as the most natural way to grow one's hair, as well as a symbol of defiance of Rome and Babylon.
*''Dreads'' can refer to the dreadlocks, or to those who wear them. Because the latter sense of the word is a synonym for "Rasta", Iyaric is often called ''Dread Talk'', as evidenced in the body of research by Jamaican linguistics scholar
Velma Pollard
Velma Pollard (born 1937) is a Jamaican poet and fiction writer. Among her most noteworthy works are ''Shame Trees Don't Grow Here'' (1991) and ''Leaving Traces'' (2007). She is known for the melodious and expressive mannerisms in her work. She is ...
.
* Persons without dreads are sometimes called ''baldheads'' (somewhat derisive) or ''lack'' (more respectful); however as a common Rasta refrain points out, "It's not the dread upon your head, but the love in your heart that makes you Rasta..." meaning that many Rasta faithful themselves lack dreadlocks, while some non-Rastas, ''wolves inna sheeps clothes'', may wear dreads solely for fashion. Dreads that were induced artificially or with additives, rather than allowed to take their natural course, are known as ''bathroom locks''.
*''Babylon'' is an important Rastafari term, referring to governments and institutions that are seen as in rebellion against the will of Jah (God). The etymology of the word is rooted in the story of the
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...
, which is a Biblical origin story explaining the reasons why different cultures of the world speak different languages. In it, the Babylonians were an advanced civilisation who were constructing a tall tower, with the intentions of reaching the heavens. However, God intervened by confounding their speech, so that they could no longer communicate to each other, and subsequently could no longer construct the tower. This would have been an especially important story to the early Rastas, who all came from vastly different cultures and spoke different languages. This may also have given the early Rastas a sense of pride in their own dialect of the English language, which at the time was considered to be "
broken English"; it is now officially recognised as
Jamaican Patois
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. A majority of the non-English ...
. ''Babylon'' is further used by some to mean specifically the racist European tyrants who had oppressed black people for centuries through
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, and people of colour through the system of
indentured servitude. It has gone on to also refer to corrupt members of government, or "politricksters" who continue to oppress the poor, regardless of race. Historically, the term Babylon may have been used to refer to the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
, who were
pagans, and were known to scrutinise the early Christians and were also the ones who crucified
Yeshua
Yeshua or Y'shua (; with vowel pointing he, יֵשׁוּעַ, Yēšūaʿ, labels=no) was a common alternative form of the name Yehoshua ( he, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, Yəhōšūaʿ, Joshua, labels=no) in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jew ...
. This relation was reinforced after the
1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, then ruled by Rastafari's 'Living God', Haile Selassie I, and also partly because the
Roman Catholic church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, as an institution, was considered an opponent of Selassie I, and thus also of Rastafari. ''Babylon'' is also sometimes used by some Rastas with the more specific meaning of "police", insofar as they are seen as executive agents of Babylon's will. In a more general sense, it is used to refer to
the powers that be, any system that oppresses or discriminates against any peoples.
* ''Politricks'' is a Rasta term replacing English "politics", because so many politicians, etc. turn out, they say, to be more like tricksters. ''Politrickster'' n.
*''Everliving'' replaces "everlasting", particularly in the context of Life Everliving. The "last" in "everlasting", although actually implying survival (to "last" is to "survive" or "bide through"), is seen by the Rastas as implicative of an end (as in the term "at last"), and as the life the Rastas have will never end according to them, they being immortalists. Often used in the phrase "I and I is Everliving, Everfaithful, Eversure. Ras Tafari."
*''H.I.M.'' (His Imperial Majesty), pronounced ''him'', and referring to Haile Selassie I.
*''Downpression'' replaces "oppression", because oppression holds man down instead of keeping him up (pronounced ''op'' in
Jamaican patois
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. A majority of the non-English ...
.) Similarly "downgression" = "violence" (from ''aggression''). ''Downpressor'' n.
*''Livication'' replaces "dedication", to rid itself of a connotation of death. ''adj. Livicated. v. Livicate.''
*''Outvention'' replaces "invention", because mechanical devices are seen as outward; it is the inner experience of being Rastafari that is invention.
*''Overstanding'' (also "innerstanding") replaces "understanding", referring to enlightenment that raises one's consciousness.
*''Apprecilove'' replaces "appreciate" because of the similarity to hate.
* ''Amagideon''/''Gideon'' is a Rasta theological concept meaning the general state the entire world is in now, and has been getting progressively deeper in since 1930, and especially since 1974. This is a slight mutation of
Armageddon
According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon (, from grc, Ἁρμαγεδών ''Harmagedōn'', Late Latin: , from Hebrew: ''Har Məgīddō'') is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies ...
, a name appearing in Revelation.
*''
Zion
Zion ( he, צִיּוֹן ''Ṣīyyōn'', LXX , also variously transliterated ''Sion'', ''Tzion'', ''Tsion'', ''Tsiyyon'') is a placename in the Hebrew Bible used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole (see Nam ...
'' refers to either Ethiopia or the whole continent of Africa, after the Day of Judgment, as well as a state of mind one can enter through Rastafari.
*''Know'' replaces "believe". Rastafari would not say they "believe" Haile Selassie is Jah and that they, the Rastas, are the chosen people. They would say they "know" these things.
*''Wordsound'' is a name for Iyaric derived from the Rastafari principle of "Word, Sound and Power", which several scholars have compared to West African concepts regarding a power or essence being encapsulated within the pronounced sound of a name or word.
*''
Whore of Babylon
Babylon the Great, commonly known as the Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Her full title is stated in Revelation 17 (verse 5) as "Mystery, Babylon the Gr ...
'' is the
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.
Background
Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...
character sometimes considered to be
Queen Elizabeth II, who was the Head of State of
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
; or the
papacy
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
; or both.
Popular impact
The earliest origin of Iyaric is debated, though it is generally agreed that the dialect was deliberately created by Rastas as an
argot
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...
. Despite the dialect's secretive beginnings, Iyaric words and meaning have migrated outside of Rasta communities into wider usage around the globe through
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
music and media.
The term ''dreadlocks'', for example, is used worldwide for the hairstyle that was popularized by the Rastafari movement. Rastafari metaphors like ''Zion'' and ''Babylon,'' as well as the Iyaric words "overstand" and "politricks" have entered
hip hop culture
Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. Hip hop culture is characterized by four key elements: rapping, DJing and turntablis ...
through Caribbean-American and Caribbean-British rappers/musicians. In Europe, perhaps influenced by popular culture depictions of or actual encounters with Afro-Caribbean "
rude boy
Rude boy, rudeboy, rudie, rudi, and rudy are slang terms that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture, and that are still used today. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms ''rude boy'' and ''rude girl'', among other ...
" gangs, the term ''Babylon'' is sometimes used to refer to the police.
See also
*
Language and thought
The study of how language influences thought has a long history in a variety of fields. There are two bodies of thought forming around this debate. One body of thought stems from linguistics and is known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. There is ...
*
Linguistic determinism
Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people's native languages will ...
*
Linguistic relativity
*
Phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words o ...
References
Further reading
*Johnson, Ken (1972). "The vocabulary of race". In: ''Rappin' and Stylin' Out: Communication in Urban Black America''. Thomas Kochman, ed. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 140–151.
*Levine, Robert M. (1980). ''Race and Ethnic Relations in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Historical Dictionary and Bibliography''. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press.
*Mills, Jane (1989). ''Womanwords: A Dictionary of Words about Women''. New York: Free Press.
External links
Annotated bibliography of Rastafari speech
{{Rastafari
Rastafari
Sacred languages
Dialects of English
Lexis (linguistics)
Languages of the African diaspora