Dread Talk : The Language of Rastafari

by Velma Pollard

• ISBN13: 9789768125682
• ISBN10: 9768125683
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: University Press of the West Indies

Summary

In Dread Talk Velma Pollard describes the language of Rastafari, tracing its development as an expansion of Jamaican Creole while showing how it is distinct both from Creole and Standard English. She demonstrates that dread talk must be understood in terms of Jamaican social history, emphasizing its religious origins, its evolution as a language of social protest, and its spread around the world through the reggae music of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Jimmy Cliff. Dread Talk examines the effects of Rastafarian language on Creole in other parts of the Carribean, its influence in Jamaican poetry, and its effects on standard Jamaican English. This revised edition includes a new introduction that outlines the changes that have occurred since the book first appeared and a new chapter, "Dread Talk in the Diaspora, " that discusses Rastafarian as used in the urban centers of North America and Europe.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the First Edition	ix
Rex Nettleford
Preface	xi
Dread Talk -- The Speech of the Rastafari in Jamaica	3	(16)
The Social History of Dread Talk	19	(34)
Rastafarian Language in St Lucia and Barbados	53	(16)
Dread Talk -- The Speech of Rastafari in Modern Jamaican Poetry	69	(17)
The Lexicon of Dread Talk in Standard Jamaican English	86	(8)
Globalization and the Language of Rastafari	94	(17)
The Road of the Dread	109	(2)
Lorna Goodison
Bibliography	111