baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
petergunn said:
Um, didn't Ce'cile and Sean Paul both have to learn patois before entering into dancehall?
Black slang in the pink
- Thread starter DJL
- Start date
Um, didn't Ce'cile and Sean Paul both have to learn patois before entering into dancehall?
off topic... when people talk about sean paul being (half) portuguese, or tami chin (up & coming dancehall singer) being (half) chinese, the link with portugal or china is way way back in time. yes, sean paul's got portuguese ancestry, but i don't think he's portuguese in the sense that he speaks it or goes on holiday to lisbon to see his grandmother etc.
but i'm not sure that sean paul is 'a light-skinned black jamaican' either - when i met him, i noticed with some surprise that he doesn't have afro hair - it's straight black european hair which is braided and so from a distance it looks afro. i could be wrong, or he could just have straight afro hair, or maybe he's so mixed that his hair has come out like this still, i dunno.
with regards to him and cecile 'learning patois' i don't know - certainly he's an uptown boy and maybe his parents don't speak patois, but what do you define as 'learning patois'? is it differnt to pick it up from your friends rather than your parents? no idea
back to topic... interesting article - like people have said above, the basic premise was good while the fleshing-out details were often way off the mark (e.g. the glossary)
when i was at school (early 90s), all the black kids (whether of caribbean or african parentage) used a lot of yardie slang/accents, and a few white kids as well. and then there's loads of jamaican slang which has bascially become standard english (e.g. wicked) that isn't even necessarily thought of as patois any more. but nowadays, it seems to be so much more prevalent. all the turkish, east african, asian and south american kids where i work (FE college in north london) have accents/slang which are basically indistinguishable from the black kids, which simply wasn't the case when i was at school (also north london)
but i'm not sure that sean paul is 'a light-skinned black jamaican' either - when i met him, i noticed with some surprise that he doesn't have afro hair - it's straight black european hair which is braided and so from a distance it looks afro. i could be wrong, or he could just have straight afro hair, or maybe he's so mixed that his hair has come out like this still, i dunno.
with regards to him and cecile 'learning patois' i don't know - certainly he's an uptown boy and maybe his parents don't speak patois, but what do you define as 'learning patois'? is it differnt to pick it up from your friends rather than your parents? no idea
back to topic... interesting article - like people have said above, the basic premise was good while the fleshing-out details were often way off the mark (e.g. the glossary)
when i was at school (early 90s), all the black kids (whether of caribbean or african parentage) used a lot of yardie slang/accents, and a few white kids as well. and then there's loads of jamaican slang which has bascially become standard english (e.g. wicked) that isn't even necessarily thought of as patois any more. but nowadays, it seems to be so much more prevalent. all the turkish, east african, asian and south american kids where i work (FE college in north london) have accents/slang which are basically indistinguishable from the black kids, which simply wasn't the case when i was at school (also north london)
DJ Lioness
Well-known member
Im thinking of bleaching out my skin and asking Logan to teach me the basic principles of being a cockney, lets make that fashionable.
That was an interesting read ... I liked it (slightly off-tarket references notwithstanding). It's interesting though, the extent to which the author attributes the "London Yout" accent to West Indies decendants, because to me, as an Ameircan, the accent has always sounded much closer to a Cockney thing than a West Indies thing.
Down in Miami where I live, only a short plane ride from Jamaica, the London Yout accent certainly doesn't sound anything like what I hear Jamaican decendants in America speaking. In fact, when I do play grime tracks for my Jamaican friends to listen to, they almost always ask me "what language are they speaking?" It certainly doesn't sound like Patois to them! There's no one walking around the streets of Miami saying "blud" or "brae" or "menz", unless they happen to be tourists visiting from the UK trying to sound like they fit in with the local crunk gangstas
I think the typical Grime Artist (and I guess by extension the typcial London Yout nowdays) has a very unique linguistic style and flow that is completely original to London. That's what makes the music coming from there so interesting to us middle-class American folks who tune in to 1xtra and rinse.fm streams every week.
Down in Miami where I live, only a short plane ride from Jamaica, the London Yout accent certainly doesn't sound anything like what I hear Jamaican decendants in America speaking. In fact, when I do play grime tracks for my Jamaican friends to listen to, they almost always ask me "what language are they speaking?" It certainly doesn't sound like Patois to them! There's no one walking around the streets of Miami saying "blud" or "brae" or "menz", unless they happen to be tourists visiting from the UK trying to sound like they fit in with the local crunk gangstas
I think the typical Grime Artist (and I guess by extension the typcial London Yout nowdays) has a very unique linguistic style and flow that is completely original to London. That's what makes the music coming from there so interesting to us middle-class American folks who tune in to 1xtra and rinse.fm streams every week.
Logan Sama
BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
jack said:
Ha, where do you think all the cockney's live these days, colonel?
It's like a veritable Exodus down the A12 every Saturday afternoon towards Upton Park