Jamaican Speech Forms in Ethiopia: The Emergence of a New Linguistic Scenario in Shashamane
This book is the first systematic cross-disciplinary survey on the use of Jamaican English in Ethiopia, describing the dynamics of language acquisition in a multi-lectal and multicultural context. It is the result of over eight years’ worth of research conducted in both Jamaica and Africa, and is a recognition of the trans-cultural influence of the “Repatriation Movement” and other diasporic movements. The method and materials adopted in this book point to a constant spread and diffusion of Jamaican culture in Ethiopia. This is reinforced by the universalistic appeal of Rastafarianism and Reggae music and their ability to transcend borders. The data gathered here focus on how an Anglophone-based Creole has developed new speech-forms and has been hybridized and cross-fertilized in contact situations and by new media sources.
The book focuses on the use of Jamaican English in four particular domains: namely, school, street, family, and the music studio. Its findings are drawn from an exceptional range of sources, such as field-work and video-recordings, interviews, web-mediated communication, artistic performance and relevant transcriptions. These sources highlight five topics of relevance—language acquisition and choice; English and Jamaican speech forms; hegemonic and minority groups, Rastafarian culture and Reggae music—which are explored in further detail throughout the book. These salient features, in turn, interface with the dynamics of influencing factors, reinforcing circumstances, significance and change.
The book represents a journey to the “extreme-outer circle” of English language use, following a circular route away from Africa and back again, with all the languages used (and lost) along the slavery route and inside the plantation complex developing into creolized speech forms and Creoles. Such language use is now making its way back to Africa, with all the incendiary creativity of Reggae and resonant with Rastafarian language.
Renato Tomei is Assistant Professor of English Language and Translation at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, Italy. He holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is currently conducting post-doctoral research on world varieties of English in diasporic contexts and the Repatriation Movement. He teaches legal English at postgraduate and doctoral level and runs seminars on Reggae and Afro-Caribbean linguistics. He is a militant member of the Rastafarian community, and is the founder and president of “Youths of the World” (an NGO). He is the co-author of West of Eden: Botanical Discourse, Contact Languages and Translation (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and Law, Language and Translation: From Concepts to Conflicts (Springer, 2014).
"A fascinating account of the way Jamaican English has influenced speech in a Rastafarian community a long way from the Caribbean, bringing together linguistics, anthropology, musicology and cultural history."
David Crystal, OBE FBA FLSW Patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), patron of the Association for Language Learning (ALL), president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, president of the UK National Literacy Association Times Higher Education, 02.06.2016
"The book presents a first comprehensive study of the multilingual situation of the contact scenario involving repatriated Rastafari in Shashemene, focusing on the use of JSF among youths. While the book opens up a range of follow-up questions for further research, such as the influence of the Amharic language on the repatriated settlers, the use and spread of new speech forms (Jamharic), and the linguistic practices of women, it constitutes an important study of this complex multilingual community. It makes an important contribution to the study of language contact and multilingualism in Ethiopia, a field in which many contributions ... do not even mention the multilingual community of Shashemene, despite the significant influences of Jamaican in Ethiopian language contact phenomena beyond the scope of Shashemene. Tomei argues convincingly that the role of Jamaican is a force to be reckoned with in Ethiopian language contact phenomena, especially with regard to youth language and music."
Andrea Hollington Global South Studies Center, University of Cologne Afrikanistik-Aegyptologie Online, Vol. 2016
"The research work of Renato Tomei beyond the PhD level, presents tremendous opportunities across the disciplines of linguistics, history and anthropology to research contemporary cross-linguistic influences which are aided and abetted by the impact of Jamaica on modern popular music."
Professor Hubert Devonish University of the West Indies; Director of the Jamaican Language Unit, Kingston-Jamaica
"Renato Tomei very successfully reveals how post-colonial discourse offers a most challenging communicative filter, which can be effectively used to fight inequalities in an appraisal of contact languages and to forward an ethical approach to global linguistic rights and education."
Professor Rajendra P. Chetty President of the English Academy of South Africa, Cape University of Technology
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