Iyaric

Iyaric
Dread Talk, Rasta Talk
Native toJamaica
Native speakers
None
(liturgical language)
English creole
Language codes
ISO 639-3

Iyaric, also called Dread Talk or Rasta Talk, is a form of language constructed by members of the Rastafari movement through alteration of vocabulary. When Africans were taken into captivity as a part of the slave trade, English was imposed as a colonial language and their traditional African languages were lost. In defiance, the Rastafari movement created a modified English vocabulary and dialect, with the aim of liberating their language from its history as a tool of colonial oppression. 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,[1] in addition to Amharic and Ge'ez.[2]

  1. ^ Waldstein, Anna (2020-10-19). "Smoking as Communication in Rastafari: Reasonings with 'Professional' Smokers and 'Plant Teachers'". Ethnos. 85 (5): 905. doi:10.1080/00141844.2019.1627385. ISSN 0014-1844. S2CID 197732434.
  2. ^ Hollington, Andrea. “Movement of Jah People: Language Ideologies and Music in a Transnational Contact Scenario.” Critical Multilingualism Studies 4.2 (2016): p. 141. ISSN 2325-2871.