For advice on using this resource, please see How to Work on an Accent.
During the 1950s, Britain’s economy was suffering greatly and the nation was plagued with high labor shortages. The British government looked to its overseas colonies for help and encouraged migration in an effort to fill the many job vacancies. Jamaicans, alongside other Caribbean, African and South Asian groups, moved in their hundreds of thousands to the United Kingdom. Almost half of all the men who came from the Caribbean to the UK throughout the 1950s had previously worked in skilled positions or possessed excellent employment credentials. The majority of Jamaicans settled in Greater London and found work in the likes of London Transport, British Rail and the NHS.
“British Jamaicans” – Wikipedia
Listening Sample
Lloyd
Senator Damion Crawford
(b. 1980)
Key Sounds
For each sound, I’ve included audio examples and a dropdown section of practice phrases.
Unless otherwise indicated, practice phrases are excerpted from Lexical Sets for Actors by Eric Armstrong under a creative commons license.
Rhoticity
Unlike accents which pronounce R in all positions (rhotic), or accents which drop final R consistently (non-rhotic), Jamaican accents have highly variable “R-ishness” (rhoticity). Often, you can hear examples of a speaker both pronouncing R and dropping R in different instances of the same word.
This might sound confusing, but it means you’ve got some leeway in the choices you make! Find what feels fluent and sounds good to your ear, and your dialect coach can help as well.
Although variation is the rule, there are some general tendencies:
Words like lettER and START
These word groups tend to drop the R.
Practice Dropping the R in lettER and START Words
lettER
- Better, stronger, faster.
- Future conservative leader.
- A safer internet browser.
- Jagger perfected his performance.
- Liverpool’s manager loves their supporters.
- Richard ordered water.
- Jennifer is a junior in university.
- The surfer’s trainer is from overseas.
- Henderson is an energetic soccer player.
START
- A large star chart.
- Sparklers for the garden party.
- My sweetheart sucks at darts.
- A Star Wars themed Darth Vader Barbie.
- Carla’s kindergarten art partner.
- Skylarks darkened Denmark’s skies.
- A dry martini, and a margarita, please!
- Are you partial to a sharkskin jacket?
Words like NURSE and FORCE
These word groups tend to pronounce the R.
Practice Pronouncing the R in NURSE and FORCE Words
NURSE
- The worst burnt sirloin.
- Bernie gave Bertha some perfume.
- Sherlock searched for the murderer.
- The early bird catches the worm.
- The nurses in the maternity ward helped with the birth.
- The surcharges were for alternative medicine.
- Shirley rehearsed the commercial voice over.
FORCE
- The storeroom’s trap-door.
- The courtier’s sword.
- Exported pork.
- Sworn into the court.
- Deported from Borneo.
- A portrait of Roger Moore.
- Is snowboarding a sport?
- The notorious historian taught a course.
Words like NEAR and SQUARE
The SQUARE word group is pronounced the same as the NEAR word group. This sound starts very high and forward in the mouth before moving down and toward the R sound.
Practice the NEAR~SQUARE Sound
- Clare wasn’t clear that she cut her fair hair here; that’s what I fear.
- The dear pair of Kieron and Karen dare to cheer from their chairs on the pier.
- “I swear I can hear a bear that way,” Jabby said as he steered us away from the woods.
- The cashier had to prepare to appear on a news story because of a recent lottery-ticket-winner-turned-billionaire.
- Even though they were scared, Valentina was proud to share she was queer after waiting many years to come out.
Vowel Sounds
Minimize Vowel Reduction
Unstressed syllables keep more of their full vowel quality, resisting the tendency to “reduce” toward schwa. Listen to the following examples, and look for opportunities in your own speech to “resist reduction”!
Words like FACE and GOAT
These words tend to use a single steady vowel quality rather than a diphthong (a vowel sound that glides from one quality to another).
Practice the FACE and GOAT Sounds
FACE
- A great place to stay.
- The rail at the tail of the sailboat.
- Today’s the day!
- No pain, no gain.
- Don’t cut the main brachial vein!
- They’ve won the space race.
- He claims to feel ashamed
- Why did he call the investigator A Famous Shamus?
- Drain the rain gauge.
GOAT
- Don’t go home.
- Row, row, row your boat.
- Moan and groan on the phone.
- Toby’s bespoke smoking jacket.
- Onyesha loves coconut crab from Mozambique.
- Moe totaled the Toyota he got in Tokyo.
- If I sew the rosehips, will they grow?
- The Edo shogunate lay siege to Osaka.
- I was thrown by your iPhone’s ringtone.
Words like STRUT
This sound uses some lip rounding.
Practice the STRUT Sound
- Fun in the sun
- Some fun summer lovin’.
- Percussionists love the drums.
- Umbrella weather in London.
- The Hungarian ski-jumper tumbled.
- A peanut, coconut, and fudge donut.
- The skunk stunk up the stump.
- An unlovable fussbudget.
Words like MOUTH
This sound starts quite high and back in the mouth with considerable lip rounding.
Practice the MOUTH Sound
- The wallflower hid in the clock-tower.
- The cowboy planted the sow-bread cyclamen.
- Get out of town!
- Somehow they allowed those eyebrows.
- The rowdy crowd cheered for the driver Niki Lauda.
- The turnout for the workout was outrageous.
- Say howdy to the cowgirl on the loudspeaker.
Words like LOT and THOUGHT
These words use a very open vowel sound with no lip rounding.
Practice the LOT~THOUGHT Sound
LOT
- It’s not hot out
- Logical, methodical economics
- My watch says it’s 3 o’clock
- Foggy cognition
- The waddling toddler
- Adopt the frog
- Pop makes Robbie vomit.
THOUGHT
- Prawns in sauce
- An authentic, signed baseball
- The flawed chalk drawing
- Her daughter brought water
- Talk more audibly!
- In awe of Fall
- Installing an awning
- It’s all for naught
Words like TRAP and BATH
These words use a very open vowel sound. BATH words may receive a bit more length than TRAP words, but the vowel quality is essentially the same.
Practice the TRAP~BATH Sound
TRAP
- That man is a fat cat.
- Keep track of your Slack account.
- A TicTac snack attack.
- An Italian cabbage salad.
- The Flash-based app crashed my Mac.
- Alexander planned his capitol to be in Babylon.
BATH
- On behalf of the calf.
- A laughing giraffe.
- I said “footpath”, not “bloodbath”.
- A half-hour before Flagstaff.
- We laughed about the aircraft.
- Sample the raspberries at Belfast Castle.
- The dancer from France was entrancing.
Consonant Sounds
TH-Stopping
TH sounds are pronounced as D and T (e.g. “these things”–>”dese tings”)
Practice TH-Stopping
- Neither his father nor his mother bothered to clothe him, though they thought he was thoughtless about his appearance.
- Length, width, and breadth are the three fundamental measurements lathe operators can’t do without.
- As the throng gathered together, they withered at the sight of the thing’s clothing.
*These phrases are adapted from Speaking Clearly by Hahner, Sokoloff, and Salisch.
Etc.
Other consonant features could include dropping H sounds and reducing -ING endings to “-in'”, depending on context.