Why do Welsh and Jamaican accents sound so simalar?

Answer 1

It isn't limited to Jamaica but the whole of the West Indies. My family are West Indian and if you listen you can hear a welsh under current to the accent, it is slight but still there. I can only assume a large proportion of the immigrants to the West Indies were Welsh and this has affected the overall West Indian accent.

Answer 2

I am from North Wales, speak fluent Welsh and English, yet, when I try to fake a South Wales accent I end up sounding either Jamaican or Indian! When I hear a Jamaican accent, it sounds like a really cool and laid back Mid-Wales coast accent. When I hear Indian or Pakistani accents, I hear North West Wales or the mid borders, where English is not the first language. I have lived in Wales all my life, and still I find these 3 areas of the World have a very similar accent when speaking English.

Answer 3

I have heard only a few Welsh and Jamaican English speakers but their accents don't sound similar at all. The intonation and rythm are different too.

According to what I've read, Jamaican English is essentially an American English since most of the slave ships that went there in the 17th and 18th centuries came from Boston. However, there appears to be an adstratum of West African influences and British English influences too. Many West African languages (often called "Niger-Congo" or "Sudanic" languages) are tonal languages which may explain the sing-song sound to it that Jamaican English has.

Welsh, on the other hand, is a Celtic language and a Welsh brogue to me sounds similar to an Irish brogue. Irish Gaelic also being a Celtic language.

Answer 4

The "beer can" guy showed one similarity, I say to all you arrogant fools who rubbished the question.

The Jamaican and other Caribbean accents (and dialects) are related to the 17th century peasant (and seafarers') English of the south-west of England, and doubtless there are other British influences such as Welsh. There is a group of white Barbadans who originate from a 17th century shipwreck and have never intermarried with blacks, nor had much relation with them, having their own self-sufficient village at least until the 1970s (they appeared on an Alan Whicker programme on BBC). They speak exactly like black Barbadans, which shows that the roots of black Caribbean English are in the common people's English of a few centuries ago. Most of the sailors they learned from would have been from Bristol and around.

The Indian subcontinent, however, does have a definite Welsh lilt to its English; this is because a large proportion of the first missionaries who went to India were Welsh.

Answer 5

I Always thought Jamaican accents sound similar to English accents since English people colonised Jamaica.

Answer 6

Jamaica was an English colony. Therefore a lot Jamaicans probably have ancestors from Wales, Scotland and Ireland also, since those people migrated to England way back in the days.

Answer 7

i dont think they are in general. bob marleys father was a welsh soldier in the british army, maybe there were a lot of welsh people in the british army in jamaica i dont know. but i really cant say they sound anything like each other to be honest.

Answer 8

that's not a question that's a statement that you want people to agree with, here's an other "Welsh and Jamaican accents are poles apart"

you penile fruitcake

Answer 9

I COMPLETELY agree with you!! Im watching the show Stella and almost every actor on there sound like they are from Jamaica. Im sure its a regional thing but this show is totally on target!!

Answer 10

I am Welsh and I sound NOTHING like a Jamaican. o.O I have no idea where you heard that.