Jamaican

juh-MAY-kuhn/d͡ʒəˈmeɪkən/

4 meanings of Jamaican

1
adjective
Coming from or relating to Jamaica, its people, or its language.
The festival celebrated Jamaican food, music, and dance.
His grandmother kept many Jamaican traditions alive at home.
2
nouncountable
A person who comes from Jamaica or has Jamaican family roots.
As a proud Jamaican, she flew the flag at every match.
The team's fastest sprinter is a Jamaican from Kingston.
3
noununcountable
The creole language native to Jamaica.
At family gatherings everyone slips into Jamaican, the island's creole.
The novelist wrote the dialogue in Jamaican to capture how the villagers really spoke.
Note
An English-lexified creole: most of its vocabulary comes from English, while its grammar and sound system reflect West African languages. It sits at the far end of a continuum of speech whose other pole is the island's standard English. Because the bare noun Jamaican can name either one, careful writers say Jamaican Creole or Jamaican English when the difference matters.
4
noununcountable
The variety of English spoken in Jamaica, keeping standard English grammar under distinctive local pronunciation and vocabulary.
The announcer's Jamaican kept standard English grammar beneath a strong local accent.
In court, witnesses give testimony in Jamaican, the island's standard English, rather than broad creole.

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Formed from the place name Jamaica combined with the suffix -an.