what is the language they speak in jamaica?
Jamaican Creole English Language Jamaican English
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 Jamaica : Available only via cable or other pay @-@ for television ( satellite or DirecTV ) with new episodes shown on NBC and CityTV . 

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 Several varieties of English are also spoken in the Caribbean Islands that were colonial possessions of Britain , including Jamaica , and the Leeward and Windward Islands and Trinidad and Tobago , Barbados , the Cayman Islands , and Belize . Each of these areas are home both to a local variety of English and a local English based creole , combining English and African languages . The most prominent varieties are Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole . In Central America , English based creoles are spoken in on the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua and Panama . Locals are often fluent both in the local English variety and the local creole languages and code @-@ switching between them is frequent , indeed another way to conceptualise the relationship between Creole and Standard varieties is to see a spectrum of social registers with the Creole forms serving as " basilect " and the more RP @-@ like forms serving as the " acrolect " , the most formal register . 

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 In his History of Jamaica ( 1774 ) , Edward Long recognized four Jamaican rats : Browne 's " Water @-@ Rat " , termed the " Charles @-@ price rat " , which Long regarded as identical with the European water vole ( Arvicola ) ; the " black house @-@ rat " , said to have been brought from England ; and two he said were indigenous . The larger of those was a grayish " cane @-@ rat " and the smaller was a reddish " field @-@ rat " as large as the English mole ( the European mole , Talpa europaea ) . Ray considered that the last may simply have been the house mouse , since the size of an English mole would be too small for Oryzomys . 

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 Most Caribbean varieties are based on British English and consequently most are non @-@ rhotic , except for formal styles of Jamaican English which are often rhotic . Jamaican English differs from RP in its vowel inventory , which has a distinction between long and short vowels rather than tense and lax vowels as in Standard English . The diphthongs / ei / and / ou / are monophthongs [ eː ] and [ oː ] or even the reverse diphthongs [ ie ] and [ uo ] ( e.g. bay and boat pronounced [ bʲeː ] and [ bʷoːt ] ) . Often word final consonant clusters are simplified so that " child " is pronounced [ t ͡ ʃail ] and " wind " [ win ] . 

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 Decades , and in some cases centuries , of British rule and emigration have left their mark on the independent nations that arose from the British Empire . The empire established the use of English in regions around the world . Today it is the primary language of up to 400 million people and is spoken by about one and a half billion as a first , second or foreign language . 
