both. Popular impact The earliest origin of Iyaric is debated, though it is generally agreed that the dialect was deliberately created by Rastas as an argot. Despite the dialect's secretive beginnings, Iyaric words and meaning have migrated outside of Rasta communities into wider usage around the globe through reggae music and media. The term dreadlocks, for example, is used worldwide for the hairstyle that was popularized by the Rastafari movement. Rastafari metaphors like Zion and Babylon, as well as the Iyaric words "overstand" and "politricks" have entered hip hop culture through Caribbean-American and Caribbean-British rappers/musicians. In Europe, perhaps influenced by popular culture depictions of or actual encounters with Afro-Caribbean "rude boy" gangs, the term Babylon is sometimes used to refer to the police. See also Language and thought Linguistic determinism Linguistic relativity Phono-semantic matching References Further reading Johnson, Ken (1972). "The vocabulary of race". In: Rappin' and Stylin' Out: Communication in Urban Black America. Thomas Kochman, ed. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 140–151. Levine, Robert M. (1980). Race and Ethnic Relations in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Historical Dictionary and Bibliography. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press. Mills, Jane (1989). Womanwords: A Dictionary of Words about Women. New York: Free Press. External links Annotated bibliography of Rastafari speech Rastafari Sacred languages Dialects of English Lexis (linguistics) Languages of the African diaspora