Playing with the sounds and structures of words has also been regarded by Rastas as an attempt to make the words more logical or more consistent with progressive thinking. However, Rasta language is not only a matter of changing words; Rasta speech contains very strong pronunciation, sentence and conversational features designed to create an unmistakable style of speaking.

From its very beginnings Rasta English has fuelled the argument about whether the English language itself is a deliberate tool of colonialism and "downpression", or whether it is the path to progress and an integral part of the Caribbean. The fact that English is the official language in most Caribbean territories means that babylon has accepted it as the path to progress. At the same time it is generally realised that most people from the English-speaking Caribbean are discriminated against because they have not "mastered" the language of the coloniser. Rastafarianism is seen by some as a means of escaping these two realities and establishing independence and self-confidence.

Standard English

Standard English in this context refers to English which is characteristically Caribbean without being Creole English. There are marked differences between the Standard English spoken in the Caribbean and the type spoken in Canada, Britain, or the United States.

Caribbean Standard English differs because it gets most of its character from its pitch, stress and general tone and not from consonants and vowels. Take the word calypso for example: other varieties of English give the word the pattern ca-lyp-so, with primary stress and high pitch on the second syllable.