Is ska a word

A documentary on the origins of the word “ska” cited an article from the Daily Gleaner on March 17, 1964 as the first printed mention of the word (You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIOxometSgg). However, I have found three instances that predate that source, thanks to Roy Panton. Why does this nitty-gritty matter? Well it is used by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as the source date, and so it is important to the nerdy etymological types, and I like to dabble in that area from time to time, but it is also important to those who study music history because, wait for it, wait for it . . . ska was originally spelled “SCA!”

In a recent conversation with Roy Panton, he said to me, “You know that ska was originally spelled S-C-A, don’t you?” Here I had researched and written about ska for years and I had no idea. I had to find out if this was true. So a search of the Jamaica Gleaner, through all kinds of irrelevant results as you can imagine, pulled up four instances of  “SCA,” three of which occur in 1963. One is above and here are the others, so you can see them too.

How did this happen that ska was originally spelled this way? Well I would venture a guess to say that it was an oral term before it was ever a written term, and that’s the way it sounds. I know from teaching my own kids a method of phonics so they could learn to read that the C and K both make the hard sound, and so it is understandable that SCA could be a spelling.

The first time the spelling “SKA” appears in print is indeed in the March 17, 1964 article cited in the documentary for OED officials, although, as the article notes, the genre had existed already for years. In fact, I, along with most historians, recognize the song “Easy Snappin’” by Theo Beckford as the first example of a ska song. When the word itself was first used, and how it came to represent the genre, is subject of much debate. I side with the argument that it is an onomatopoeia for the sound the guitar makes. There are other valid theories as well that are put forth in this documentary, and every Jamaican pioneer will give you their own take on it as well.

Below is the article from March 17, 1964 which I have typed under the image so it is readable, and I would also like to note that it is not until British colonial culture recognizes this genre of music that it is actually written about in the press. Interesting.

Daily Gleaner, Tuesday, March 17, 1964

The “Ska” hits London

–but they call it Blue Beat

By Maureen Cleave

I suppose we’d all reckoned without Jamaica. Since the failure of that embarrassing calypso which we were told could sweep the nation — the nation remained unswept—we have tended to rule out the West Indies altogether.

Nowadays we get our hits from conventional sources like singing nuns and the Salvation Army. But in the West Indies music has always been the things.

In Jamaica, for instance, they buy records before they buy food. At last they have come up with something called the Blue Beat. We are now buying it and dancing to it.

In the Charts

I wouldn’t say we were lapping it up in our millions but we are going for it in a big way. There’s a blue Beat record in the charts and the London and Brighton clubs are riddled with it.

What is it? You may well ask. It’s like slow, pounding, monotonous, primitive rock with a strong accent on the off-beat. It depends on the monotony for its excitement. It has a slight roll to it and give the impression of having been inexpertly recorded (This is because it Jamaica it often is inexpertly recorded).

You don’t so much hear the African influence as sense that it is there. The words are indistinct and mercifully disassociated from love and boys and girls. They are about animals or parents or children. King of Kings, the one in the hit parade, is about a lion. Others have titles like “Parents Do Not Provoke Your Children to Wrong” or “Honour Your Father and Mother.”

His score: 200

I got the story from a rather handsome young man of 26 with reddish hair called Chris Blackwell. He comes from Jamaica and arrived in this country two years ago. Since then he has released over 200 Jamaican records.

He used to pile them into his Mini Minor and flog them himself from record shop to record shop. Nobody ever played any of his stuff on the BBC or gave him much encouragement.

Now he has a white Jaguar and an office in Kilburn with piles of records climbing up the walls. Next week EMI takes over his distribution but Mr. Blackwell rather preferred it when the business was small. “It keeps it a fight.”

Towards the end of the fifties the Jamaicans got keen on rhythm and blues, particularly a record called No More Doggin’ sung by Roscoe Gordon. They got hold of this beat cheered it up a bit, added some cute lyrics and called it Ska—an onomatopoeic word for the sound the guitar made.

From 1959 onward this was all the rage. We called it Blue Beat here because of the label it was issued on. Cleverest of all the Jamaican producers was Prince buster, now 28. There was Carolina, Humpty Dumpty and his own song Madness in which he just sings the word Madness over and over again. These sold extremely well here and the whole thing started to catch on last summer.

Buster says . . .

            As well as Madness, the initiated few bought a lovely thing originally entitled ‘Yea Yea’ but re-named ‘Housewife’s Choice’ specially for the English Market.

            Prince Buster calls himself Prince Buster the voice of the People. He, Duke Reid, Sir Coxson, and King Edwards are the Jamaican names to conjure with. They are fond of titles.

            They treat the record like the eighteenth century lampoon. Prince Buster was once furious with a man called Derrek Morgan who left his employ to go to work for a Chinese competitor.

            Prince buster promptly sang a very insulting song called ‘Blackhead Chinaman.’ It went, “Are you a Chinaman, are you a black man.”

            Everybody asked themselves: “What’s Buster saying now?” and bought the record like mad.

            Quick as a flash came Derrick Morgan’s reply, a song called ‘Blazing Fire.’ It went: “you said it and you are a blazing fire.”

            Blazing Fire indeed. How very rude.

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Origin uncertain. Probably imitative of the crisp guitar sound;^[1] other suggestions include a contraction of “skavoovie” (a word invented and used by musician Cluett Johnson), or of “speed polka”.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /skɑː/, enPR: skä
• Homophone: scar (non-rhotic accents)
• Rhymes: -ɑː

Noun[edit]

ska (uncountable)

1. (music) A style of Jamaican dance music originating in the late 1950s, combining elements of Caribbean calypso and mento with American jazz and rhythm and blues; it was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae.

   • 1991, Douglas Coupland, “Eat Your Parents”, in Generation X, New York: St. Martin’s Press, →OCLC, page 85:

     Musical Hairsplitting: The act of classifying music and musicians into pathologically picayune categories: “The Vienna Franks are a good example of urban white acid folk revivalism crossed with ska.”

   • 2014, Heather Augustyn, “Preface”, in Ska: An Oral History, McFarland, →ISBN, page 3:

     Everyone who loves ska has their own story to tell—the first time they heard the Specials back in the ’70s, the first time they danced onstage at a Toasters show in the ’80s, the first time they saw the Skatalites perform in the ’90s.

Derived terms[edit]

• skacore
• skank
• ska punk

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• ska on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams[edit]

• AKs, ASK, Ask, KAs, KSA, SAK, aks, ask, kas

Albanian[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• s’ka

Etymology[edit]

From s- +‎ kam.

Verb[edit]

ska

1. (impersonal, third person) there isn’t

   ska parkim ― no parking

   ska përse (ska pse) ― you’re welcome (literally, “there isn’t why”)

Derived terms[edit]

• ska probljem

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English ska.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /skaː/
• Hyphenation: ska
• Rhymes: -aː

Noun[edit]

ska m (uncountable)

1. (music) ska

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Verb[edit]

ska (present tense skar, past tense skadde, past participle skadd)

1. form removed with the spelling reform of 2005; superseded by skade

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old Norse skaða.

Alternative forms[edit]

• skada (long form with a or split infinitive)
• skade (long form with e infinitive)

Verb[edit]

ska (present tense skar, past tense skadde, past participle skadd, present participle skadande, imperative ska)

1. (transitive) to damage, injure
2. (transitive) to harm, inconvenience

Etymology 2[edit]

Apocopic form of skal (“shall”).

Verb[edit]

ska

1. (dialectal) alternative form of skal, present tense of skulle

   • 1802, Storm, Edvard, “Sæterreiſe”, in Laurents Hallager, Norsk Ordsamling, Sebastian Popp, page 183:

     Qvar ein Dag ſka Gjæstbo væra, Māt ſka naa aat døkre Kne.

     Every day shall be a feast, food shall reach to your knees

   • c. 1700, Kolsrud, Sigurd, quoting Jacob Rasch, “Eldste nynorske bibeltekst: Jacob Rasch c. 1700”, in Syn og Segn, volume 56, published 1950, page 110:

     den ret-færigie ska værte salig a trunaa

     the just shall be saved by the faith

References[edit]

• “ska” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
• “ska” in The Ordnett Dictionary

Polish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Unadapted borrowing from English ska.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ska/
• Rhymes: -a
• Syllabification: ska

Noun[edit]

ska n (indeclinable)

1. ska

Further reading[edit]

• ska in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• ska in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Spanish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Unadapted borrowing from English ska.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈska/ [ˈska], /esˈka/ [esˈka]
• Rhymes: -a
• Syllabification: ska

Noun[edit]

ska m (plural skas)

1. ska

Usage notes[edit]

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Swedish[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowed from English ska.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈskɑː/

Noun[edit]

ska c

1. ska; a style of dance music

Etymology 2[edit]

Apocopic form of skall, present tense of skola, from skulu, from Proto-Germanic *skulaną.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /skɑː/
• (Gothenburg) IPA^(key): /ˈskaː/

Verb[edit]

ska

1. will, be going to; denotes a promise or strong intent to perform an action in the future

   Imorgon ska vi mata tigrar

   Tomorrow, we’re going to feed tigers

   Jag ska göra det imorgon. Jag lovar!

   I will do it tomorrow. I promise!

2. shall, have to; be required to

   Nej, du ska göra det idag!

   No, you shall do it today!

3. to be said to

   Han ska ha uppträtt hotfullt

   He is said to have behaved in a threatening manner

   Det ska tydligen regna imorgon

   Apparently, it’s going to rain tomorrow (it is said to be raining tomorrow, on the weather report or the like)

5. (with an adverbial involving movement or direction) to intend (for) to go (to/towards) (as if a gå (“walk”) or åka (“drive”) or följa (“follow”) or the like had been elided)

   Jag ska (g̶å̶/å̶k̶a̶) till affären

   I’m going to the store

   Jag ska (g̶å̶/å̶k̶a̶) hem

   I’m going home

   Jag ska (k̶l̶ä̶t̶t̶r̶a̶) upp på taket

   I’m going up on the roof

   Vi ska (g̶å̶) av vid bensinstationen

   We’re getting off at the gas station

   Ska du (f̶ö̶l̶j̶a̶) med?

   Wanna join us (to some place)?

   Han ska (å̶k̶a̶) ut!

   We must get him out of here!

   Jag tror han skulle (g̶å̶/å̶k̶a̶) hem

   I think he was going home

   Skulle du (f̶ö̶l̶j̶a̶) med eller?

   Were you going to join or what?

Usage notes[edit]

• The construction in (sense 4) is commonly used with måste (“must”) as well, and can also be used with for example borde (“should, ought to”).
• Infinitive and supine are rarely (if ever) used, and may be considered archaic. Skall is an older or more formal spelling for the present tense.
• kommer att may also be used to denote a future action, but while it denotes something inevitable (something absolutely certain), ska refers to something which is required, intended, or a promise. Compare also bör, which is a (very) strong recommendation, but not without possibility to wiggle out of; and måste (must) which is used when there is a compelling need to do something:

  Solen kommer att gå upp i morgon bitti

  The Sun will rise tomorrow morning.

  Jag kommer att städa i morgon.

  I will clean up tomorrow (There’s no doubt about that)

  Jag ska städa i morgon.

  I will (I promise to/I have been forced to promise to) clean up tomorrow.

  Jag måste städa i morgon.

  I have to clean up tomorrow [since there are guests coming]

  Jag bör städa i morgon.

  I should clean up tomorrow (It would be good if I did some cleaning up tomorrow)

Conjugation[edit]

References[edit]

• ska in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• ska in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• ska in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

Anagrams[edit]

• Ask, ask, sak

Zacatepec Chatino[edit]

Numeral[edit]

ska

1. one

Definitions For Ska

Noun

• Popular music originating in Jamaica in the 1960s, having elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, and calypso, a fast tempo, and a strong accent placed on the offbeat.

noun

• A type of fast popular music that combines elements of traditional Caribbean rhythms and jazz

Words With Friends
YES

Scrabble US
YES

Scrabble UK
YES

English International (SOWPODS)
YES

Scrabble Global
YES

Enable1 Dictionary
YES

Points in Different Games

Scrabble

7

Words with Friends

7

The word Ska is worth 7 points in Scrabble and 7 points in Words with Friends

Look up a Word

Search the dictionary for definitions, synonyms, antonyms, rhymes, and more!

This usage is pretty common in the English word shall, which corresponds to ska (infinitive skola). Indeed, these are etymologically related and essentially the same in meaning. The English etymology for shall (below) traces it to Skuld, one of the Norns from nordic myth.

I will also use this opportunity to plug this English translation of the Poetic Edda, which is the source of much of Norse myth, in conjunction with the much less interesting Prose Edda; the linked translation is super entertaining and maintains many of the kennings instead of translating them to dull equivalents.

See:

• skola in Project Runeberg’s copy of the 1922 Svensk etymologisk ordbok

• shall (and should) in the Online Etymology Dictionary

• skola on Wiktionary

Toggle the table of contents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SKA, Ska or ska may refer to:

• Acharnes Railway Center, station in Athens, Greece
• Armed Forces Office (Germany) (Streitkräfteamt)
• Shotokan Karate of America
• Ska, a style of music
• Ska (leafhopper), a leafhopper genus in the tribe Erythroneurini
• The Ska, a fictional ethnic group from the Lyonesse Trilogy by Jack Vance
• SKA Brewing, Durango, Colorado, US
• Ska-P, a Spanish ska punk band
• Square Kilometre Array, a radiotelescope project
• Sachkhoj Academy, a Sikh academy
• Sparse Kogge–Stone adder in computing
• Ska Keller (born 1981) German politician

Army sports clubs[edit]

• Armed Forces (sports society), SKA (Cyrillic: СКА, for «Sports Club of the Army»), in USSR countries

Kyrgyzstan

• Shoro-SKA Bishkek, now FC Alga Bishkek, a Kyrgyz football club

Russia

• FC SKA-Energiya Khabarovsk, a Russian football club
• FC SKA Rostov-on-Don, a Russian football club
• HC SKA Khabarovsk, a Russian ice hockey club
• SKA-Neftyanik, a Russian bandy club
• SKA Saint Petersburg, a Russian ice hockey club
• SKA-Sverdlovsk, a Russian bandy club

Tajikistan

• SKA-Hatlon Farhor, a Tajik football club

Ukraine

• SKA Lviv
• SKA Odesa

See also[edit]

• CSKA (disambiguation), USSR Central Sports Clubs of the Army