| Jamaican Patois | |
|---|---|
| Patwa,Jamiekan / Jamiekan Kriyuol,[1]Jumiekan / Jumiekan Kryuol / Jumieka Taak / Jumieka taak / Jumiekan languij[2][3] | |
| Native to | Jamaica |
Native speakers | (3.2 million cited 2000–2001)[4] |
English creole
| |
| Dialects | |
| Latin (Cassidy/JLU orthography) | |
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | not regulated |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jam |
| Glottolog | jama1262 |
| ELP | NE |
| Linguasphere | 52-ABB-am |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Jamaican Patois (/ˈpætwɑː/; locally renderedJamaicanPatwah and calledJamaican Creole by linguists) is anEnglish-based creole language mixed heavily with predominantlyWest African languages and some influences fromArawak,Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily inJamaica and among theJamaican diaspora. Words or slang from Jamaican Patois can be heard in other Caribbean countries, the United Kingdom,New York City andMiami in the United States, andToronto, Canada.[5] Most of the non-English words in Patois derive from the West AfricanAkan language.[5] It is spoken by most Jamaicans as anative language.
Patois developed in the 17th century when enslaved people from West and Central Africa were exposed to, learned, and nativised thevernacular anddialectal languages spoken by the slaveholders and overseers:British English,Hiberno-English andScots. Jamaican Creole exists in gradations between more conservativecreole forms that are not significantly mutually intelligible with English,[6] and forms virtually identical toStandard English.[7]
Jamaicans refer to their language asPatois, a term also used as a lower-case noun as a multi-use description ofpidgins, creoles,dialects, andvernaculars worldwide. Creoles, including Jamaican Patois, are often stigmatised as low-prestige languages even when spoken as the mother tongue by most of the local population.[8] Jamaican pronunciation and vocabulary are significantly different from English despite heavy use of English words or derivatives.[9]
Significant Jamaican Patois-speaking communities exist among Jamaican expatriates and non Jamaican[7] inSouth Florida,New York City,Hartford,Washington, D.C.,Nicaragua,Costa Rica, theCayman Islands,[10] andPanama, as well asToronto,London,[11]Birmingham,Manchester, andNottingham. The Cayman Islands in particular have a very large Jamaican Patois-speaking community, with 16.4% of the population conversing in the language.[12] Amutually intelligible variety is found inSan Andrés y Providencia Islands, Colombia, brought to the island by descendants ofJamaican Maroons (escaped slaves) in the 18th century.Mesolectal forms are similar to very basilectalBelizean Kriol.
Jamaican Patois exists mainly as aspoken language and is also heavily used for musical purposes, especially inreggae anddancehall as well as other genres. Although standard British English is used for most writing in Jamaica, Jamaican Patois has gained ground as aliterary language for almost a hundred years.Claude McKay published his book of Jamaican poemsSongs of Jamaica in 1912. Patois and English are frequently used for stylistic contrast (codeswitching) in new forms of Internet writing.[13]
Accounts ofbasilectal Jamaican Patois (that is, its most divergent rural varieties) suggest around 21phonemicconsonants[14] with an additional phoneme (/h/) in the Western dialect.[15] There are between nine and sixteenvowels.[16] Some vowels are capable of nasalisation and others can be lengthened.[15]
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal2 | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | tʃ | dʒ | c | ɟ | k | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | (h)1 | ||||||
| Approximant /Lateral | ɹ | j | w | |||||||||
| l | ||||||||||||
Examples of palatalisation include:[21]
Voiced stops areimplosive whenever in the onset of prominent syllables (especially word-initially) so that/biit/ ('beat') is pronounced[ɓiːt] and/ɡuud/ ('good') as[ɠuːd].[14]
Before a syllabic/l/, the contrast betweenalveolar andvelar consonants has been historically neutralised with alveolar consonants becoming velar so that the word for 'bottle' is/bakl̩/ and the word for 'idle' is/aiɡl̩/.[22]
Jamaican Patois exhibits two types ofvowel harmony; peripheral vowel harmony, wherein only sequences of peripheral vowels (that is,/i/,/u/, and/a/) can occur within a syllable; and back harmony, wherein/i/ and/u/ cannot occur within a syllable together (that is,/uu/ and/ii/ are allowed but*/ui/ and*/iu/ are not).[23] These two phenomena account for three long vowels and fourdiphthongs:[24]
| Vowel | Example | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| /ii/ | /biini/ | 'tiny' |
| /aa/ | /baaba/ | 'barber' |
| /uu/ | /buut/ | 'booth' |
| /ia/ | /biak/ | 'bake' |
| /ai/ | /baik/ | 'bike' |
| /ua/ | /buat/ | 'boat' |
| /au/ | /taun/ | 'town' |
Jamaican Patois features acreole continuum (or alinguistic continuum):[25][26][27] the variety of the language closest to thelexifier language (theacrolect) cannot be distinguished systematically from intermediate varieties (collectively referred to as themesolect) or even from the most divergent rural varieties (collectively referred to as thebasilect).[28] This situation came about with contact between speakers of a number ofNiger–Congo languages and various dialects of English, the latter of which were all perceived as prestigious and whose use carried socio-economic benefits.[29] The span of a speaker's command of the continuum generally corresponds to social context.[30]
The tense/aspect system of Jamaican Patois is fundamentally unlike that of English. There are nomorphologically marked pastparticiples; instead, two different participle words exist:en anda. These are notverbs, but rather invariantparticles that cannot stand alone (like the Englishto be). Their function also differs from those of English.
According to Bailey (1966), the progressive category is marked by/a~da~de/. Alleyne (1980) claims that/a~da/ marks the progressive and that the habitual aspect is unmarked but by its accompaniment with words such as "always", "usually", etc. (i.e. is absent as a grammatical category). Mufwene (1984) and Gibson and Levy (1984) propose a past-only habitual category marked by/juusta/ as in/weɹwijuustaliviznotazkualaziiɹ/ ('where we used to live is not as cold as here').[31]
For the present tense, an uninflected verb combining with an iterative adverb marks habitual meaning as in/tamaaweznuawenkietitelpanim/ ('Tom always knows when Katy tells/has told about him').[32]
As in other Caribbean Creoles (that is,Guyanese Creole andSan Andrés-Providencia Creole;Sranan Tongo is excluded)/fi/ has a number of functions, including:[33]
Thepronominal system of Standard English has a four-way distinction ofperson,number,gender andcase. Some varieties of Jamaican Patois do not have the gender or case distinction, but all varieties distinguish between the second person singular and plural (you).[36]
This is akin to Spanish in that both have two distinct forms of the verb "to be" –ser andestar – in whichser is equative andestar is locative. Other languages, such as Portuguese and Italian, make a similar distinction(see also:Romance Copula).
Patois has long been written with various respellings compared to English so that, for example, the word "there" might be written⟨de⟩,⟨deh⟩, or⟨dere⟩, and the word "three" as⟨tree⟩,⟨tri⟩, or⟨trii⟩. Standard English spelling is often used and a nonstandard spelling sometimes becomes widespread even though it is neither phonetic nor standard (e.g.⟨pickney⟩ for/pikni/, 'child').
In 2002, the Jamaican Language Unit was set up at theUniversity of the West Indies at Mona to begin standardising the language, with the aim of supporting non-English-speaking Jamaicans according to their constitutional guarantees of equal rights, as services of the state are normally provided in English, which a significant portion of the population cannot speak fluently. The vast majority of such persons are speakers of Jamaican Patois. It was argued that failure to provide services of the state in a language in such general use or discriminatory treatment by officers of the state based on the inability of a citizen to use English violates the rights of citizens. The proposal was made that freedom from discrimination on the ground of language be inserted into the Charter of Rights.[40] They standardised the Jamaican alphabet as follows:[41]
| Letter | Patois | English |
|---|---|---|
| i | sik | sick |
| e | bel | bell |
| a | ban | band |
| o | kot | cut |
| u | kuk | cook |
| Letter | Patois | English |
|---|---|---|
| ii | tii | tea |
| aa | baal | ball |
| uu | shuut | shoot |
| Letter | Patois | English |
|---|---|---|
| ie | kiek | cake |
| uo | gruo | grow |
| ai | bait | bite |
| ou | kou | cow |
Nasal vowels are written with-hn, as inkyaahn (can't) andiihn (isn't it?)
| Letter | Patois | English |
|---|---|---|
| b | biek | bake |
| d | daag | dog |
| ch | choch | church |
| f | fuud | food |
| g | guot | goat |
| h | hen | hen |
| j | joj | judge |
| k | kait | kite |
| l | liin | lean |
| m | man | man |
| n | nais | nice |
| ng | sing | sing |
| p | piil | peel |
| r | ron | run |
| s | sik | sick |
| sh | shout | shout |
| t | tuu | two |
| v | vuot | vote |
| w | wail | wild |
| y | yong | young |
| z | zuu | zoo |
| zh | vorzhan | version |
h is written according to local pronunciation, so thathen (hen) anden (end) are distinguished in writing for speakers of western Jamaican, but not for those of central Jamaican.
Jamaican Patois contains manyloanwords, most of which are African in origin, primarily fromTwi (a dialect ofAkan).[42] Many loanwords come from English, but some are also borrowed fromSpanish,Portuguese,Hindi,Arawak andAfrican languages, as well as Scottish andIrish dialects.
Examples from African languages include/se/ meaningthat (in the sense of "he told me that..." =/imtelmise/), taken fromAshantiTwi, andduppy meaningghost, taken from the Twi worddupon ('cotton tree root'), because of the African belief of malicious spirits originating in the roots of trees (in Jamaica and Ghana, particularly the cotton tree known in both places as "Odom").[43] The pronoun/unu/, used for the plural form ofyou, is taken from theIgbo language.Red eboe describes a fair-skinned black person because of the reported account of fair skin among theIgbo in the mid-1700s.[44]De meaningto be (at a location) comes fromYoruba.[45] From the Ashanti-Akan, comes the termObeah which means witchcraft, from the Ashanti Twi wordƆbayi which also means "witchcraft".[42]
Words from Hindi includeganja (marijuana).[46]Pickney orpickiney meaning child, taken from an earlier form (piccaninny) was ultimately borrowed from the Portuguesepequenino (the diminutive ofpequeno, small) or Spanishpequeño ('small').[47] There are many words referring to popular produce, food items, andJamaican cuisine—ackee,callaloo,guinep,bammy,roti,dal,kamranga.
Jamaican Patois has its own rich variety ofswearwords. One of the strongest isbloodclaat (along with related formsraasclaat,bomboclaat,pussyclaat and others)—compare withbloody inAustralian English andBritish English, which is also considered a profanity.[48]
A rich body of literature has developed in Jamaican Patois. Notable among early authors and works areThomas MacDermot'sAll Jamaica Library andClaude McKay'sSongs of Jamaica (1909), and, more recently,dub poetsLinton Kwesi Johnson andMikey Smith. Subsequently, the life-work ofLouise Bennett or Miss Lou (1919–2006) is particularly notable for her use of the rich colourful patois, despite being shunned by traditional literary groups. "The Jamaican Poetry League excluded her from its meetings, and editors failed to include her in anthologies."[55] Nonetheless, she argued forcefully for the recognition of Jamaican as a full language, with the same pedigree as the dialect from whichStandard English had sprung:
Dah language weh yuh proud a,
Weh yuh honour an respec –
Po Mas Charlie, yuh no know se
Dat it spring from dialec!
— Bans a Killin
After the 1960s, the status of Jamaican Patois rose as a number of respected linguistic studies were published, byFrederic Cassidy (1961, 1967), Bailey (1966) and others.[56] Subsequently, it has gradually become mainstream to codemix or write complete pieces in Jamaican Patois; proponents includeKamau Brathwaite, who also analyses the position of Creole poetry in hisHistory of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry (1984). However, Standard English remains the more prestigious literary medium inJamaican literature. Canadian-Caribbean science-fiction novelistNalo Hopkinson often writes in Trinidadian and sometimes Jamaican Patois.Jean D'Costa penned a series of popular children's novels, includingSprat Morrison (1972; 1990),Escape to Last Man Peak (1976), andVoice in the Wind (1978), which draw liberally from Jamaican Patois for dialogue, while presenting narrative prose in Standard English.[57]Marlon James employs Patois in his novels includingA Brief History of Seven Killings (2014). In his science fiction novelKaya Abaniah and the Father of the Forest (2015), British-Trinidadian author Wayne Gerard Trotman presents dialogue inTrinidadian Creole, Jamaican Patois, and French while employing Standard English for narrative prose.
Jamaican Patois is also presented in some films and other media, such as for example the characterTia Dalma's speech fromPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and a few scenes inMeet Joe Black in whichBrad Pitt's character converses with a Jamaican woman (Lois Kelly Miller). In addition, early Jamaican films likeThe Harder They Come (1972),Rockers (1978), and many of the films produced byPalm Pictures in the mid-1990s (e.g.Dancehall Queen andThird World Cop) have most of their dialogue in Jamaican Patois; some of these films have even been subtitled in English. It was also used in the second season ofMarvel's Luke Cage but the accents were described as "awful" by Jamaican Americans.[58]
In December 2011, it was reported that the Bible was being translated into Jamaican Patois. TheGospel of Luke has already appeared asJiizas: di Buk We Luuk Rait bout Im. While the Rev. Courtney Stewart, managing the translation as General Secretary of the West Indies Bible Society, believes this will help elevate the status of Jamaican Patois, others think that such a move would undermine efforts at promoting the use of English.[citation needed] The Patois New Testament was launched in Britain (where the Jamaican diaspora is significant) in October 2012 as "Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment", and with print and audio versions in Jamaica in December 2012.[59][60][61]
|
|
The system of spelling used inDi Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment is the phonetic Cassidy Writing system adopted by the Jamaica Language Unit of the University of the West Indies, and while most Jamaicans use the informal "Miss Lou" writing system, the Cassidy Writing system is an effort at standardising Patois in its written form.[64]
Jamaican Patois has made some major strides in recent years, becoming one of the languages available on Google Translate and being used by the People's National Party (PNP), which released an audio version of its 2025 general election manifesto in the language.[65][66][67][68]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)For patois expert Hubert Devonish, a linguist who is coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit at the University of the West Indies, the Bible translation is a big step toward getting the state to eventually embrace the creole language created by slaves.
