Probably at least partly fromFrenchparler, with repetition to make it sound like babbling.
pala-wala
Palawala (countable anduncountable,pluralPalawala)
- (uncountable, Caribbean, derogatory) alocalcreole language, such asAntillean Creole orJamaican Creole
1999,Caribbean-Canadians Celebrate Carnival: Costumes and Inter-generational Relationships[1]:Prior to her school days, my mother spoke French Patois [Antillean Creole] better than she spoke English. Her knowledge of Patois declined once she was at school as the nuns forbade the children from speaking their "Pala Wala" language in the school yard because they did not understand what the children were saying.
2013 (quoting from 1990),Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Explorations in Multilingual Teaching and Learning[2]:Patois is making (St. Lucians) backwards; it is nothing butpalawala and it is merely a ploy to keep us back.
2020, Wilton George Lodge, “What’s in a name? The power of the English language in secondary school science education”, inCultural Studies of Science Education[3]:Such reservations were more prominent in the private high schools where teachers were vehemently opposed to the use of JC [Jamaican Creole] in education. Indeed, one teacher (Jill) expressed anger and outrage that researchers, such as myself, seem to have an obsession with this "gibberish 'palawala' nonsense".
- (countable, Caribbean) amember of acommunity speaking such alanguage
2011, Barbara P. Josiah,Migration, Mining, and the African Diaspora: Guyana in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries[4], Springer:So many West Indians from the smaller Caribbean islands arrived... that to this day at Wismar, there is a residential area called the “Pala-Wala” section. "Pala-Wala" is the name locals call migrants from certain West Indies islands.
