Patios

Jamaican Creole Spoken in: Jamaica Total speakers: — Language family: Creole  Jamaican Creole Language codes ISO 639-1: none ISO 639-2: to be added ISO/FDIS 639-3: —  Jamaican Creole, also known to foreigners as Patois/(Patwa) or simply Jamaican, is an English/African-based language --not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English-- used primarily on the island of Jamaica. Jamaican is the descendant of a 17th century creolization process which, simply put, consisted of West and Central Africans acquiring and nativizing the vernacular and dialectal British Englishes (including significant exposure to Irish and Scottish varieties), with which their forced labour brought them in contact. Of course it must be understood that all languages are derived from usually more than one already existing language. For examples, Italian, Catalan, French, Spanish, and Portuguese are all derived from Latin and respective local languages. Modern day Jamaican creole is what is called a linguistic continuum in linguistics terms. That is, there is no cut-and-dry division between the standard language (the acrolect) and the most divergent, rural form (the basilect). The intermediate form is called the mesolect. Significant Jamaican-speaking communities exist among Jamaican expatriates in Miami, New York City, Toronto, Washington D.C., Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama (in the Caribbean coast), and London. Mesolectal forms are similar to Basilectal Belizean Creole, and a mutually intelligible variety is found in San Andres Islands, Colombia, brought to the island by descendants of Jamaican maroons in the 18th century. Jamaican creole exists mostly as a spoken language. Although standard British English is used for most writing in Jamaica, Jamaican has been gaining ground as a literary language for almost a hundred years. Claude McKay published his book of Jamaican poems Songs of Jamaica in 1912. Jamaican pronunciation and vocabulary are significantly different from most other English dialects, despite heavy usage of English words or derivatives. It is to the point where a native speaker of a non-Caribbean English dialect can only understand a heavily accented Jamaican speaker if they talk slowly and forego the use of the numerous idioms that are common in Jamaican. Jamaican Creole displays similarities to the pidgin and creole languages of West Africa due to their common descent from the blending of European substrate languages with African native tongues and, behind the barrier of very different accents, is actually mutually intelligible to many of them, such as Sierra Leone's Krio and Nigerian Pidgin English. This is due to the fact that many Jamaican words have their origin in various African languages and the language syntax is mostly derived from the various African languages. Pluralisation of nouns is done by either prepending a cardinal --de five bud=the five birds-- or by appending the plural indicator, "dem" --de bud dem=the birds. Similarly, verb tense is specified using prepended tense indicators --mi swim, mi a go swim, mi beh~ swim, mi a fi swim, etc. Interest in Jamaican culture outside of Jamaica was heightened by the proliferation of the Rastafari movement and reggae and ska music throughout the world beginning in the 1960s. Contents 1 The pronominal system 2 Vocabulary 3 Tense and aspect marking 4 Use of the copula (equivalent to "to be") 5 Negation 6 Phonology 7 Orthography 8 Examples 9 See also 10 External links The pronominal system The pronominal system of Standard English has a four-way distinction of person, singular/plural, gender and nominative/objective. Some varieties of Jamaican Creole do not have the gender or nominative/objective distinction, though most do; but usefully, it does distinguish between the second person singular and plural (you). I, me = mi you, you (thou, thee) = yu he, him = im or i~ (nasalized in the basilect variety) she, her = shi or i~ (nasalized, with no gender distinction in the basilect variety) we, us = wi you, you = unu they, them = dem To form the possessive adjectives and the possessive pronouns, simply add "fi-" to the pronouns above. Note, though, that most varieties of Jamaican Creole use merely the nominative/objective pronouns in place of these possessive variants, which are used for emphasis. my, mine = fi-mi your, yours (thy, thine) = fi-yu his, his = fi-im her, hers = fi-shi (also fi-'ar, and fi-im in basilect variety) our, ours = fi-wi your, yours = fi-unu their, theirs = fi-dem Often, fi- is used in front of nouns, to indicate possession (replacing 's). e.g. a fi-Anne daag dat, that is Anne's dog. Vocabulary Naturally, Jamaican Creole contains many words borrowed from English as well as from Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, and African languages. Examples of such words include "duppy" meaning 'ghost' from Twi adope, id; "pickney/pickiney" meaning 'child' (taken from an earlier form "piccaninny" and ultimately borrowed from Portuguese "pequeno"/Spanish "pequeño"); "obeah" (also from Twi) referring to a type of spell-casting, voodoo or witchcraft native to Africa (and also used as a popular scapegoat for common woes); and even "seh" meaning 'that' (in the sense of "he told me that" = "im tel mi seh") and taken from a west African dialect. Words from Hindi include "nuh", "ganja" (marijuana), and "janga" (crawdad). Of course there are lots of words referring to popular produce and food items - "ackee", "callaloo", "guinep", "bammy", "roti", "dal", "kamranga". See also batty boy. Tense and aspect marking The tense/aspect system of Jamaican Creole is fundamentally unlike that of English. There are no morphological marked past tense forms corresponding to English -ed -t. There are 2 preverbial particles: 'en' and 'a'. These are not verbs, they are simply invariant particles which cannot stand alone like the English ‘to be’. Their functions differs also from the English *'en' is called a ‘tense indicator’ *'a' is called the ‘aspect marker’ *'go' is used to indicate the future There are no morphological marked past tense forms corresponding to English -ed -t. Mi run I run (habitually); I ran Mi a run or Mi deh run I am running A run mi dida run or A run mi ben/(w)en a run I was running Mi did run or Mi beh~/(w)en run I have run; I had run Mi a go run I am going to run; I will run Use of the copula (equivalent to "to be") the Jamaican Creole particle 'a' is required e.g. Mi a write (I am writing) the Jamaican Creole equative verb is also 'a' e.g. Mi a di teecha (I am the teacher) Jamaican Creole has a separate locative verb 'deh' e.g. Wi deh a London (We are in London) with true adjectives in Jamaican Creole, no copula is needed; adjectives are a special class of verbs e.g. Mi tyad now (I am tired now) Negation negator ‘no’ used in present Wi no deh a London (We are not in London) Mi naah (no +a) run (I’m not running) 'neba’ or ‘neva’ used only in past Mi neba knuow dat (I didn’t know that) Nobaddy neva si him (Nobody saw him) insertion of a 'y' in a word Mi kya~ do dat (I can do that) Mi kyaa~ do dat (I cannot do that) Phonology Characteristic features include the absence of /ɒ/ (as in British English "got"), which fell together with /ɑː/, as in most US Englishes. Jamaican Creole developed two palatal plosives, namely /kʲ/ and /ɡʲ/, they derive from English palatal allophones of /k/ and /ɡ/. Due to African influences, /kʲ/ and /ɡʲ/ are now phonemes in Jamaican Creole. Furthermore, Jamaican Creole has no /θ/ (as in Standard English "thing") phoneme; /θ/ fell together with /t/. Other features of many Jamaican dialects include: /v/ being pronounced as /b/, Word-initial /h/ being dropped (Have becomes 'ave) in many dialects, but may also be added to words beginning with vowel sounds: "eye" becomes "hi." Intervocalic /t/ becoming /k/, little = likkle, bottle = bahkkle Occasional metathesis; film = flim, crispy = cripsy, ask = aks Deletion of word-initial /s/: 'pit=spit, 'pen'=spend, 'tumok/'tomok=stomach Orthography Because of its status as non-standard, there is no standard or official way of writing Jamaican Creole; (for example the word 'there' can be written 'de', 'deh' or dere'; and the word for 'three' is most commonly spelt 'tree', but it can be spelt 'tri' or 'trii' to distinguish it from the noun tree). Often, Standard English spellings are used even when words are pronounced differently. At other times though, a spelling has become widespread even though it is neither phonetic nor standard (eg. 'pickney' = 'child'; in this case the spelling 'pikni' would be more phonetic). Examples That man was swimming Da man de did a swim. Three men swam. Tree man did a swim. I do not like what you are saying about your girlfriend. Mi nuh like wah yu a seh bout yu gyal. I did not say anything about you. Mi neva seh nuttn bout yu. The children are making too much noise. Di pickney, dem a mek too much nize. (Note that double negatives in Jamaican Creole are used as intensifiers) Nyam- v. to eat ex: "Mi a go nyam" (I'm going to eat) Pickney- n. a child or children ex: "Ey pickney, wha you name?" / "Dem pickney deh 'aad-ears" Seh- that (as in: "'im tell mi seh you shi boops" (He told me that you're her sugar-daddy) See also Creole language Jamaican English Belizean Creole Bajan Saint Kitts Creole Virgin Islands Creole Nigerian Pidgin English Rastafarian vocabulary External links Wikibooks has more on the topic of Jamaican Creole Sound clips of Jamaican English A few short stories in Jamaican English, with translations Jamaican English phrase list Jamaican English glossary Another Jamaican English glossary Jamaican English/Patois Forum http://www.geocities.com/slybabykim/ Basic comparison of Jamaican grammar with standard English grammar Reggae Dictionary Search Term: "Jamaican_Creole" Categories: Jamaican culture | English pidgin and creole languages | Languages of the Caribbean

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