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Jamaican Patois (/ ˈ p æ t w ɑː /; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. Words or slang from Jamaican Patois can be heard in other Caribbean countries, the United ...
Jamaican English, including Jamaican Standard English, is the variety of English native to Jamaica and is the official language of the country. [1] A distinction exists between Jamaican English and Jamaican Patois (a creole language), though not entirely a sharp distinction so much as a gradual continuum between two extremes. [2]
The List of African words in Jamaican Patois notes down as many loan words in Jamaican Patois that can be traced back to specific African languages, the majority of which are Twi words. [1] [2] Most of these African words have arrived in Jamaica through the enslaved Africans that were transported there in the era of the Atlantic slave trade.
Getty Images Though the official language of Jamaica is English, when dealing with Kingston slang you'll find you need much more than a well-worn Webster's dictionary to follow most conversations.
In 2002, the Jamaican Language Unit was set up at the University of the West Indies at Mona to begin standardizing 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 ...
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It is noted especially in reference to Jamaican Patois from 1934. Jamaican Patois language consists of words from the native languages spoken by many Caribbean ethnic and cultural groups including Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Amerindian, English and several African languages. Additionally, some islands have Creole dialects influenced by French ...
Iyaric's lexical departure from the pronominal system of Jamaican Creole is one of the dialect's defining features. [5] [6] Linguistics researcher Benjamin Slade comments that Jamaican Creole and Standard English pronoun forms are all acceptable in Iyaric, but speakers almost always use the I-form of first-person pronouns, while I-form usage for second-person pronouns is less frequent. [5]