Jamaican Patois

Spoken in

• Creole English -based creole languages Atlantic languages Jamaican Creole English -

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Cpe ( English -based Creoles and other pidgin )

Jam

The Jamaican Creole, also known as Patois or Patwa ( h), is a common Jamaican Creole with English roots. It is also spoken in other Caribbean islands, in part areas of the Dominican Republic, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama and Guatemala, as well as immigrants in the U.S. and many other countries. Other names are " Bongo Talk", "South Western Caribbean ," " Creole English ", "Afro -Jam " or " Quashie Talk".

The Jamaican Creole forms the basis of many expressions of the widespread in the U.S. and Europe hip-hop slang, which is due to the fact that the rapping in hip hop music has its origins in the Jamaican deejaying.

Grammar

Typical of Patois are:

Moreover, the language heavily infiltrated with the vowel a shoot:

The use of such shoot vowels is quite free, they can be inserted or not. Some of them also form the joint between words in a sentence, as so-called discourse particles:

Phonology

Particularly characteristic of the patois, the palatal plosives ky (cy ) / k ‿ j / [ c] and gy / g ‿ j / [ ɟ ], although deriving from the English, probably owe their phonological status in patois but African influences.

Examples

Music

Most Jamaican reggae artists sing in Jamaican Creole. Many non- Jamaican, also German, reggae and dancehall musician and drum and bass MCs, therefore, use a system modeled on the English patois in their texts. Examples are Gentleman ( German ) or Snow ( Canadian).