Talk:Jamaican Patois

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Contents 1 Rastas 2 Patwa or Patwah? 3 Question 4 Answer 5 Citations 6 Bloodclat 7 Rastafarian English 8 "African Dialects" ? 9 Article name 10 New section 11 Comment 12 Patwa usebox 13 Should this article be renamed?

[edit] Rastas

'rastafarian' is an offensive term, it's called rasta 194.112.58.59 03:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Is it an offensive term? I know RastafarianISM is an offensive term, as the movement rejects being called an ISM, and I know the incorrect pronunciation RastaFAIRian is offensive. But I know Rastas who self-describe as Rastafarians. Are the band The Rastafarians considered offensive? --BobFromBrockley 12:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Patwa or Patwah?

Which of these is the more standard spelling? --BobFromBrockley 11:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Patwa is the more "popular" spelling, if that is what you mean by standard. --Jtfarquharson 20:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

What does "so mi go so den" mean? It's heard in many sean paul songs.

"And so I'm like...". Literally it's more like "And then I go like...", with a little bit of word-order mixup. 211.133.66.94 04:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Answer

I am Belizean , so and I can understand Jamaican pretty well. It literally means, "so i go like that then". It is a response to a prior action and it is weird even to me that sean paul does that.

Its just saying this is may next move

Or loosely translated, "I'm just like that" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lundgrenj (talk • contribs) 22:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

Could this article cite some sources, rather than just references at the end? Some of the claims made require substantiating: "and even "seh" meaning 'that' (in the sense of "he told me that" = "im tel mi seh") and taken from a west African dialect" - is this correct, for example? I would have thought it came from "He told me, and SAID...", since it is also used in the sense of "Who no seh..."?

Wanyonyi 11:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The matter of the origin of "seh" is still up for discussion. I am actually doing some work on it at the current moment, and it's not as straightforward as one would want it to be.

--Jtfarquharson 20:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bloodclat

Does anyone have any references for profanities in Patois? I staged a page on bloodclat and others. Ta!!!Shortskirtlonglegs

[edit] Rastafarian English

Is there an article for this "Rastafarian English" that is alluded to in both the creole and Jamaican standard English articles? If so, where is the link to it?

[edit] "African Dialects" ?

The article mentions Twi and Igbo, has there been any study of which other dialects contributed? Yoruba? Akan? "African Dialects" is about as descriptive (if not less so) than "European Languages," which at least are enumerated in the article. 207.172.94.91 14:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

I am raising the question of the article's name at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages, in preparation for proposing a page move to Jamaican Patois. - BillCJ 17:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

IMO should be Jamaican Patios (they don't call it Jamaican Creole or English there at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lundgrenj (talk • contribs) 22:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I really think you are hearing it wrong, or perhaps interpreting what is said differently than I would. The Jamaican Patois is similar in nature to southern, rural US black dialect in the choice of words. Words like "seh" are not conjugated: say, as in "they say" or "he say". "Fi" is the pronunciation of "for", as in "fi dem" (for them)/it is theirs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.131.42 (talk) 04:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New section

I would like to know who the author of this page is, it is realy very commendable.I do see some new literature being cited so it is great that the author is able to furnish the world with the most current data. Lieta, Kae Dee Jae ([email address removed]) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.27.66.218 (talk) 20:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

There are multiple authors to this page and I'm sure I can speak for all when I say thanks for the encouragement. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Is there any way to make this article less technical so that it is understandable to a wider audience other than linguists.

There seems to be every attempt to make Patois as distinct and unintelligible from English as possible that even I as a Jamaican had a hard time figuring out what they were referring to in some of the examples. Furthermore, a lot of the translations used non-literal translations to confuse the issue.

aaad iez == disobedient (took me forever to realize it was "hard ears" and that's after trying to translate the "english" in many ways - yes I know the pronounciation is not of the Standard variety but that's what is being said. The phonetic alphabet makes it impossible to tell. If you use that as the translation, the connotation of disobedience is readily apparent as opposed to the random phrase that appears to be African in origin - it's not).

Other misrepresentations include the copula "a". It is (almost) always the copula representing "is" and hence is common in almost everything. "(a) go" is not a unique phrase/tense/aspect - it is simply the translation of the English "is going" and is used identically as either the future or as an actual action.

Also, the the high frequency of preposition usage and redundancy in Patois is mentioned nowhere. Even in Standard I still say "reverse back" and "plug out" for unplug. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.6.236.154 (talk) 05:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. One of the reasons that this article represents much of Patois in IPA is that there isn't a standard way of spelling Patois and occasionally users would change the spelling of examples from one valid representation to another, equally valid representation. In addition, because Patois is so related to English, many words are spelled identically to the English words which may mislead readers into thinking that such words are pronounced more similar to the Standard English pronunciation than they are. For instance, woman is pronounced with a long 'o' but no /w/ sound; if we spell it with the 'w' then readers may pronounce it closer to English /ˈwʊmən/ than JP /ooman/. It's true that foregoing the orthography makes it more difficult to see the relationship but perhaps there's a way to show the relationship with some of the examples. But just because one can derive a Jamaican word from English, doesn't mean that the meanings are identical. If we translated the phrase as "those children are hard (of) ears" it would hinder meaning more ("hard ears? What does that mean? That's not standard English").

It seems as though the copula section isn't cited. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Patwa usebox

I've created a provisional userbox for Patwa at User:BillCJ/UBX/User Jam Pat. If this is popular, we can create the 1-5/N series. For now, I could use some help with the spelling and word choice, as I'm not a native speaker, and I have no experience in spelling it. Please only make changes to the text at this time, and use the talk page there is if have sugesstions for improvement. (To my knowledge, there is not a Patwa userbox already, but if there is, please let me know.) Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 19:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Should this article be renamed?

Some consider "Patois/Patwa" to be an offensive term, implying enslavement or lower-class. It impedes the dialect from being recognized as an official language. I'd like to see the name changed to Jamaican (language) or something of that sort. I'll try to do some research on this subject and post links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by M4390116 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

EDIT: Here's an excerpt taken from http://www.jamaicans.com/speakja/patois_language_15points.htm: 10. Languages, in general, are named after the countries that produced them natively: English(England); German (Germany); French(France); Spanish(Spain); Russian (Russia). Occasionally languages bear the name of ethnic or cultural affiliations. Thsis logically suggests that the language of Jamaica should more properly be called "Jamaican" -- certainly not "Patwa" or "Patois" which is a derisive term that was spawned by Europeans within a a colonial imperialistic paradigm to describe and to maintain relations of inequity between 'slave' and 'master'. These terms should no longer be used, certainly not in Independent Jamaica.

and this from http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/jamaica/language.html: This language has many names. Most people, in Jamaica and abroad, call it "patois," which was originally derived from the French, meaning a common tongue formed for communication between groups who previously didn't share a language --master and slave, for example. Though "patois" has taken on a meaning of its own in the Jamaican context, it has negative linguistic connotations of inferiority. A patois is often thought to be a degenerate version of a so-called "pure" language. To avoid this stigma, and to describe the language of Jamaica in a positive and accurate way, researchers say that it is not a patois at all, but a Creole. A Creole is, to put it simply, a language developed over time through the mixing of other languages, which eventually becomes more than, or independent from, the sum of its parts.

Even renaming it Jamaican Creole might be better - this is just something to consider, I know that Wikipedia is meant to be NPOV but this doesn't seem like it would be too controversial a change.

If I recall correctly, this article used to be Jamaican Creole and it was moved because "Jamaican Creole" was too scholarly and distant and users felt that this article should be called what Jamaicans themselves called the language rather than what linguists called it. Is this still how people feel? I can go either way. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems far more offensive or demeaning to call a language something the native speakers never call it. "Patois/Patwah" was the common term in Jamaica at least 20 years ago. No one ever called it "Creole", and I doubt many Jamaican do now. I'm fine with moving it to Jamaican (language) if no one else objects, as that seems to be the direction it is heading towards. We might need a good source to bac it up; something from a published Jamaican source, like the Gleaner, should suffice. - BillCJ (talk) 02:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I oppose Jamaican (language). Couldn't a Jamaican language refer to Jamaican English? If we can't get a consensus on what the native speakers call it (I was under the impression that it was currently patois) then "Jamaican Creole" would be the best one. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Good points. But I believe the distinction between Jamaican English and Jamaican (language) is clear. It's generally agreed that patois is the most commonly used term, but Jamaican (language) is broader and could be a nice compromise between the scholarly "Creole" and the more colloquial (somewhat of a pejorative in context?) "Patois". In could then be said in the intro: also known as Jamaican Patois, or something M4390116 (talk) 22:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)M4390116

Concernig the objections to Jamaican (language) and its possible confusion with Jamaican English, the following paragraphs are already in the Leads of this and the Jamaican English articles.

• From Jamaican Patois, first paragraph: Jamaican Patois, also known locally as Patois (Patwa), or simply Jamaican, and called Jamaican Creole by linguists, is an English/African-based language—not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English—used primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora.

• From Jamaican English, second paragraph: Although the distinction between the two is best described as a continuum rather than a solid line,[2] it is not to be confused with Jamaican Patois (what linguists call Jamaican Creole), nor with the vocabulary and language usage of the Rastafarian movement.[3] ("Patois" or Patwa is a French term referring to regional languages of France, which include some Creole languages, but in Jamaica it refers to Jamaican Creole, which Jamaicans have traditionally seen as "broken" or incorrect Standard English).

Those paragraphs have been there for some time, and I think their placement in the Lead will help alleviate any more potential confusion should we chose to move this page to Jamaican (language). - BillCJ (talk) 02:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, very good. Then "Jamaican (language)" does seem to be the best choice. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)