What we're building
The aim is simple: to make the most useful place to learn Jamaican Patois, for people with Jamaican roots, people who love someone Jamaican, travellers, music fans, and anyone curious. The app is where you practise every day. This website is the free reference: a dictionary, guides and practice.
How the content is written
- It starts from the app's lessons. Spellings, translations and many example sentences come from the lessons in Patois Pal, so the site and the app teach the same thing.
- We don't invent. If a word's origin is uncertain, we say so. If meanings vary between parishes, generations or communities, the entry explains the variation instead of picking one.
- Patois is treated as a language. It has consistent grammar, and the guides teach it that way. It isn't "broken English".
- Strong language is labelled. Cuss words are explained so learners understand them, with how strong they are and when they're out of place.
- Audio is labelled honestly. Today's pronunciation clips are computer-generated. Recordings by Jamaican speakers will be marked as such when they're added.
Spelling
Patois has no single everyday spelling. The site uses the spellings most people type (mi, yuh, di, pickney) and, where helpful, gives the academic Cassidy/JLU spelling developed by the Jamaican Language Unit at the University of the West Indies, Mona (pikni).
Further reading
- F. G. Cassidy and R. B. Le Page, Dictionary of Jamaican English, 2nd edition (University of the West Indies Press, 2002).
- F. G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica (1961).
- Beryl Loftman Bailey, Jamaican Creole Syntax (Cambridge University Press, 1966).
- Jamaican Language Unit, University of the West Indies, Mona: Writing Jamaican the Jamaican Way (2009).
- Bible Society of the West Indies, Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment (2012).
Corrections and contributions
Spotted something that doesn't match how you speak? Have a better example, or a word we're missing? Email hello@patoispal.com. Jamaican speakers who'd like to review entries or record pronunciations are especially welcome.
Contact
hello@patoispal.com · Privacy · Patois Pal's sister app is Bless Up, Bible study in Jamaican Patois.