Talk:Jamaican Patois/Archive 1

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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)
 * They'd probably consider "RastafarianIST" an offensive term, too. Gringo300 (talk) 15:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

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)
 * Neither of those spellings is used in Jamaica. The spelling "patois" is universally accepted there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigel Durrant (talk • contribs) 14:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The correct spelling for the language is actually Patois. The use of these spellings such as 'patwa' and 'patwah' is mostly used as a reference for the pronunciation. Patois is pronounced as patwa or patwah. PrincessT (talk) 19:19, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

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)
 * 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)
 * im jamican and it just means- and this is what i do next. or and so this is what i did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.27.26.233 (talk) 21:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

"Seh", and 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)
 * 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)

Bloodclat
Does anyone have any references for profanities in Patois? I staged a page on bloodclat and others. Ta!!!Shortskirtlonglegs
 * I know a lot of profanities in patois and these are more exposed to the world through our Jamaican music with the likes of Alkaline, Vybz Kartel, etc. Many persons across the world sing our songs without a clue of what they're saying. However, Bloodclat, as you have in most cases is spelt bloodclaat for a more reasonable pronunciation of the word PrincessT (talk) 20:12, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

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?

"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)
 * Our patois language in Jamaica is said to be originated from the Kwi and Twa African languages PrincessT (talk) 20:13, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

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)

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. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  21:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

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  than JP .  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. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  06:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Having had some contact with Jamaican myself, I share 209.6.236.154's concerns about the obfuscating effect of the way the language is presented in the article. On the other hand, I agree with Æµ§œš¹ that it makes sense to have the IPA pronunciation as well as the correct English translation. But couldn't this problem be solved by simply having all 3 of these items present for each example: 1) the IPA pronunciation, 2) the correct English translation, and 3) the literal translation revealing the English origins of each word (where possible)? An example: /dʒan neva tiif di moni/ ('John did not steal the money', or literally: 'John never thieve the money'). I believe this would be a big improvement, because it would make it clearer to non-natives that the language is really mostly a morphed version of English - and it would allow natives to recognize their own language. --Yawe (talk) 00:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, that would require quite a bit of original research and doing a "literal" translation wouldn't be the best way to point to etymology anyway. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  02:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Research would be good, but is not required. It is ok to start with less. All we need is a few native Jamaican contributors to fill in the info. Any Jamaican who can write will be able to provide most of this info. I'm not asking for stringent etymology - that probably belongs in a dictionary - just hints to help the reader understand that this is really just broken English with some non-English words thrown in. I've seen something similar done in course books on Japanese and Thai. These have little or no etymological connection to English, but the literal translation of each individual word is a great help in understanding the translation of the sentence as a whole. --Yawe (talk) 18:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, much of the vocabulary is English-based, but to call it "just broken English with some non-English words thrown in" is simplistic and little misleading. Creole languages, which Patwa is, are more complex than that. - BilCat (talk) 18:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * (EC)I'm sorry but you're all wrong, Yawe:
 * Not only is research required, but we have researched information already and adding uncited information would be a step backward
 * Native speakers have no authority on the etymology of the lexical items in their language. They, just like you and I, can play to the whims of false friends and semantically shifted cognates.
 * Jamaican Patois is not "broken English with some non-English words thrown in." See Creole language as a start to understanding the nature of JP.
 * The example you gave above highlights the concern I have with doing this approach. You, despite your "contact with Jamaican" seem to think that tiif means thief when it actually means steal.  You portray "John never thief the money" as a "literal" translation but it is really an obfuscating jumble of gloss and etymology that won't help our readers.
 * That said, pointing out the word's etymology in other ways can be helpful, such as " (from English never) is a negative past participle." Again, I stress the importance of avoiding original research in this regard, especially because there are so many sources available to detail JP's etymologies.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  18:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I was not aware that the verifiability requirement was so strict. I thought I read somewhere - back when I joined Wikipedia - that it was ok to just put in whatever information you had, and allow it to mature and expand with the contributions of others (or be deleted if it's nonsense). But I get the feeling from those policy pages that there has been some kind of "war" between opposing views, and now it is strictly forbidden to add anything without a citation.
 * I said tiif means thieve, which is basically a synonym for steal, so it seems kind of strange to insist that tiif means steal but not thieve, and that there is therefore no connection between tiif and thieve. I guess we will continue to disagree about what is more obfuscating: giving the IPA pronunciation on its own, or together with a word-by-word mapping to English (or whatever other language the word is derived from). But I agree that inputs from native Jamaicans will not fulfill the verifiability requirement without citations, so let's wait for someone to dig up the original research on this mapping - it must be out there somewhere. --Yawe (talk) 01:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I should clarify that native speakers can address issues of translation without raising WP:OR flags, my point was more along the lines of etymology, which native speakers don't necessarily know. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  02:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am a native Jamaican and I have a problem reading most of these articles. Our style of speaking and pronunciation is different from what these articles are implying. I think the typed pronunciation for the words we use are incorrect because of our mistaken Jamaican accent. For example: if you should go through a Jamaican's text messages, you would realize that we actually use English words, it's just that we pronounce it slightly differently due to our accent. A text message example could be: "Mi hear seh dem thief Mass John cow dem". As you realize there are English words in the sentence although the sentence is spoken in patois. The sentence when translated to English it would read, "I heard that someone stole Mr. John's cows." What I'm simply trying to say is that this article isn't credible enough for being read by persons who don't actually have any sort of background on the language. PrincessT (talk) 20:05, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Patwa userbox
I've created a provisional userbox for Patwa at User:BilCat/UBX/Jam Pat User. 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)

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.

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.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by M4390116 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * 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.  — Æµ§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 back 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.  — Æµ§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
 * Concerning 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.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  02:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ok, so we made that decision a while ago...should someone take action? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.5.199 (talk) 01:37, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have just caught up this discussion today. Can someone please show me a trustable source that uses the word “Jamaican” to call this language? Thanks. Ten Islands (talk) 20:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is wild speculation, but based on the titles listed in the Bibliography of Harry (2006), it's possible these make use of "Jamaican"
 * Beckford-Wassink (1999) A sociophonetic analysis of Jamaican vowels
 * Devonish & Harry (2004) "Jamaican phonology" in Handbook of Varieties of English vol 1
 * Gooden (2003) The phonology and phonetics of Jamaican reduplication
 * Meade (1996) "On the phonology and orthography of Jamaican Creole" in Journal of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics
 * Meade (1996) Acquisition of Jamaican Phonology
 * — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Carolyn Cooper consistently calls it the Jamaican language. Some find the term "patwa" offensive even though that may be the common term. Others argue that the language should be called Jamaican to make it parallel to the names of other languages like "English" and "French". Dotibutu http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20181021/carolyn-cooper-dem-fi-stop-tek-patois-fi-joke  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.22.99.222 (talk) 22:30, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I also found this link] to a University of the West Indies website on The Jamaican Language Unit, which uses the term "Jamaican" and "Jamaican Language" in several places. There is not much content on the site, and it appears to be about 6 years old, but it is a university study group with some type of official Jamaican government backing. However, I still prefer "Jamaican Patois" as the title for the page, but since the consensus was to move it, I did so. - BillCJ (talk) 22:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Jamaicans in Brazil?
"Significant Jamaican-speaking communities exist among Jamaican expatriates in Miami, (...) Brazil, (...)"

I am Brazilian, and while there are immigrants from all over the world here, the only Jamaican I ever met here was the wife of an acquaintance whom he met and married when both were doing doctoral studies at a university in Germany. So, she came here by mere chance, not as a typical immigrant. Other than her, I never even heard of a Jamaican in Brazil.

There certainly are not a significant number of Jamaican expatriates in Brazil, let alone a "significant Jamaican-speaking community." Jamaica doesn't even have diplomatic representation in Brazil, which it would surely have in that case. So, I have removed the reference to Brazil in that phrase. If anyone can tell me where Jamaicans hide in Brazil, please be my guest to reinstate it... :-) --UrsoBR (talk) 01:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Non-standard language
Because Jamaican Patois is a non-standard language, there is no standard or official way of writing it.

What is a "non-standard language"? Does this mean to say that it is a non-standard variety of English? Or that it is a separate language, but it has no standard variety? Or that it is not "official"? 72.75.81.72 (talk) 16:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it's supposed to mean that it doesn't have a standard variety. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Based completely on my understanding of this topic, I believe that non-standard language means that a language is one that is not official in terms of the languages spoken by nations of the world. The official language of Jamaica is English, however, our national language is patois. Patois is classified a nonstandard language because of a number of reasons. One reason is that people sometimes view Jamaica as an uncivilized country and most of its children are bought up talking patois. To a complete outsider or someone hearing patois for the first time, the language would probably sound uncivilized but the pronunciation of patois words also depends on the speaker and how he/she pronounces each patois word. PrincessT (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Since that sentence is no longer in the article, it's a moot point,, and this is an old post anyway. Without seeing the source that this sentence came from, if there was one, it's hard to know what was actually meant by the person who wrote the sentence. The person could have easily meant "non-standardised" in the first phrase, which is definitely accurate. - BilCat (talk) 21:21, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Patois vs Patwa
If the article is named "Jamaican Patois" over "Jamaican Creole" because that's the more common and local term, should we consider Patrick (1999)'s claim (page 22) that patois is inappropriate since the word has become nativized (even changing the stress to the first syllable)? — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:56, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. I think "Patois" is still the accepted spelling in English, which also has "nativized" French words with changed pronounciations and/or stresses, but with the same spellings. If this were the Jamaican Language WP, then "Patwa" would be appropriate for the title. But of course, there isn't a Jamaican Language WP. Yet! Hmmm. - BilCat (talk) 18:29, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Diphthongs
I'm writing to discuss the diphthongs in "bake", "boat", and "town". After some research, I understand how Harry (2006) comes to analyze these as /ia/, /ua/, and /au/, respectively, but I wonder how much of a consensus there is regarding this analysis. First, it is not very intuitive. Is there a reason this analysis was chosen in favor of Cassidy and LePage (1980)? Cassidy and LePage analyze these as /ie/, /uo/, and /ou/, which seem to be much closer to their realizations. Furthermore, there are transcriptions in the article that use the Cassidy and LePage analyses (whether or not their sources realized this), making the article somewhat inconsistent (i.e., by setting up the phonology with one analysis, and then providing examples that use a vastly different one).

Examples include the following:

"joke" dʒuok

"ears" iez

"poppy show" papiˈʃuo

"pear seed" pieɹsiid

There are, however, other examples that use the Harry (2006) analyses:

"now" nau

"cow" kau

It makes sense to me to change the diphthongs (both in the intro section and in all examples listed thereafter) to the way they're represented by Cassidy and LePage (1980). Any thoughts? Galger (talk) 14:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I noticed that Harry's analysis of diphthongs was a bit more abstract than others'. I can check the sources in a bit, but it shouldn't be too hard to articulate Harry's analysis while at the same time incorporating a phonemic representation that is closer to the phonetic one.  Another alternative would be to switch to phonetic representation, something I don't feel confident enough doing yet since I haven't read up enough on JP phonetics to be sure I'd get it right.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  21:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Orthography standardization
How is the user-driven process of partial [orthography] standardization going? Can Wikipedia assist by releasing wp:jam from the incubator, without furthering Decreolization?

There are 3 spellings of Portugal on Wp/jam-prefixed pages. Are these regional variants, or points on the post-creole continuum (which would require lots of redirects - take a look at this)? Mkratz (talk) 00:49, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if this is the right place to bring up the incubator. I believe orthographic differences are more about convention than dialectal differences.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  03:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Can someone in the know rewrite the ortography section, including explanation of the Cassidy-LePage ortography system? Jalwikip (talk) 08:53, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Use IPA
Everything between // and [] should be IPA, but it isn't (especially use of double vowels to indicate length). Someone should revise. Jalwikip (talk) 09:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That is IPA. It means that the transcriber analyzes long vowels as double, rather than having phonemic length per se. If that's not the analysis, then yes, this would need to be changed. — kwami (talk) 09:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's the analysis, though at some point we may decide to change it to a more common analysis. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  12:19, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I really have a hard time believing that the analysis of a long vowel in case of loss of rhoticity can be anything else but just that: a long vowel. Any sources for the analysis you are referring to? Jalwikip (talk) 19:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as "the analysis" (as if it is one monolithic thing). There is only such thing as analysis quoted by this person or that person. 98.245.148.9 (talk) 20:16, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, there's imho no good reason to use /ɹ/ in phonemic transcription; since there's no contrast with /r/, I'd advise using /r/ (especially since almost all other characters used are "plain" ones, which reads much better). Jalwikip (talk) 19:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * See Harry (2006), cited in the article. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  20:02, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Irish Influence in Jamaica is Significant
The Irish influence in Jamaica is significant, but is left out of this article. There were tens of thousands of Irish slaves captured by the British and who worked on the plantations alongside African slaves. They married extensively with their fellow African slaves and through the one love, became one people, the Jamaican people. 98.245.148.9 (talk) 05:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Today there are many Jamaican towns with Irish names, and many Jamaicans have Irish surnames. These are not in most cases the names of former slave owners. These are the names of former Irish slaves who married African slaves. 98.245.148.9 (talk) 05:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Which one of the 4 sources is the claim about "ting" from? This need to be made explicit without making someone read all the the sources in there entirety. The use of "d" and "t" souunds for the 2 English "th" sounds is fairly consistent in Jamaican Patios - is this the caes in the Irish dialects also? If so, I'm not sure singling out "ting" is the best way tgo handle the usage, and if not, then it makes the connection dubious. Also, the use of "Irish slaves" is POV, and should be avoided. none of the more-reliable of the 4 sources appear to use the term "slave" explicitly - one states that the treatment amounted to slavery, while another uses it in "quotes".
 * While the treatment of some of the Irish by some English was horrendous, I don't believe it rises to the level of the slavery of Africans and those of African descent. Equating them needs to be avoided here, unless this is usage is followed in neutral reliable sources (ie. peer-reviewed scholarly sources, none of which the 4 sources given appear to be). - BilCat (talk) 06:14, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Another thing: The sources used to back up the information provided were not linguistic sources. I doubt you'll find one that makes the case that the "ting"  thing comes from Irish.  Other than this, the only actual linguistic claim (which is what would be relevant in an article about language, though not in the vocabulary section) was about intonation.  If you do find a linguistic source that argues Irish influence is responsible for Jamaican intonation, you're welcome to add it.  All I've seen about intonation is its influence from African languages. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Ting" is very commonly used in Ireland. It's considered "common speech" there (less educated) but everybody uses it (even the educated in Ireland use 'Ting" when they are getting down to earth and just 'talking real' with each other).

There were over a hundred thousand Irish slaves in Jamaica so there has to be some influence--

That is a huge population of Irish slaves in a small country like Jamaica.

It's not a competition, though, it doesn't take away from the African influence-- there were also hundreds of thousands of African slaves.

The Irish slaves and the African slaves came together too--

They intermarried extensively for generations and became one people.

The Irish are a part of the story, though. As are former West Africans. They are now one people, joined together. The Jamaican people.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 19:56, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The replacement of dental fricatives with dental plosives is fairly common. It occurs in Ireland, as you say, as well as New York, India, and in various Creole communities in the Americas.  In other words, I doubt Jamaican Creole speakers would possess dental fricatives in their speech if there had been no Irish immigrants to the island.
 * Either way, you'd best try using reliable sources to convince me otherwise rather than speculation and guesswork. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 20:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you really saying a population of more than 100,000 Irish slaves could have no influence on a country the size of Jamaica? How could that possibly be? 98.245.148.9 (talk) 20:12, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not what he's appears to be saying. You need reliable linguistic source to cite taht show through legitimate research that they have traced the use of dental plosives in Jamaica to the influenence of Irish indentured/bonded servants. It may well have reinforced a speech pattern already present, but that's not equal to total influence either. - BilCat (talk) 21:21, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I've never said "total influence" as you claim.

If you read what I wrote I have said over and over again (and with great care) that Irish and African influences mixed together in Jamaica.

I never once said that Irish influences were total.

It's odd that the influence of 100,000 Irish people would be ignored though.

I would say a lot of people are uncomfortable with racial mixing, and would rather 'cover it over' and push people into one race category or another, rather than admitting that anyone is race-mixed. Or culture-mixed.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 21:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC)


 * While that's quite true, that has absolutely nothing to do WP's policies on WP:Verifiabilty and related Reliable sources and No Original Reseach gudielines. That can't be overridden becuase some racist people haven't done any legitimate research. You still need reliable linguistic sources to assert that the Irish use of "ting" influenced, to whatever degree, the Jamaican Patois usage of dental plosives. - BilCat (talk) 21:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Or even the use of Ting in Ireland. :) - BilCat (talk) 21:53, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Look at it this way: I don't so much doubt that Irish English has influenced Jamaican as much as I would like to see evidence for how it has done so. If there's nothing in linguistic literature that backs up your claims, then we can't report it even if we know it to be true.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  22:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I appreciate that! I also agree that one needs good citations. Maybe a linguist with the available time will see this and do the needed studies. Or eventually we will find some good sources on it that aren't yet easy to find (I've been looking, no luck yet).

As everyone has said there is likely some influence but the academics need to catch up on this one and do the studies.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 06:56, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


 * there were never 100,000 Irish indentured servants in Jamaica. You seem to have added a 0 or so. In fact, the Scottish influence in Jamaica is even greater than the Irish as evidenced by the last names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.22.99.222 (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Use in music
There's a huge body of music sung in patois, which is constantly being added to. See e.g Reggae or Dancehall. I'm surprised there is no mention of this in the article, as presumably the majority of non-Jamaicans and those without Jamaican friends/family/acquaintances/colleagues will first encounter patois through hearing Jamaican music. Any objections to adding a brief "Music" section to the article, with links to related Wikipedia pages?

I absolutely agree the article is written from a non Jamaicans perspective and deeply coloniser leaning, with no real dept or accurate knowledge of the Jamaican culture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamaicanheritage (talk • contribs) 13:12, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Jamaican Patois
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Jamaican Patois's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "oed":<ul> <li>From Hiberno-English: </li> <li>From Patois: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 03:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)