In addition to English, the Patois dialect is widely spoken on the island. The linguistic history of Jamaica has been very interesting to study and can be partially traced to a historical accident.
In 1655, an English military expedition set out to capture the island of Hispaniola (present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) from the Spanish. Finding the colony too well defended, they instead set their sights on the less inhabited island of Jamaica. The English landed, the Spanish forces fled, and the African slaves who were working in the sugar plantations escaped into the mountain forests. This group of escaped slaves became known as the "Maroons," and their experience shaped the foundation of Jamaican traditional culture.
The English took control of the island and later brought more slaves from Africa before abolishing the slave trade in 1807. The Creole dialect of Patois developed as a means for the slaves to communicate with each other as well as with the European population on the island.
Some terms in Patois are derived from African languages, such as "bammy" (bread made from yuca roots), and "ackee," a fruit plant brought from Africa and now considered Jamaica's national fruit. The majority of Patois comes from modified English phrases, words, pronunciations, and sentence structures. Although attempts have been proposed to standardize a system of written Patois, it remains primarily an oral language.
Here are some attempts at translating a few phrases we have heard (the Patios is written phonetically):
-"What mi gwan du?"
-"What am I going to do?"
-"Nottn nay-gwan"
-"Nothing is going on"
-"Dat uman en gat son niem Jo"
-"That woman had a son named Joe"
Overall, we have been surprised by how different Patois is- sometimes we can listen to entire conversations and not even be able to recognize a single word as being derived from English. However, we are trying to learn and have made some progress over the past few days. We try to practice understanding when travel around and even took a trip to the Portland Parish Library to read up on the subject. We recommend this book for those interested in further reading: (Christie, Pauline. "Language in Jamaica." Kingston: Arawak Publications, 2003).
Aiyo!
SWC