Patois

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Patois

• Chantal Dufreny
• Jessica Turral

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Also Known As

• Patwa
• Afro. Jamaican
• Jamaican Creole

ungrammatical English ?
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Creole

• Creoles are languages that form as a result of
  some human upheaval which makes it impossible for
  people to use their own languages to communicate
• Arise due to the interaction between a native
  language and a forced language
• Result a new language comes about that has some
  characteristics of the original languages and
  also has some characteristics of its own

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Recall the Anglo-Saxon invasion

• Upheaval ? Changes language
• Began in 449
• Ruled from 5th Century until the Norman Conquest
  in 1066
• Old English comes about
• Anglo-Saxon language and culture viewed as more
  sophisticated
• Celtic influences practically eradicated

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History

• Indigenous people called the Arawaks were
  residing in Jamaica
• The Arawaks were a peaceful group of people who
  migrated from Venezuela at 2 separate points in
  history (650 900AD)
• Columbus discovered Jamaica in 1494
• Influx of Spanish-Europeans in 1510 into what is
  present-day Spanishtown

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Slavery in Jamaica

• 1655 Jamaica is captured by the British who
  turned to large-scale importation of Africans to
  be used on sugar plantations (until emancipation
  in 1838)
• African slaves forced into a situation where
  English was the only common means of
  communication
• Slavetraders and owners spoke English
• Slaves spoke a variety of African languages
• Slaves had to assimilate by learning English
• More than 90 of the 2.5 million people in
  Jamaica are descendants of slaves brought from
  western Africa by the British

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Origin of Patois

• A lot of the words in Patois are of English
  origin
• Some words also adopted from African languages
  especially when no equivalent English word could
  be found
• (often for words that refer to people, plants,
  animals, activities, and religious words)
• Note the name Jamaica is derived from the Arawak
  word Xaymaca meaning Island of springs
• No other known traces of the Arawak exist today

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Jamaican English Rastafarian English

• There are two other languages often confused
  with Jamaican Creole
• Jamaican English is a regional dialect of English
• Rastafarian English is tied heavily to the
  religion.

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Eastern Western Jamaican Creole

• There are two types of Jamaican Creole Eastern
  and Western
• Phonologically different
• One difference Eastern dialect treats /h/ as a
  phonetic
• Western (Like English) treats /h/ as phonemic
• Phoneme The smallest phonetic unit in a language
  that is capable of conveying a distinction in
  meaning, as the m of mat and the b of bat in
  English

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Status of /h/

• Western Jamaican Creole h is phonemic meaning
  that the h sound change produces a separate word
  with a change in meaning
• /hiit/hit and /iit/eat
• /han/ hand and /an/
• Ham and am
• Eastern Jamaican Creole h is phonetic
• There are no sound differences between the words
  with h and those that are h-less but the words
  have different meanings
• For example pen and pin
• /iit/hit and /iit/eat

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English Consonants
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Jamaican Creole Consonants (21)
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Differences Between English and Jamaican Creole

• Jamaican Creole is missing Dental Fricatives ?, ð
• English ð (voiced dental fricative), e.g. in
  function words
• they, the, those, them, father
• Jamaican Creole
• dey, de, dose, dem, fadda
• English ? (voiceless dental fricative)
• threes, with
• Jamaican Creole
• tri, wid
• Also missing ? (voiced alveolar fricative)
• Unable to pronounce the er sound in pressure
• Becomes preh-shah

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Vowels
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Back Harmony

• In English there are no restrictions on back
  harmony
• In Jamaican Creole, high vowels have to agree on
  backness.
• The high vowels are /i/ and /u/
• The combinations /iu/, /ui/ are impossible
• But /ii/ or /uu/ are possible
• As in biini (tiny) and ziin (okay)

16

• Backness matching doesnt matter with /a/
• a can be paired like /ai/, /ia/, /au/, or /ua/
• baik (bike), buat (boat), taun (town)
• In English we do not have this restriction,
  meaning that there is not need to match on
  backness
• Ex) intuition (the /ui/ is ok

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Peripheral Vowel Harmony

• Sequences of mid vowels can not follow each other
  within one symbol
• /e/, /o/
• However, peripheral (not mid) vowels may occur in
  sequences (/i/, /u/, /a/)
• As in buat (boat), biak (bake)

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Examples

• /tri man did a suim/
• /dem a fait fi wi/
• /im kiann biit mi/
• /buai/

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Poem

• Dah language weh yuh proud a,
• Weh yuh honour an respec-
• Po Mas Charlie, yuh no know se
• Dat it spring from dialec

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The Continuum

• The debate surrounding the use of Patois as
  opposed to Standard English dates back to the
  times of slavery
• During slavery, Standard English was presented as
  a superior language
• The indigenous language was denigrated to
  inferior status
• Many people in Jamaica are somewhere along the
  continuum between speaking British Standard
  English and the local Patois, so there is a great
  deal of linguistic flexibility
• The middle and upper class Jamaicans often use
  Patois in social settings but not in the workplace

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Controversy

• Negative impact of dialect Illiteracy?
• Many believe that the high rate of illiteracy in
  Jamaica is due to the presence of the two
  languages
• Children are taught to read and write in Standard
  English
• Yet they speak Patois
• There are those who strongly support the
  formalization of its use in Jamaican society
  while there are those who strongly opposite it

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Effect of Jamaican Patois on Education

• Jamaican students who grew up in a
  Patois-speaking household sometimes report that
  they felt their success on the verbal section of
  the SAT was hindered
• Different vocabulary many of the words you are
  expected to know for the SAT are never used in
  your house

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Presence of Patois outside of Jamaica

• Not only through the spread of reggae music which
  is highly popular around the world
• There are also large communities of people from
  Jamaica living in other countries
• Many go to England (which is to be expected since
  they were under British rule for many years)
• In the years following WWII the US and the UK
  were in need of reconstruction and expansion of
  their economies.
• Following 1944 there was tremendous migration of
  Jamaican immigrants (esp in London and NY)

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Patois in the US

• New York has the largest population of Jamaican
  immigrants (439,400)
• One of the largest communities of
  Jamaican-Americans in NY is in Queens where there
  is a population of 93,153
• Those who are born in the US but born of Jamaican
  heritage usually dont acquire the ability to
  master Patois
• Patois is lost in first generation Americans
  because it is not taught, or even allowed, in
  American schools.

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Sources

• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Creole
• http//www.reggaemovement.com/History/patois.htm
• http//www.nyu.edu/classes/blake.map2001/jamaica.h
  tml
• Jamaican Creole
• Otelemate G. Harry
• Department of Language, Linguistics Philosophy
• University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
• Journal of the IPA (2006) 36/1