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Jamaican Creole English |
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Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patois (Patwa or Patwah) or Jamaican, and called Jamaican Creole by linguists, is an English-lexified
creole language with West African influences spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused
with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English. The language developed in the 17th century, when slaves from
West and Central Africa were exposed to, learned and nativized the vernacular and dialectal forms of English spoken by their
masters: British English, Scots and Hiberno-English. Jamaican Patois features a creole continuum (or a linguistic continuum)—meaning
that the variety of the language closest to the lexifier language cannot be distinguished systematically from intermediate
varieties (collectively referred to as the mesolect) nor even from the most divergent rural varieties (collectively referred
to as the basilect). Jamaicans themselves usually refer to their dialect as patois, a French term without a precise linguistic
definition. Significant Jamaican-speaking communities exist among Jamaican expatriates in Miami, New York City, Toronto, Hartford,
Washington, D.C. , Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Panama (in the Caribbean coast), also London, Birmingham, Manchester,
and Nottingham. A mutually intelligible variety is found in San Andrés y Providencia Islands, Colombia, brought to the island
by descendants of Jamaican Maroons (escaped slaves) in the 18th century. Mesolectal forms are similar to very basilectal Belizean
Kriol. Jamaican Patois exists mostly as a spoken language. Although standard British English is used for most writing in Jamaica,
Jamaican Patois has been gaining ground as a literary language for almost a hundred years. Claude McKay published his book
of Jamaican poems Songs of Jamaica in 1912. Patois and English are frequently used for stylistic contrast in new forms of
internet writing. Jamaican pronunciation and vocabulary are significantly different from English, despite heavy use of English
words or derivatives. Jamaican Patois displays similarities to the pidgin and creole languages of West Africa, due to their
common descent from the blending of African substrate languages with European languages. |
Names (more)[cs] Jamajský patois[cy] Siamaiceg [da] Patois [de] Jamaikanisch-Kreolische Sprache [en] Creole English, Jamaican [fr] Créole jamaïcain [hu] Jamaicai angol nyelv [it] Creolo giamaicano [ja] ジャマイカ・クレオール語 [ko] 자메이카 크리올 [nl] Jamaicaans Patois [oc] Jamaican [pl] Język jamajski [pt] Patoá jamaicano [ru] Ямайский креольский язык [es] Patois jamaiquino [sv] Patwa [uk] Патуа |
Language type : Living
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Jamaican Creole English. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : jamLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/jamhttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:jam More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: jamFreebase ISO 639-3 : jam GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |