+- Jamericans (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard)
+-- Forum: Jamaicaholics (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Message Board (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Thread: patois -official instead of commonplace? (/showthread.php?tid=103440)
patois -official instead of commonplace? - CardBoardBox - 10-11-2023
ny times story ,clip
venture into the street, tune into a radio talk show, or flip through the pages of Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment, or step into someone’s home or scroll through the feeds of Jamaican influencers, and another language dominates: the astonishingly vibrant Patois.
Long stigmatized with second-class status and often mis-characterized as a poorly structured form of English, Patois has its own distinct grammar and pronunciation. Linguists say Patois, which is also called Patwa, Creole or, simply, Jamaican, is about as different from English as English is from German. It features a dizzying array of words borrowed from African, European and Asian languages.
Now, as Jamaica moves ahead with plans to cut ties to the British monarchy — a shift that would remove King Charles III as its head of state and make the Commonwealth’s largest country in the Caribbean into a republic — momentum is building to make Patois Jamaica’s official language ....
cmnt; there are rules in the language? who knew.
I say stay with text books they have now for English. We always have/had the option to hire a translator.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/world/americas/jamaica-official-language-patois.html
Sorry to say it is behind a "pay wall".
108 comments on the story. here is my reply to one of them:
I will conceed patois into the classroom could help, but from the quote "...a third of sixth graders were illiterate in English...." represents a failure of the education system. There will be illiterates in Patio (pa-twah) even if the country spent a lot of money on a new official language.
Hire a translator for the father.
RE: patois -official instead of commonplace? - kylake - 10-11-2023
I simply think it is a dialect and not any official language. It fits the description of a dialect since Patwa varies depending on what part of the Caribbean you are in. Of course many Jamaicans would refute my opinion.
Definition: A dialect is a form of the language that is spoken in a particular part of the country or by a particular group of people. There are many different dialects of English and they have different words and grammar.