Talk:Jamaican Patois

IPA vs. Jamaican spelling vs. standard English spelling

Someone should moderate this article so that those three are never confused. I've just cleaned the article of much of the nonsense. Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:57, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I've been doing watching the page for just that, but I must have missed this series of edits. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: No problem. I missed /audu/ -> */awdah/ by the way, I've just fixed it now thanks to you. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

What about /oman/ for 'woman' and /mi nu knoa/ for 'I don't know'? Shouldn't these be /u(u)man/ and /mi nu nuo/ (without the initial 'k')? Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:23, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah. AFAIK 'woman' should be /uman/ and 'know' should be /nuo/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:45, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Ok, thanks. Last question: shouldn't /london/ and /mi ole nau/ be /londan/ and /mi ol nau/? The second one looks especially illogical, the first one can be explained by the fact that the BrE schwa is commonly close-mid between two alveolars (see the 8th edition of Gimson's Pronunciation of English), and so it may be somewhat more prone to be interpreted as a variant of /o/. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

London is correct. Old should /mi ol haadbak nau/ I've fixed that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:09, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

"Not mutually intelligible with English"

I'm puzzled by the claim that it is "not mutually intelligible with English". It's sourced, but I don't have access to the journal. Sure, Jamaican patois can be difficult to understand if you're unfamiliar with the accent/pronunciations, but the vast majority of the vocabulary is English. This is more strange given that the language exists as a continuum that merges into standard English. Guettarda (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I've reworded that to make it a bit more accurate, but the source that's cited doesn't really corroborate the claim. We can probably find a better source for this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:43, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Guettarda (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

What is the definition of mutually intelligible? Spanish is over 80% mutually intelligible with Italian, even more so with Portuguese. Even English is partially intelligible with Romance languages. If you mean completely mutually intelligible, then this is a correct statement. dotibutu — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.22.99.222 (talk) 22:37, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

The vast majority of the vocabulary isnt English but derivative of words in the English language. The words are not only pronounced differently, but are also spelled differently. English itself is made up of other languages such as German, and Jamaican Patois has direct influences from some of these languages that made up the English Language, thus making it seems as though its English. Jamaican creole isnt just English and West African Language, a lot of words in it are actually custom(created) or derived from an actual word in both languages or other languages. Some of the other languages includes Spanish, who first colonized Jamaica, Hindi(Indians), Portuguese, Irish and Germans. These groups have lived in Jamaica and affected both the culture or accent of the Jamaican language. Native Jamaican Language is also shown by words such as Tomalley, etc. If you are not verse on the language, how could you determine what the language is made up of despite giving supporting evidence? Thinkerbell22 (talk) 19:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

What is the source for German influence? I'd love to see a list of these German influences if the source has it. BilCat (talk) 20:23, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

"Language" vs. "dialect"

Why does this article describe Jamaican Patois as a "dialect" instead of a language? Jarble (talk) 03:09, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

An anonymous user made those changes recently. I've reverted it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:10, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

It also describes Broad Scots as a form of English which is debatable in itself and which is often called a language in its own right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.249.184.248 (talk) 09:05, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Pronunciation

I asked for pronunciation:

Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patois (Patwa or Patwah)

and @Nardog: reverted it with:

covered in Patois

However Patois says:

Patois (/ˈpætwɑː/, pl. same or /ˈpætwɑːz/)

and wiktionary:patois says:

IPA(key): /ˈpæˌtwɑ/, /ˈpɑˌtwɑ/

All of this does not clarify the pronunciation in Jamaican English and Patois. Are they the same as in American English? --Error (talk) 01:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, do we want to put /ˈpætwɑː/ or do we want it more like [ˈpatwaː]? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:55, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Racist whitewashing of Afro-Jamaican history.

(Redacted)

Hi Jamaicanheritage. I can tell that you are very passionate about this topic, but it would be a good idea (in the spirit of collaboration, which is central to this project) to refrain from delivering inflammatory personal attacks at other editors. Your proficiency in wiki markup tells me that you are familiar enough with the project to know better than to do this or edit war, so the time to conduct yourself appropriately is now.

In response to the substance of your message, there is certainly room for discussion of the origin, history, and social context of Jamaican Patois, but we should be using reliable sources and providing the information in a encylopedic tone. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:00, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for saying that in a a calm, more articulated manner than I would probably be saying that. Also, considering that this is a "new user" and that they (in your words) have a " proficiency in wiki markup", I think this is probably a inflammatory sockpuppet account. — I'ma editor2022 ^{(🗣️💬 |📖📚)} 23:09, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

(Redacted)

"Regulated by"

It seems pretty silly to me to define the parameter for the agency that regulates the language as "not regulated". This is not a required param, and will simply not show up in the article if it is not defined (see, for example, the English language article). We don't generally include an indication that something does not exist on Wikipedia unless it would be very strongly expected to exist by all readers, which I think is clearly not the case here. Pinging BilCat. AviationFreak💬 05:29, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

English is far, far, far more widely known and spoken then Jamaican Patios. And how do we know what the reader expects to exist? BilCat (talk) 08:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the relevancy of the size of a language's speakership in this context. You make a reasonable point about determining what a reader expects, but I think the norm in determining what infobox parameters to include is to only include them if they are applicable or exist. This is true in essentially all cases that I am aware of. AviationFreak💬 22:05, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

"Patois" and "patois"

Sorry BilCat but you're wrong. First of all, yes, Jamaicans refer to the language as "Patois" or "Patwa(h)", but that's a name, and patois is not that. The very awkward "also used as a lower-case noun as a catch-all description" already indicates that the term you wiki-linked is NOT the language called Jamaican Patois: "patois" is not "Patois", and Patois is not a patois.

Moreover, saying "as the text states "patois" can include creoles" really doesn't help. First, Wikipedia is not a reliable source for Wikipedia, as you know, and second, the history of the article shows that the reference (Vellupillai 481) did not always verify both the "patois" bit and the statement about prestige. In fact, the history shows, as in this version, that there were three references for all the material before the "prestige" sentence. I don't know when that paragraph was shortened and the clumsy "as a lower-case noun" was introduced, but it conflates the difference between the proper name of the language and the term "patois". Let's face it: if "Patois" in "Jamaicans refer to their language as Patois" links to anything, it should link to Jamaican Patois. And I also don't know when "a catch-all description of pidgins, creoles, dialects, and vernaculars worldwide" was introduced, but reading the history it seems clear that it was added long after the Vellupillai 481 reference was there, and it is not found elsewhere in the article--in other words, it's original research. Sorry, but I strongly disagree with that edit. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 00:59, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Patois

in french we say. Joual 208.103.229.141 (talk) 22:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)