Learning Jamaican Patois 🇯🇲

Learning Jamaican Patois/ Creole 
My mom's country

The official language of Jamaica is Standard English and Jamaican Patois/Creole is the second language in Jamaica that is spoken by everyone. 

Jamaican Patois/Creole is a language with major influence from British, Scots, Irish, African eg. Akan. This language originally started by African slaves to talk to each other.
Minor influences include the other ethnicities that make up Jamaica such as Indigenous Jamaican eg. Arawaks (this ethnicity is now extinct), Lebanese, Syrian, Hindi, Hakka, and many more!

Tip

• If a word starts with an H, remove the H when you speak. For example, Hand is pronounced And 

Phrases

• Wah gwan - What's going on 
• "Out of Many, One People" - The Jamaican motto. It celebrates the fact that Jamaicans have so many racial backgrounds eg. European, African, and Asian. The motto has two Indigenous Jamaicans standing on either side.
• A weh ya baan? - Where were you born?
• Mi baan inna Canada - I was born in Canada
• Weh yah ah seh - What are you saying 
• Whappen - What happened 
• Small up yuhself - Make yourself smaller as you are in a crowded place to make room for another person 
• You did know seh dat mi did like you - Telling a person you like them 
• Mi nuh have nun - I don't have none/any 
• Fix your face - You look unhappy so make yourself look happy

Words

• Ganja - Marijuana, brought to Jamaica from India
• Rastafari - Religion that follows an interpretation of a Christian bible. Rastas believe that the Emperor of Ethiopia, Ras Tafari Haile Selassie I, is the Biblical Messiah. 
• Rastas or Rastafarians - Followers of the Rastafari religion, around 1% of Jamaicans are Rastas 
• Zion - Rastas believe this is the true home of Black people, Ethiopia. Most Black people in Jamaica are there because Europeans took them from Africa and forced them into slavery in the Caribbean.
• Jah - God for Rastas
• Dreads - Fake Rastas, they have the dreadlocks but not the religion 
• Obeah - Sorcery/Voodoo/Witchcraft in the Caribbean 
• Duppy - Ghost/Spirit
• Irie - Fine/Good 
• Raggamuffin - Like a term for a homeless person or a street wise person
• Ragga ragga - Means like messed up 
• Buss/ Buss up - Broken 
• Mash up - Break/Destroy 
• Chaka chaka - Disorganized   
• Cha - Annoyed exclamation 
• Anansi - Spider  
• Babylon - Police 
• Idren - Children
• Pickney - Child
• Gyal - Girl 
• Bwoy - Boy 
• Bredda - Brother, can also mean a Rasta
• Brethren - Family/ Males
• Batty - Butt/Butthole 

Food

• Jerk chicken, a style of cooking chicken - The Indigenous people of Jamaica and the African enslaved people who ran away from their slave owners created this style of cooking. It gives the chicken a smoky flavour.
• Ackee & Saltfish - A type of fruit that's yellow & a salty fish, usually cod fish
• Callaloo - A leafy green Caribbean vegetable
• Breadfruit - A type of fruit that tastes like bread 
• Pear - Avocado 
• Rice & Peas - Rice & Pigeon Peas/Kidney beans cooked in coconut flavour

• Mannish Water - Soup that takes hours to cook and is supposed to make you "manly", the whole head of a Goat is cooked in the soup
• Dumplings - Fried puffy bread 
• Spinners, a type of dumpling - Fried bread rolled thin and long to "spin and sink" in dumpling soup
• Dumpling soup - soup with Spinners in it
• Festival - Fried cornbread spinners not eaten in soup
• Pumpkin soup - served every Sunday

• Bake - Fried bread
• Roti - Fried flat bread with chickpeas inside and with curry meat and curry potato wrapped inside the bread
• Fruit cake - Black cake baked with raisins in rum, served during Christmas time and as Wedding cake
• Bulla cake - A hard cake

Different Pronunciations

• Ve ge ta ble - Vegetable 
• Plant in - Plantain 
• Cook kum ber - Cucumber 
• Curry goat - Goat curry
• Tree - Three
• Ax - Ask 
• Ya mon - Yeah man

Home

• Yard - Home, also means Jamaica 
• Back a yard - Home 
• Yardie - The person who lives in the home, also means Jamaican 

Sayings

• Duppy kno who fi frighten - The ghosts know you are scared so they will target you/ Bullies exploit the weak & helpless 
• Nuh bite di hand weh feed yu - Don't bite the hand that feeds you 
• Mi old but mi nuh cold - I'm old but I'm not cold (dead) yet 
• Wanti, wanti, cyan getti, getti, getti nuh want it - You want it & you can't get it then once you're got it you don't want it anymore 
• One, one coco full basket - To accomplish something it takes one step at a time

Rude Insults

• Raasclaat - means crotch cloth

My mom's favourite songs from her childhood

• 1) Ram Goat Liver 2) Sweet & Dandy 

My Favourite Jamaican Movies

• The Harder They Come, Cool Runnings, One Love