The official language of Jamaica is . . . English with a twist!

The official language of Jamaica is English. Most Jamaicans speak and write standard British English but when speaking informally, conversationally, they speak in what I’ll refer to as Jamaican English. It is a combination of Jamaican Creole and, the more proper, British English.

Jamaicans loosely refer to this language as Jamaican Patois (Patwa) it is a new grammatical mixture of languages of the Africans that were captured and sent to Jamaica as slaves and of their English captors with bits of Spanish and native Arawak Indian sprinkled in.

Interestingly, some would define patois as "uneducated speech" or "a dialect different from but based upon the main spoken language of the region." What the Jamaicans speak is certainly not uneducated speech. Every dialect and every language is complex and complete in its own way. What is spoken (to different extents depending where you are in Jamaica) can be called a Creole.

Anyone interested in communicating with Jamaican people, in their language, will do well to gain a better understanding of this refreshing language, one that is interesting to learn just for it's own sake. A helpful a book with valuable information about the phonetic peculiarities, sentence structure and verb forms found in the language of Jamaica is “Understanding Jamaican Patois” by L. Emilie Adams. This is a fine guide to the grammar of Jamaican Patois. It can be purchased from Amazon.com for under $10.00

In addition, I found two good Jamaican dictionaries. They are a great resource for those wanting to understand the words used in the everyday Jamaican English and they would be a good tool in trying to master this strange and unfamiliar language.

“The Jabari Authentic Jamaican Dictionary of the Jamic Language” is very limited. Publication has been stopped to make way for a newer edition that won’t be available for a couple of years. If you hurry, it is currently still at www.barnesandnoble.com and “A Dictionary of Jamaican English” can be found at www.amazon.com.

Ultimately, as with learning any new language, studying books will only take you so far. The more time you spend with Jamaicans the easier it will be to learn to speak Jamaican.

CLICK HERE for a list of common Jamaican words .

Language of Jamaica -- Back To -- Jamaicans