Jamaican Patois and Standard English: Language, Identity, and Culture

Introduction: Language and Identity in Jamaica

Language has always played an important role in human history. Through different forms of speech, we make language learning and writing essential processes in communication development. English is widely used and is the most spoken language in the world. In Jamaica, two forms of English exist side by side: Jamaican Standard English (JSE) and Jamaican Patois (JP). This paper discusses the origins and forms of both languages used in the Jamaican community, the value of Jamaican Patois within its community, and how the existence of Patois has created a distinct identity for people living in Jamaica and abroad.

Understanding the history of these languages enables us to clarify what Jamaicans are addressing in their ongoing linguistic debates. The official language of Jamaica is English. Jamaican Standard English is a blend of American English—due to Jamaica's geographic proximity and ties to the United States—and British Standard English, with which it shares grammatical similarities. The influence of American English has been increasing steadily.

Historical Origins of Jamaican Creole and Standard English

The Spaniards were driven out of Jamaica by the British in 1655. During the first 200 years of British rule, Jamaica became one of the world's leading sugar-exporting and slave-dependent nations. It was the slaves' need to communicate with British rulers that led to the establishment of Jamaican Creole (JC). Creole is a dialect or language that results from contact between the language of colonizing people and the languages of colonized populations. It becomes a Creole as soon as it is learned as a first language by a new generation. Until today, JC has been used alongside English and is also known as patois (or patwa) and sometimes referred to as broken English or slang.

JC is an English-lexicon Creole derived from Received Pronunciation (RP) speaking middle-class speakers from southern England, with an accent that has West African origins. Today, JC and varieties of JC are the everyday vernaculars of the majority of Jamaican people. JC is primarily an oral language used in homes, at the workplace, and in almost every place where ordinary Jamaicans interact informally with each other. JC has consistent phonology, vocabulary, and grammar and has been used as a means of communication for at least 300 years in Jamaica.

The term "Patois" or Patwa is a French term referring to regional languages of France, which include some Creole languages. In Jamaica, it refers to Jamaican Creole, which Jamaicans have traditionally viewed as "broken," "bad," or incorrect Standard English. However, Jamaican Creole developed as a distinct linguistic system with its own structural rules, not merely as a degraded form of English.

No official JC writing system has been developed, and therefore written JC can vary widely. Cassidy and Le Page were the first to create a spelling system for Caribbean English lexicon Creole. Their work, The Dictionary of Jamaican English (1967), attempted to establish a conventionalized orthography for all variations, including Creole, for speakers of the language. If pressure from the powerful acrolectal-speaking elite becomes too strong, the Creole can be decreolized—meaning that the basilectal and mesolectal varieties become stigmatized and associated with illiteracy and ignorance.

Linguistic Structures and Features

There are significant differences between Jamaican Creole and Standard English, especially in the pronominal system. In Standard English, there is a four-way distinction in person marking that is very different from Jamaican Creole. In Jamaican Creole, case is usually demonstrated by position: a pronoun that appears before a verb is viewed as the subject and becomes a direct or indirect object when it appears after a verb. The absence of possessive pronouns is also evident in Jamaican Creole. Although a person speaking Jamaican Creole can sometimes be understood by a speaker of Standard English, these differences indicate that the two are distinct linguistic systems.

Pronunciation constitutes one of the most noticeable aspects of Jamaican English for speakers of other English varieties. Basic English words sound distinctly different when spoken in Jamaican Creole. The words "boy," "no," "this," and "thing," for example, are pronounced as "bwaay," "nuh," "dis," and "ting" respectively in Creole. Many English words have been nativized to form the Creole language. Some of these Creole words are written according to their sound because no Creole dictionary exists to guide spelling. A sentence such as "It's my car" translates into Jamaican Creole as "a fe me car." Similarly, "Boy! I thought that test would have been easy" becomes "Bwaay! Mi ded tink de test was easy."

Jamaican Patois is a vibrant, expressive, and lively language. The language has its own pronunciation rules, and word order and correct verb placement are important. Moreover, Jamaican Patois incorporates new words from other languages on a continual basis. The language is constantly changing, with much of that change driven by new words borrowed from other languages and by youth culture. One significant way youth culture affects Patois is through the use of the internet. Although Jamaican was primarily a spoken language, hardly written except in poetry and folk stories, Patois is now frequently written in internet chat rooms where spelling is gaining standardization and new words are being coined.

A correct form of Jamaican Standard English symbolizes high status and prestige. Wardhaugh (2010) describes SJE as superior to Jamaican Patois. Wardhaugh (2010) argues that Jamaican teachers consider JC to be inseparably associated with poverty, ignorance, and lack of moral character. In contrast, Siegel (2006) argues that JC is not inferior to SJE but has its own grammatical rules and potential to be standardized and used in education. Furthermore, Wardhaugh (2010) states that most teachers continue to treat this dialect problem as if it were a speech correction issue, professing the superiority of SJE.

The Sociolinguistic Status of Patois and Standard English

Reports show that societies reject Jamaican English as a language to be taught in school. The co-existence of both Standard Jamaican English (SJE) and Jamaican Creole (JC) has created this situation. Low literacy and massive failure in English language examinations at all levels may explain the ambivalent attitude toward using JC in school and society, and the inaccurate use of both languages. This language conflict has negative effects on various aspects of daily life in Jamaica, including social injustice.

Although the majority of Jamaicans use and understand JC, acrolectal varieties or SJE are used when Jamaicans wish to signal their membership in a higher social class and to distance themselves from those who speak lower forms on the linguistic continuum. Consequently, a small privileged group in Jamaica can linguistically move across all social strata and enjoy all benefits from using an acrolect variety that approaches an idealized form of English. According to Cummins (2000), orality does not involve reading and writing directly but reflects individuals' access to literate or academic registers of language.

For the middle and lower classes of Jamaica, Patois is very important. It is believed that this language is part of their culture and thereby part of who they are. Jamaican ancestors fought to keep the language to which they held so much value, which is why most people feel that Patois must be given its rightful place. Although Patois has limited formal grammatical codification and no universally accepted standard, this language remains part of Jamaican heritage. It reflects their origins, identity, and sense of belonging in a social group. Knowing the language is a way to be familiar with the culture.