Jamaican Patois

vijayjohn
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Re: Jamaican Patois

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-10-24, 14:24

I should be the one apologizing for being so unclear on that. :) I don't have an advisor; I mean my advisor when I was doing my master's. He taught a seminar on language contact, and one of the languages he talked about in some detail was the one this thread is about.

Speaking of which, here's some more of what he told us about Patwa!

He said some speakers of Patwa are rhotic (unlike Krio) and that the phonemic vowels and diphthongs are:
/i iː ie e eː u uː uo o oː a/
The diphthongs are very similar to the variety of English spoken in Cornwall (southwestern England).

He also introduced us to the following pronouns in Patwa: mi (I/me), im (he/she/it/they?/him/her/them?), wi (we/us), unu (y'all). The progressive marker used to be da, but now, it's a for most speakers. So mi waak is 'I walked' or 'I (habitually) walk(ed?)', whereas mi a waak means 'I am walking'. Mi a guo waak means 'I'm going to walk'.


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