The short answer is English. The real answer is more interesting than that.
English is official. Patois is everyday.
Jamaica's official language is English, a legacy of more than three centuries of British rule. It's the language of government, courtrooms, classrooms, and newspapers, and Jamaican English has its own accent and rhythm, closer to British than American.
But walk through a market in Kingston, or into our kitchen on Taylor Street, and what you'll hear is Patois, also spelled Patwa, and known to linguists as Jamaican Creole. It's the language of home, of jokes, of arguments, of music, and of nearly every Jamaican you'll ever meet.
Most Jamaicans move between the two without thinking about it, sliding toward English in formal settings and into Patois with family. If you hear one of us switch mid-sentence, that's not confusion. That's fluency.
Where Patois came from
Patois was born on the plantations, out of necessity. Enslaved West Africans who spoke many different languages were thrown together with English colonists, and what emerged was a new language built from both.
Most of its vocabulary comes from English. Much of its grammar and sound comes from West African languages, especially Akan and Twi, spoken in what is now Ghana. There are traces of Spanish and Portuguese from Jamaica's earlier colonial period, a little Irish and Scots from indentured laborers, and later additions from Indian and Chinese communities who arrived in the 1800s.
That's the same mix you can taste in the food. Jamaica's motto is "Out of Many, One People," and the language is the clearest proof of it.
It isn't broken English
This is worth saying plainly, because the assumption is common and it's wrong.
Patois has consistent grammar, its own tense and plural systems, and rules a speaker breaks at the cost of sounding wrong to other speakers. It is a creole language in its own right, not sloppy English. A Londoner can't follow full-speed Patois any better than they could follow Dutch.
Miss Lou
For a long time Patois carried a stigma, treated as something to grow out of. The person most responsible for changing that was Louise Bennett-Coverley, known across Jamaica simply as Miss Lou.
Born in Kingston in 1919, she was a poet, folklorist, actress, and broadcaster who wrote and performed entirely in Patois at a time when that was close to scandalous. She insisted it was a real language carrying real literature, and she was proved right. She was awarded the Order of Jamaica and the Order of Merit, and she influenced generations of writers and dub poets. She died in 2006, and Jamaicans still quote her.
Reggae took it worldwide
If you've ever said "irie" or "wah gwaan," you probably learned it from music. Reggae and dancehall carried Patois out of Jamaica and into the ears of people who had never been near the island. It's one reason a language spoken by roughly three million people is recognized far beyond that.
It's written down now, too
Patois has a standardized writing system, the Cassidy/JLU orthography. In October 2012, the Bible Society of the West Indies published Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment, a full New Testament translation into Patois, following a Gospel of Luke translation two years earlier. For a language once dismissed as slang, that's a milestone.
Phrases you might actually hear
| You'll hear | It means |
|---|---|
| Wah gwaan? | What's going on? The standard greeting. |
| Mi deh yah | I'm here, I'm good. A normal reply to the above. |
| Irie | Everything's good, all is well. |
| Likkle | Little. |
| Nuff | Plenty, a lot. |
| Big up | To show respect or give credit. |
| Bless up | Blessings to you. Used coming or going. |
| Soon come | Coming shortly. The timeframe is famously flexible. |
| Walk good | Travel safely. Said at parting, and meant sincerely. |
The ones you'll hear in our kitchen
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Nyam | To eat, and not politely. You nyam when the food is good. From West African roots. |
| Belly full | Satisfied. The goal of every plate we send out. |
| Pepper | Heat, specifically scotch bonnet heat. "It pepper!" is a warning, or a compliment. |
| Hard food | The filling starches: yam, green banana, dumpling, ground provisions. |
| Dutch pot / dutchie | The heavy cast iron pot that does most of the real work in a Jamaican kitchen. |
| Ital | The Rastafari way of eating, natural and unprocessed. |
| Peas | Beans. This one confuses everybody. Here's why. |
| Boonoonoonous | Lovely, special, precious. Worth learning purely for the pleasure of saying it. |
Come hear it
You don't need to speak a word of Patois to eat with us, and nobody will test you. But stand near the kitchen on a busy Saturday and you'll hear the real thing.
Say "wah gwaan" when you walk in. We'll know what you're doing, and we'll like it.
Walk good.
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