UNDERSTANDING

JAMAICAN
PATOIS
AN INTRODUCTION TO A FR O -JA M A IC A N GRAM M AR

EMI LIE ADAMS

HILDHOOD TALE BY LLEWELYN ADAM S
 %

UNDERSTANDING
JAMAICAN
PATOIS

AN INTRODUCTION
TO AFRO-JAMAICAN GRAMMAR

By L. Emilie Adams

with a childhood tale

by Llewelyn "Dada" Adams

J
 Dedication

"For then will I turn to the peoples

A pure language,
That they may all caU upon the name of the LORD,
To serve Him with one consent
F ia
& d,
As Mine offering."

Zephaniah 3,9-10*

Dedicated to the memory of the Jamaican foreparents:

In the midst of their tribulation and affliction they gave
birth to a beautiful language. They bequeathed it to their pos­
terity who are now carrying it around the world.
Watch out Standard English!
Afro-Jam a come!

* Translation from THE HOLY SCRIPTURES according to the masoretic text, Jewish
Publication Society of America (Philadelphia, 1972).
 Table of Contents

Author's Preface and Acknowledgements ... ... ... vii

Introduction ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1

The Question of Phonetic Spelling (Part I) ... ... ... 6
An Introduction to Afro-Jamaican Grammar ... ... 13

Nouns ... ... ... ... ... ... 13

Articles ... ... ... ... ... ... 15
Adjectives/Adverbs ... ... ... ... ... 16

Prepositions ... ... ... ... ... ... 18

Pronouns ... ... ... ... ... ... 20
Conjunctions ... ... ... ... ... ... 25

Verbs ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 26

Practice Sentences Using Afro-Jamaican Grammar ... a. 43
A Brief Vocabulary-Collect Your Own! ... ... ... 50
The Question of Phonetic Spelling (Part II) ... ... ... 65

Reading Selection, A Version, "Fi Dada Tale" ... ... 74

Reading Selection, B Version, "FiDada Tiel" ... ... 75

Appendix: Afro-Haitian ... ... ... ... ... 102

 Authors Preface
and
Acknowledgements

This little book, simple as it appears to be, has already

had an eighteen-year life of its own before this coming of age, its
rites of publication. The original core of the book was written in
1973, for a class of children with reading problems in Highgate,
St. Mary, Jamaica. During the mid-70s it developed into a book
revealing key grammatical structures to non-Jamaicans, a
response to the needs of the many visitors then flooding the
Robin's Bay area. Many people suggested that reading matter be
included, so in the early 1980s I began the task of transcribing a
tape of my husband telling our children a story from his
childhood.

The difficulties of finding a satisfactory orthographic

system for writing patois kept me stymied for several years. The
problem lies in the use of standard English spellings for words
which are pronounced approximately the same in both lang­
uages: e.g., "two", "piece", "night", "buy". The crazy mixed-up
standard spellings stuck out like sore thumbs when juxtaposed
with the phonetic accuracy of the purely patois spellings: if we
change "boy" to "bwai" to indicate a different pronunciation,
then "buy" looks ridiculous, begging to be written "bai"! If we
spell "through" as "tru" (and not as "trough"), then why not
spell "two" as "tu"? In short the problem was nothing less than
cleaning up the whole mess of archaic and contradictory non-
phonetic spellings which we force our children to memorize as
"correct spelling". Lately I have heard by word of mouth that
this mess was in fact created by five great printing houses in
London in the Renaissance era, each of which devised a dif­
ferent spelling system for the vulgar language of the day -
English! How this non-standardized jumble ever came to be
called "standard”beats me!
My struggle was resolved when I discovered that the ten-
vowel spelling system I had come up with was almost identical
to one devised by Cassidy in Jamaica Talk more than twenty

vii
years before; he used it to transcribe an Ananse story in his
Second Appendix. This coincidence convinced me that such a
system is probably the right one for our national language,
though certainly it could stand to be further modified or simpli­
fied. The final chapters of my book, dealing with this whole
problem, constitute a book within a book, this one aimed
primarily at Jamaican writers, poets, musicians, educators,
linguists, etc. If Afro-Jamaican English is going to develop a
large body of written literature, we need to agree on a unified
spelling system. It has been said that just as the invention of the
wheel represented the conquest of space, the invention of
writing represented the conquest of time. If Afro-Jam can
evolve into a written language, who knows what future awaits
it in the coming third millennium A.D.?

In the late 80s the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation ran

a Saturday afternoon TV series on the history of the English
language. Unfortunately Saturday afternoons find me hunched
over a zinc wash pan washing school uniforms. Luckily, one
rainy afternoon I happened to see a section of this series. An
English linguist was standing on the windy heaths of one of the
English shires - was it Yorkshire? the name has escaped me -
and explaining that the medieval language of this district was
the direct ancestor of modem English. This shire constituted
the linguistic no man's land or frontier zone between Old
Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, the language of the Danish con­
querors. Frustrated by the two conflicting grammar systems of
the two cousin languages, the folk of this area dumped the vast
majority of both sets of conjugation endings, case endings, etc.
into the linguistic garbage can. This radically simplified
language, the linear ancestor of modem English, has since con­
quered the world. By the same token, Afro-Jamaican English
has simplified standard English by disposing of irregular past
tenses and participles, irregular plurals of nouns, case varia­
tions in pronouns, the myriad irregularities of the verb "to be",
etc. It is possible that the various forms of African English
springing up around the world may bear a closer resemblance to
the international English of the coming millennium than does
the encumbered and archaic standard English of today, which
may by then have been relegated to the role of the priestly lang­
uage, the language of the mysteries of science, technology, and
theology!
I am indebted to many people for their help in complet­
viii
 ing this book. First and foremost, to the people of Robin’s Bay,
St. Mary, into whose language group I married; more specifi­
cally, to my husband, Llewelyn "Dada” Adams, and his parents,
Miss Adella Reid and Mas George Adams, may they rest in
peace. Mr. Jerry Kendrick of Lawrence, Kansas, USA, first fed
the book into a computer and introduced me to modem word
processing. Without his intervention, the cockroaches would
surely have finished off the manuscript, which they were well
on the way to doing. Dr. Mervyn Alleyne of the U.W.I. Depart­
ment of Linguistics corrected some of my linguistic termino­
logy and other errors - I am entirely responsible for those which
may still remain. His encouragement was crucial to my decision
to actually try to publish the book. When I finally became dis­
couraged by several local publishing houses informing me that
no-one was interested in grammar, or even in patois, I turned
to my friend Sista P, Pauline Petinaud, of Content District, Hope
Bay, Portland for help. Sista P had founded an independent
school in a school-less district, where patois is often used in
teaching primaiy students the mysteries of standard English.
She had also shared my book with her many international
visitors who stayed in her simple mountain guest-houses. She
agreed to act as my agent and find a publisher. Her unswerving
faith and confidence guided this book through a maze of
obstacles and delays to its eventual home at Kingston Publishers
Ltd. With the encouragement and support of editors Ms. Kim
Robinson Walcott, Ms. Liz Heame, Ms. Cindy Doyle MacRae,
and Ms. Cedlle Maye Hemmings (who eventually undertook
the painstaking and exhaustive task of improving the text), the
manuscript finally found its way to the top of the pile on the
desk of the publisher, the Hon. Mike Henry, M.P. As a former
Minister of Culture, Mr. Henry has strong beliefs in the
economic potential of Jamaican culture as an export and foreign
exchange earner. Interest in Jamaican language and literature
naturally accompanies an interest in reggae, which has already
opened up markets in North America and Europe, Japan and
Africa. I am deeply thankful to all these people, and most of all,
to JAH, that this little book is to be a part of the impressive array
of books now being marketed at home and abroad by Kingston
Publishers Ltd.
L.E.A.
Robin's Bay
February, 1991
 Introduction
(1986...)

The elderly gentleman sitting in the window of the

shoemaker's shop in Annotto Bay leaned over and asked me/
in a slightly British accent, "And how long have you been
living here with us, my lady?"
"No fohteen year?" I answered.
"And since you have been here," he responded in
impeccable English, "you have learned to speak ungrammatical
English!"
"But a no ungrammatical English," I countered, "A
African English!" This set off much loud discussion in the shoe-
shop, and not a little laughter...
The language whose grammar is described in this book is
this so-called "ungrammatical English" - better, this Afro-
Jamaican patois. It is not the language of the educated classes,
no matter how peppered their speech with Jamaican words and
expressions, no matter how African their accent. Many
Jamaicans no longer use many of the grammatical con­
structions described herein, but few Jamaicans would not under­
stand them. One can still hear them in daily use all over the
island, spoken by those who have not altered their traditional
speech. Afro-Jamaican patois represents one extreme, one pole
of the linguistic spectrum in Jamaica. Standard English repre­
sents the other pole. The majority of Jamaicans now fall some­
where in between the two. But a large segment of the popula­
tion still use all the grammar in this book on a daily basis.

The first version of this little book was written about

thirteen years ago. An American woman was teaching a class of
children in Highgate, St. Mary, who were supposed to be slow
learners, or possibly even mentally retarded. It seemed to her
that some of their problems were probably purely linguistic in
nature. They came from mono-lingual patois-speaking homes
where perhaps there was not even a radio broadcasting standard
English. I originally wrote this book in a child's school note­
book, with Afro-Jamaican sentences written with red magic
marker on one page, and the equivalent standard English
sentences written in blue on the opposite page. The children
1
 loved reading the book in pairs, each one reading one colour.
"I no baan ya, I ongle come on ya!" as the saying goes. I
felt that my writing a book like this, as a foreign immigrant,
would not be appreciated. Therefore my little book remained in
its primitive state, used only by stray tourists who expressed
interest in learning more about the language. Then in 1984 a
visitor, Mr. Jerry Kendrick, took an interest in my by then
cockroach-eaten little book. He took it back to Lawrence, Kansas,
where he printed it out for me on his computer. This encourag­
ed me to rewrite and revise it.
I am tired of hearing visitors complain that they cannot
find a good book to buy which gives an explanation of the lang­
uage. Perhaps this little book can fill a gap until the U.S. Peace
Corps sees fit to make the manual by the Jamaican linguist,
Beiyl Bailey, Jamaican Creole Language Course <1968), available
in the commercial market.
After searching bookstores in Kingston, I have conclud­
ed that the books on Jamaican patois cluster around two poles,
leaving a wide gap in the middle - into which I am casting this
book. On the one hand, if one is lucky one can find two expen­
sive hardcover academic studies of Jamaican speech by Frederic
Cassidy, both classics in the field:
F. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk: 300 Years of the English
Language in Jamaica (London, 1961);
F. Cassidy & Robert LePage, A Dictionary of Jamaican
English (Cambridge, 1967).
The basic grammatical information in these volumes is some­
what eclipsed by a mountain of information about vocabulary
and etymology. But the point is that the books are too colossal
and expensive for the casual beginner who wants quick and
easy access to the language*. By contrast, this little book, as its
subtitle indicates, concentrates on grammar, not vocabulary. In
Cassidy's words,
"The most striking differences between the folk speech of
Jamaica and the educated speech are not in the sounds, still
less in the vocabulary, they are in the grammar ..." (Jamaica
Talk, op.dt., p. 49).
/
*' Since this was written, the first title is now available in a paperback edition.

2
 The Jamaican linguist, Beryl Bailey, has published
several books on Jamaican Creole, which unfortunately at
present seem to be available only in libraries. Jamaican Creole
Syntax, a transformational approach (Cambridge, 1966) is too
technical for a beginner who is not versed in modem linguis­
tics. But her Language Guide to Jamaica (New York, 1962) and
her Peace Corps Jamaican Creole Language Course (1968) need to
be republished on a wide scale. The latter stresses oral exercises,
pronunciation, idiomatic speech, and is some 300 pages long. It
conveys grammar more by imitation than by explanation. It is
available at the University of the West Indies library on
microfilm.
A visitor making a quick stop in a Jamaican bookstore is
unlikely to stumble on any of the above books. What is avail­
able in bookstores and airports are some little booklets designed
to introduce tourists to Jamaican patois. I have yet to see one of
these which includes an attempt to explain the grammar. They
usually consist of brief lists of vocabulary and idioms likely to
be encountered by the superficial visitor. Interesting light
reading, but this does not speak to the needs of the more serious
visitor, the one who comes back year after year, or who resides
or works here for several years. In order to understand the real
rural or traditional patois, people need to have an understand­
ing of grammar, especially, in our case, of the verbal system.
Because standard English is understood, if not spoken,
everywhere in Jamaica, those using this book may be less inter­
ested in learning to speak the language themselves than in
learning to understand it. Some Jamaicans, like Frenchmen,
tend to mock those who speak imperfect imitations of their
native speech with heavy foreign accents. Others feel that Afro-
Jamaican patois is simply "bad grammar" and that those who
have mastered standard English are morally obligated to use it
at all times. Even if she continues to speak standard English, the
foreigner in the course of her professional work or in the course
of her daily contacts as a resident in a community, continually
encounters people speaking patois. Though these Jamaicans
may more or less successfully alter their speech to make her
better understand, her communication with them must be
deepened by a better understanding of their grammar.
Grammar is usually quite unconscious. Small children
speak according to rules of grammar of which they are quite

3
unaware. Unless one formally studies grammar, or leams
another language with a different grammar, one can go through
life quite ignorant of one's own grammar. Therefore a visitor
who inquires of mono-lingual patois speakers about their
language tends to get just what he gets in the little tourist books.
People will tell him exotic Jamaican words or strange pro­
nunciations or even "roots" expressions. But they are unlikely
to explain how they make past and future tenses, etc. Even
specific questions on such subjects may meet with evasive or
confusing answers.
This book was originally short, simple and concise. It has
grown a little longer and less concise, but it is still basically
simple. The vocabulary list is only a small sample of the
Jamaican lexicon. The idea is for the learner to go out and
collect words and idioms on his own. Blank pages are provided
for this purpose. The section with practice sentences and their
translations is really a drill covering the most common variant
grammatical constructions discussed in the text and is primarily
verbal in nature. The orthographic system used to spell patois
in the main body of this book is imperfect and incomplete. A
less imperfect but perhaps less practical orthographic system,
one originally published by Cassidy, is introduced in the final
section of this book. The many questions of phonetics which are
involved here are so extensive that I have made them the
subject of two separate chapters.
My biggest hesitation in publishing this book relates to
the nature of the story told in the Reading Selection. The story
was transcribed from a tape of «my children responding to their
father's tale of his traumatic childhood in rural St. Mary in the
1940s. Mercifully, the tape ends suddenly just when the story is
becoming too painful to print. Many Jamaicans will resent such
things being exposed to outsiders. To which I can only reply,
this story is clearly set in the 1940s. What was happening else­
where in the world at that time is nothing to be proud of either.
Furthermore, the type of foreigner who is seriously interested
in Afro-Jamaican speech is not going to remain fenced into a
cosmetic hotel compound. She is going to be out there among
the patois-speaking strata of the population, where the differ­
ences in child-rearing practices cannot be hidden from her. In
fact the difficult conditions in which many Jamaican children
still live cause some culture shock to the long-term visitor.

4
 Finally, I would like to address one more question. This
language does not have an official name. Bailey and others
have called it "Jamaican Creole". This is an accurate term, but it
does not seem to be much used in Jamaica today. Technically
the term "Creole" refers to a mixed African/European language.
But because the term was also used to refer to "Europeans bom
in the West Indies" it seems rather inappropriate as the name
for the language of the Africans of Jamaica. The French term
"patois", though widely used in Jamaica today, is not a proper
name of this language either. It is a common noun which can
refer to any language in the world which is considered.a
'broken" or "degraded" version of a "proper" language.

What we are really confronting in Jamaica is simply a

process of hybridization. It is a gross calumny to assume that the
result of this interbreeding is an inferior form of English. People
resort to hybrids when attempting to produce superior strains of
plants or animals. The English language itself was bom of a
similar crossing between the languages of various conquering
and conquered peoples. We must at all times bear in mind that
this Afro-Jamaican patois may have spawned positive
improvements of the English language.

Afro-Jamaican English. How about Afrojam? Some

might object to this name because the patois is also spoken by
the other non-African ethnic groups such as the East Indians,
the Chinese, and even the German Jamaicans. Although the
East Indians, Spanish, and Arawaks have contributed a few
items of vocabulary, all serious studies of this language agree
that the vast majority of the non-English vocabulary is African,
as is the phonology (the sound system) and much of the
grammar. The African element in the Jamaican population is in
the overwhelming majority, probably in the region of 90-
95%. The fact that all races nave adopted the Afro-Jamaican
speech does not make it any less African...

5
 The Question of Phonetic Spelling
(P arti)

Hie seemingly insoluble problems involved in the

spelling of Afro-Jamaican speech caused me to stash away this
rook for twelve years. I despaired of finding a satisfactory
solution. The problem does not lie in the phonetic spelling of
peculiarly Jamaican words or pronunciations. These can be
spelled fairly easily with simple non-technical phonetic
spellings (for most of which I am indebted to Bailey and
Cassidy, op.dt.). The problem lies in the spelling of standard
English words which are pronounced approximately the same
way in Afro-Jamaican and in standard. If the standard spellings
of such words are retained, the effect is a glaring contrast
between the phonetic simplicity of the Jamaican words and the
grossly non-phonetic, often absurd, archaic spellings of the
standard English. Yet to respell standard English phonetically
involves retranscribing the entire English language, an im­
provement which should have been effected and put into
general use centuries ago.*

English was originally a patois, like Afro-Jamaican. It

was an "ungrammatical" (i.e. "new-grammatical") mixture of
the Germanic language of the conquered Angles and Saxons
and the Norman French language of their conquerors, with bits
of Celtic and Latin thrown in. Similarly, the Jamaican patois is a
"new-grammatical" mixture of the languages of the conquered
Africans and that of their English conquerors, with bits of
Spanish and native American Arawak thrown in.

The phonetic differences in the various languages

ancestral to the young medieval English patois have left us a
jumbled heritage. Modem English has never even pretended to
have any phonetic consistency. A separate technical phonetic
alphabet for use in dictionaries, etc., has to be employed side by
side with the jumbled standard spellings. The much younger

* The only valid argument for retaining certain non-phonetic spellings is the
homonymic argument: certain spellings help us to distinguish otherwise identical
words (to, too, two). The answer to this argument is simple: we manage to
overcome this problem in speech, where the context, not our ears, supplies the
meaning intended. So why can t werely on the context when writing?
Jamaican patois is now in need of a committee of the wise to
undertake to standardize a reasonably phonetic spelling of our
language. Then we might aspire to join the ranks of the 20th
century community of African languages/ many of which have
been professionally transcribed by modem linguists.

The Orthographic Systems Used in this Book

Two orthographic systems are used in this book, two
different attempts to transcribe or spell Afro-Jamaican speech.
They are to be compared by reading the "A version" and the "B
version" of the reading selection at the end of this book.

The B version is a complete phonetic rendering, in

which non-phonetic standard spellings are totally eliminated,
and the finest nuances of Jamaican pronunciation are easily
recorded. This system was first published by Cassidy in 1961
((vp.cit.), who only used it as phonetic spellings are used in
dictionaries, in parentheses. Bailey adopted this system as the
Jamaican orthography in her Jamaican Creole Language Course
(iop.cit.), written for the U.S. Peace Corps. I have taken the liberty
of modifying this system slightly to make it easier for the
general public to handle. A complete explanation of this B
version and of the importance of the questions of phonetics and
orthography in the Jamaican context is also found at the end of
the book (see "The Question of Phonetic Spelling", Part ID.
The A version is the system used throughout the body . ‘
the text, in the grammatical explanations, examples, and the
glossary. It is an imperfect and incomplete system, like all the
other systems now in use by various artists, poets, and writers. It
is imperfect and incomplete because it is only partially phonetic.
A true indication of pronunciation is given only in the spelling
of peculiarly Afro-Jamaican words, or where the Afro-Jamaican
pronunciation diverges appreciably from the standard English
pronunciation, or where there is some danger of confusion
between the two juxtaposed systems. In most cases where the
Jamaican pronunciation is approximately the same as the
standard pronunciation, I have retained standard spellings,
even where they are archaic and absurd (one, night, know, two).
I have done this to maintain a feeling that this is indeed a
variation of the grand old English language.

7
 By contrast, one glance at the B version gives the impres­
sion that Afro-Jamaican is a fully African language, forbidding
any casual outsider to penetrate its secrets. In my opinion the B
version is a superior method of transcribing Jamaican patois,
and indeed of transcribing the English language. However, it is
totally impractical and unrealistic to imagine such a system
coming into use in our school systems in any foreseeable future
-unless a modem King James arises in the metropolitan
countries and appoints a committee of the wise to chuck all the
mixed-up, archaic, and absurd spellings into the wastebasket - a
most unlikely scenario...

The Phonetic Peculiarities of Afro-Jamaican

A. Consonantal Peculiarities
1. Terminal consonants such as T, D, or P are usually omitted
when preceded by another consonant: (waan/want; spen/
spend; cris/crisp). Where this loss would affect the reader's
perception of the meaning of the word, or of the vowel qua­
lity, an apostrophe has been added: (fin'/find; don'/don't).

2. Occasionally consonants are reversed: (flim/film; aks/ask;

huks/husk; shotrage/shortage).

3. Sometimes an entirely new "intrusive" consonant is

thrown in (fishnin/fishing; ongle/only; destent/decent;
liard/liar).
4. B can take the place of V: (bex/vex; bikl/vittles; shoob/
shove).
5. DL can be replaced by GL: (sagl/saddle; migl/middle; kyanggl
/candle; hanggl/handle).
6. DR can be replaced by J: (jum/drum; jugs/dregs, drugs;
junk/drunk).
7. J can be replaced by D: (dis or dus/just).
8. Initial H is often dropped, or added onto words beginning
with a vowel, a Cockney legacy: (av/have; hegg/egg; heat/

8
 eat; aaty/hearty). Initial W can be dropped and an initial H
substituted: (ooman or hooman/woman; hood/wood;
hooda/would).
9. The terminal sounds -OWN or -OUND may be replaced
sometimes by -UNG, a pronunciation which seems to be
losing grung/ground: (dung/down; tung/town. Also bunks/
bounce).

10. Internal R is often elided or omitted before a consonant, re-

„suiting in vowel changes: (bun/bum; tun/tum/ bood/biid;
wook/work (short 0 0 as in "book"); haas/horse; hot/hurt).
Terminal R is usually dropped, leaving a short A to replace
final -AR, -ER, -OR (docta/doctor; slippa/slipper; ya/here).
Where the omission of the final R might cause confusion or
suggest a change in vowel quality, I have substituted H:
(weh/where; deh/there) (only in the "A version").

11. Initial S in the combinations ST, SP, and SK is often

dropped: (’kin/skin; 'pit/spit; ’tick/stick).
12. There are no TH sounds in Afro-Jamaican. The TH of
'thick' becomes simply T: (tick/thick; tree/three; tohsan/
thousand). The TH of 'this' becomes D: (dis/this; wid/with;
wanedda/another).
13. Internal -TTL- or -TL- becomes -KL-: (likl/little; bokl/bottle;
tikle/title).

B. Vowels and Peculiar Diphthongs (in the A version)

The proper vowel system for transcribing Afro-Jamaican
vowels is the so-called continental system (used in transcribing
most sub-Saharan languages of Africa). Basically the five
vowels are pronounced as in Spanish:
A -ahoraah
E -eh or ay
I ; -ioree
O -oh or long o
U -uhorlonguorlongoo
Note that the eleventh vowel, short OO as in "book", is not
included in this continental system. I use double OO to repre­
sent this sound where necessary.
9
 Notes
1. a) Following Cassidy and Bailey, I have used a double AA
to indicate the long "aah" sound: (waar/war; maanin/
morning).
b) Note that the "aw" sound of English "call, bawl, all" etc.
is lost in Jamaican in favor of a long "ah" or AA sound:
(caal/call; baal/bawl).
2. An odd phenomenon called palatalization occurs in certain
cases when a A is preceded by a hard G or hard C(K) sound.
The A becomes a YA sound: (kyar/car; kyai/carry; kya/care;
kyap/cap; kyan/can; kyaan/can't). The K is used here in
preference to C because C before Y is soft, as in "cyanide".
(Gyal/gal, girl; gyap/gap; gyard/guard; gyarden/garden).
Note that this G is hard, not soft as in standard "gyrate".
This palatalization does not occur before all shades of the
vowel A. Thus "call" is not kyall, but caal.
3. I often spell the short E sound (as in "egg") with an EH if
there is any chance of confusion with standard English spell­
ings where a single E sometimes has an "ee" sound. Thus
Jamaican weh/where could be spelled we except for confu­
sion with standard "we".*
On the other side of the same coin, I have changed the spell­
ing of the pronouns "we, me, she" to wi, mi, shi to avoid
using the single E to express the sound I in the continental
system. . -
4. The long I sound of English is not included in the continen­
tal vowel system. Technically, it is the diphthong AI (as in
the exclamation Ai-yai-yail). I have preserved the spelling I
for the personal pronoun T in the A version in the inter­
est of familiarity and because of the importance of the I-syn-

* Long E (-ay as in day) is actually usually pronounced as a diphthong in Afro-

Jamaican speech: die/day; niem/name. This ,diphthongization, of the long H sound
is included in the B version phonetic system mentioned above I have refrained
from using such spellings in the A version in the main body of the text in order to
retain the familiar standard spellings. In addition, this diphthong pronunciation is
becoming less accentuated among the modernized and the urbanized, being pre­
served mainly for special emphasis. A similar diphthongization of the long O
sound (bluo/blow; nuo/know/ stuon/stone) has been left out of the A version but
included in the B version for the same reasons.

10
 drome in Jamaican Rastafarian speech.*
5. Note that in Jamaican speech short O is pronounced exactly
like A - "a". Thus pot, hot are indistinguishable from pat,
hat. In the interest of preserving standard English familiar
spellings where they are not grossly confusing, I have
retained both the A and the O to spell this identical sound.
Note that short A is the short "ah" sound, never the nasal
short A of American speech. Thus man is pronounced
"mon", and many have taken to spelling it so. To be consist­
ent one would have to change all A's into O’s, with much
loss of familiar spellings.

6. Where there is a special need to distinguish a long O sound

from a short O, I have used the device of adding an H: (tohn
/town - see below, no. 9).
7. The English diphthong OI is pronounced in Jamaican patois
like long I in standard English (AI in the continental sys­
tem). Cassidy (1961, p. 34-35) points out that this pronuncia­
tion was acceptable in 18th century English and still
survives in dialectal pockets in England today: (ile/oil; nise/
noise; vice/voice; tai/toy; pison/poison). Pison seems to be
an exception to the usual rule that a W intrudes between
the diphthong and a preceding B or P: (bwai/boy; 'pwile/
spoil; bwile/boil).
8. The English diphthong OU or OW, when pronounced as in
"Ouch!", is softened in Afro-Jamaican to the long O sound
(spelled oh in the A version): (coh/cow; hoh/how; noh/now;

* This use of the letter I for the personal pronoun T creates a certain problem, how­
ever. There are two other very common Afro-Jamaican words which also consist
solely of the letter I (but are pronounced as a continental 1 or "ee"). One is the pro­
noun "it", minus the terminal Y: I'. The other is the definite article di/ the, when­
ever the initial D is dropped: *i. When these two little words are written in small
case type, !' and % there can be no confusion with die personal pronoun T . But
should one of them, especially the pronoun i'/it, occur at the beginning of a sen­
tence, real confusion is created:
I waan some moh can be 1) I want some more, or 2) It wants some more (it needs,
itisladdng).
This problem is usually solved by the use of the apostrophe to indicate the elided or
omitted letter. Thus F is the pronoun 'it', while 1 is the artide di. I am annoyed by
transcriptions of dialect which are splattered with too many unnecessary apostro­
phes representing every omitted letter. As a compromise I only use the apostrophe
where there seems to be an actual danger of confusion. Otherwise, the context
makes the meaning dear.

11
 brohn/brown; arohn/around; hohs/house). See above,
(Section A, note 9) for instances where -OUND or -OWN
becomes -UNG.
9. Many other subtleties in Jamaican pronunciation of vowels
and diphthongs are self-evident from the spellings used in
the text. Others are ignored in favour of the standard spell­
ings in the main body of the text (A version), but are recog­
nized and included in the true phonetic system (B version)
used in the Reading Selection at the end of the book. I repeat
that I have not used this fully phonetic system in the main
text because it gives the impression that Afro-Jamaican
patois is a strange and arcane language, difficult to penetrate.
Retaining the maximum number of standard English spell­
ings preserves the sense of familiarity necessary to encour­
age students unfamiliar with the language and bilingual
children who need to bridge the two languages in their
minds every day.

12
 An Introduction to
Afro-Jamaican Grammar

I. Nouns
The plural in Afro-Jamaican is often implied or under­
stood. The singular form of the noun is the form for both
singular or plural, except in a few cases where the standard
plural has become the singular form:

one foot, two foot one foot, two feet

one man, nuf man one man, many men
oneteet,sixteet one tooth, six teeth
one iez, two iez one ear, two ears
In other words, the archaic stem-changing nouns (foot/
feet, etc.) have been reduced to one form, and the plural suffix -s
has been eliminated. When there is a clear need to indicate a
plural, the third person plural pronoun, dem, is placed after the
noun:

di man-dem the men

Digyal-demacome. The girls are coming.
Don' blame di yout-dem. Don’t blame the youth (pi.).
Move di goat-dem. Move the goats.
This practice of using the third person plural pronoun
after the noun to indicate the plural is an African device carried
over to Jamaica. Most Afro-Jamaicans are descended from
peoples speaking languages of the Niger-Congo family. This
vast family of related languages stretches from Senegal to the tip
of South Africa and the shores of East Africa. It includes such
languages as Akan, Twi, Fanti, Ewe, Yoruba, Ibo, Efik, Ibibio,
Mandingo, Wolof, Serer, Fulani, etc. as well as the myriad lang­
uages of the Bantu sub-family (e.g. Kikongo, Ovimbundo,
Duala, Kuba, Luba, Swahili, etc.). A minority of the languages of
this family has lost the original common system of noun
suffixes and prefixes indicating the plural. These languages
resort instead to the device of adding the third person plural
pronoun to indicate the plural. An example is the Ewe language
of Ghana and Togo: ame-wo/man-they ("the men").*
13
 In the Yoruba language the third person plural pronoun
is placed before a noun to indicate the plural. This usage
perhaps survives in the Afro-Jamaican:
Yu see dem pikny? Do you see the children?
or those children?
or their children?
Note that this dem before the noun, however it is translated,
removes the need for a dem after the noun. It is already dear
that a plural is involved here.
Possession
English uses -'s or -s' to indicate the possessive case of a
noun. In Afro-Jamaican possession is either implied or indicat­
ed by the preposition fi/fon
Adibwaiboat It is the boy's boat.
A di bwai-dem boat It is the boys'boat.
A fi'ibw ai. It is the boy's.
A fi'i bwai-dem. It is the boys'.

* Encyclopedia Britannica, under "Afr&an Languages: die Niger-Congo Family" and

Dietrich Westerman & M A Bryan, The Languages o f Ykst Africa (Oxford, 1952), p.
92 it The much simplified device of using "they" to indicate a plural is also used in
many of the languages of the Mandingo sub-family. The Mandingo people created
the enormous multi-national Mali empire in the medieval period. Hie Mali
empire may have preserved important cultural and linguistic traditions dating
bade two thousand years to the andent Nilotic empire of Kush, whose capital dty,
Meroe, was near modem Khartoum in the Sudan. Amazing as it may seem, tradi­
tional Jamaican patois has actually preserved a method of plural formation the
roots of which stretch back to the Meroitic language spoken in the first millennium
B.C. Although this extinct language has not yet been fully "cracked", or dedphered,
its pattern of forming noun plurals is dear the third person pluralpronoun, abe,
functions as the plural suffix (Zhylarz in Kush, VoL 4, 1956, p. 26). This suffix may
have struck the Greek ear as ope, and may explain the ending of many foreign
ethnic plural names as preserved in Greek: Kastopes, Rhodopes, Aeiopes, and,
most famous of all, Alfiiiopes, the andent Ethiopians from the kingdom of Kush.
This suffix still survives in several languages in the Caucasus area, where it may
have been carried by the Mack-skinned, woolly-haired Coldtians, deserters from an
Egyptian army which invaded Asia.

14
n. Artides
A. Definite Artide

"The" is pronounced DEE or DL I have chosen the

spdling DI to avoid confusion with the adverb and verb deh/
there, which is often spelled de in dialect literature or in pho­
netic spellings.

In rapid speech die word di is often reduced to 'i. Usually

at the beginning of a sentence the D is retained, but even here it
can be dropped:
Di pikny a dead. The child is dying.
1 pikny a dead.

When necessary I use the spelling *i or 1 to distinguish

this definite artide from the pronoun "it", which is usually
spelled i' or I' (dropping the final T), and from the pronoun T':
Iagi'im ani'. I am giving it to the num.

When the D of the definite article is dropped after a

preceding A, a long T ' (AD sound is produced by the combi­
nation of the A and the I:

offai table off of the table

eenalhohse in the house
Imgaanalbank. He has gone to the bank.
Ai bwai boat It is the boy's boat.
B,. Indefinite Artide
Although the word "a" may serve as the indefinite
artide, as in standard English, the word "one” is frequently used
in its stead. This may have resulted from the need to distin­
guish the indefinite artide from the preposition a and the verb a
(see below, IV and VII/L):
Gi mi a cutlass. Give me a machete.
But: Mi a gaa one Aim. I am going to a movie.
Awadat? Aoneduppy? What is that? Is it a ghost?
III. Adjectives and Adverbs
The adverbial ending -LY is usually dispensed with. The
same word can serve as adjective or adverb:
Di pikny quick, eeeh? Isn't the child quick?
Run quick noh, Run quickly won't you,
man! man!

(Noh is used as a tag question, like Spanish "no?",

French "n’est-ce pas?", English "won't you?" etc. A nearly
equivalent patois tag is don't it? But noh is most commonly
used in a specific sense best described by Cassidy and LePage:
"following an order or request, inviting compliance. A response
in terms... ofaction is expected...")
Descriptive adjectives or adveibs are often doubled, a
trait of many African languages:
A so-so wuk mi I have nothing but work
dehpon. to do.
A one dege-dege He gave me only one
piece im gi mi! measly piece!
Di pikny too fraidi- The child is too fearful,
fraidi.
How yu a do i slaka- Why are you doing it so
slaka so? slackly?
The adverbs of place, deh/there and ya/here, are often
used with the adverb so:
deh-so,ya-so right there, right here

Comparison
Was' bite hotta dan Wasp bites are more painful
ants bite. than ant bites.
Fanso bigga 'an iso is bigger than
Fanso
Pressafoot. Pressafoot.

Dan or 'an are both in common use for standard English

"than".

16
 Im ai biggis outai whola He is the biggest one of my
mi pikny dem. kids.
For superlatives there are also many colourful, fairly
untranslatable idioms such as:
Di mango-dem sweet The mangoes are
yulaas! unbelievably sweet!
Dat man deh bad no ras! That man is damn bad!

17
Prepositions
A means "to, at, in, of' etc.:
a tung to town
a yaad at home, in the yard
offa off of
eena in, into
paat ai lan' part of the land
haf ai peer half of the pear
Boht is the common form of "about".
Fi means "for" or indicates possession. (See Pronouns,
possessive, V, B):

Fiwa? What for?

Im gaan fi im ting-dem. He has gone for his things.

Note that fi at the end of a sentence is usually fa:

A wa dat good fa? What is that good for?
This preposition fi must be distinguished from the verb
fi, meaning "must, should":
Yu fi gi mi fi yu money You must give me your
fii wata bilL money for the water bill.
Fran is a form of the. preposition fram, usually before a
vowel.

Fran ya to deh. From here to there.

Ina or eena means "in, into"; at the end of a sentence,
simply een:
ina di hohse in the house
Put i eenai box. Put it into the box.
r gaan een. It has gone in:
Ohta, hoht means "out of, out".
Pon means "on, upon".
 8. Puttin' away means "except".
9. Unda, unnaneet, neet means "under, underneath,
beneath".
10. Widohtn, "without, unless".

19
V. Pronouns
A. Personal Pronouns
Singular Plural

1st person: mi, I I or me wi we or us

2nd person: yu you yu,uno you, you all

3rd person: im he, she, dem they, them

her, him,
it (animate)
shi she, her
har her
i', it, hit it (inanimate)
Notes
Afro-Jamaican speech has dispensed with distinctions of
case, such as subjective, possessive, objective pronouns. Thus,
with the exceptions of the modem intrusions, us and har, the
various forms of the personal pronouns can be used inter­
changeably:
1st person: Mi a dead! I am dying!
Gi I some, noh? Won't you give me some?
Tell wi di trut’! Tell us the truth.
But never: Us a go.
Cassidy (1961, p. 54) points out that a word me (mi?) also
happens to be the first person singular in Twi and some related
languages from Ghana. Thusit is not surprising that in tradi­
tional Jamaican speech it wasthe ubiquitous form of the first
person singular pronoun.*

Cassidy states that the pronoun I is pronounced A (AH). This is a common pro­
nunciation, but my own observation is that the increasing stress on I brought about
by education and the Rastafarian rejection of mi for I has resulted in a dearer long 1
(AI) sound as in standard English. To the Rastas the choice of I implies self-asser­
tion and dignity, and the syllable is affixed to and substituted in many of their
words.

20
2nd person: Why does standard English lack a second person
plural pronoun? Afro-Americans introduced "you-all" or "yal"
to fill the same need. The Jamaican word uno (or unu), accord­
ing to Cassidy (p. 54) probably derives from the Ibo language of
Nigeria.

According to some surviving African principle of vowel

harmony/ a final -i sound before uno can change to -u:
Mi fi gi uno some? Should I give y'all some?
Mi fi gu uno some?
Afiunodemya? Are these yours (plural)?
Afuunodemya?
3rd person: In traditional Afro-Jamaican speech, as in many
African languages, one pronoun, im, served for both male and
female. It can also represent the pronoun 'It" in reference to
animate creatures, and even inanimate things personified, such
as boats, cars, etc. This parallels a similar usage in colloquial
English: "Give her gas!"

Imdusavbaby. She just had a baby.

This pronoun im is in fact often pronounced as a pure
nasal sound i, without a final -M sound. Its presence in rapid
speech can often escape the foreign ear.

Nowadays the pronoun shi is gaining ground. It can be

used in the objective case, though im or har would be more
common. Har is not used in the subjective case unless it is the
second element in a compound subject:
Mek shi gwaan! Make her go on!
Mekhargwaan!
Mek im gwaan!
Me an har a gwaan She and I are going on
widohtn uno. without you.
But never: Har a go.
Similarly, though dey can be heard sometimes for the
third person plural subjective case, it is never used in the
objective case. However, dem is still nearly universal for both
cases:
21
 Dem a baal fi wata. Theyare bawling for water.
Gi dem some! Give them some!
But never: Gideysome!
Rastafarian pronouns: The Rastafarians have their own pecu­
liar pronoun system, intended to emphasize the unity or I-nity
of all persons. This system uses forms of I, I an I, I-man, or I-ah in
all cases:
Singular Plural
1st person: I, I an I, I-man Ian I
2nd person: I-ah (direct address di I-dem, di Idren
or vocative)
di I, di Idren
(brethren)
3rd person: dil,dildren di I-dem, di Idren
Examples:
Im anatelldil. I am telling you, or him,
orher.
I an I dis a sata. We are just giving thanks
and rejoicing.
The I-dem no fi folia Vail mustn't follow con
samfaiman. men.
Gidilfiim dunza, Give him his cash, now,
noh, I-ah! man!

B. Possessive Pronouns (and Possessive Adjectives)

To form a possessive pronoun one simply places the
word fi/for before the personal pronouns:
Singular Plural
1st person: fim i my, mine fi wi our, ours
2nd person: fi yu your, yours fiyu, your, yours
fiuno
3rd person: fiim his, hers, its, fidem their, theirs
fiar hers

22
 Gi I fi I rights! Give me my rights!
Di donkey a fiw i The donkey is ours.
A fu who dis? A fu uno? Whose is this? Is it yours?
In practice the personal pronoun is often simply used as
the possessive adjective, without fi:
Tekyumeathohta Take your meat out of my
mi rice! rice!

G Demonstrative Pronouns (and Adjectives)

As in American colloquial speech, the simple demonstra­
tive pronouns and adjectives, dis/this and dat/that, are often
expanded to "this here (one)" and "that there (one)":

Disyaaboss. This here (one) is boss

(superior).
Datdehafiibredda. That (one) there is the
brother’s.
Dat one deh is sometimes shortened to da one deh or 'a* one
deh, 'a' being the word dat minus the initial D- and final -T. In
the plural we have dem ya and dem deh, though the words dese
and dose are gaining some ground:
Dem ya nail-dem betta These nails are better
an dem deh. than those.

D. Interrogative Pronouns (and Adjectives)

The usual English interrogative words are in general
use: who, which, what (wa), when, where (weh), etc. However
there is no inversion of subject and verb in general interro­
gation:
Who a come? Who is coming?
Hoh long yu a wait? How long have you been
waiting?
When yu a go? When are you going?
The common use of the word A before an interrogative
word has been noted by Cassidy (1961, p. 56) with the comment
23
that Twi and some other Niger-Congo languages also have an
interrogative word A.
A who do i? Who did it?
A yu do i? Did you do it?
A im name Pearlene? Is she the one named
Pearlene?
E Relative Pronouns

These are generally similar to standard English "whom"

of course having been dropped. The pronoun wa (what) is also
used to mean "who, which". There is another relative
pronoun, wey, which sounds just like weh (where), but can
mean "what, who, which, that". Perhaps it is the word "where"
extended like "what" to other meanings, or perhaps it is even
some African word. In any case, it is ubiquitous:

dibookwam ilef the book which I left

bohtya around here
di gyal wa yu a talk the girl about whom you
are talking
di man wey mi see the man whom I saw the
waday other day
di rockstone wey im the rock with which he
tek lick mi hit me

24
VI. Conjunctions
The subordinate conjunction say; otherwise spelled sey
or seh, is the most distinctive Jamaican conjunction. It follows
verbs of telling, hearing, thinking, communicating, etc. and is
often identical with or indistinguishable from the verb say, used
in sequence with the preceding verbs:
Im tell wi say im bex. He told us that he is angry.
A true say im dead? Is is true that he is dead?
Unonoyasaydem Haven't you heard that
dead areddy? they are already dead?
Yunotinksaymi Don’t you think that I
fi dwi? should do it?

According to Cassidy there is an Akan verb se (from

Ghana), "which after a previous verb means saying, telling,
commanding, and introduces the words spoken. It is often not
to be translated; it means no more than 'namely' or serves as a
mere quotation mark" (1961, p. 63).

That Jamaicans use the word neither fully as a verb nor

as a conjunction is clear from the two following examples:
A wa yu tell im say? What did you tell him?

In this case the two words tell and say are associated in the same
way as in the first examples, but say here could not be a subor­
dinate conjunction, as there is no following clause or quotation.

Yu no see say a lie Don't you see that he is

imatell? telling a lie?

Because seeing or perceiving does not involve speech, the word

say here could not be the veib, but is rather a subordinate
conjunction. Where the two uses of say are both present, one
would expect to find the phrase say say. Although one does hear
this sometimes, I have noticed that people usually stop short of
saying say say. Instead they stress the word say and then pause a
second before going on to the quoted material:
Imsay,digyalno He said the girl is no good
good an im naa and he is not going to
mix up wid har. mix up with her.
25
VII. Verbs
The Afro-Jamaican verbal system has eliminated most
multiple forms of standard English stem-changing verbs, such
as "go, went, gone", "sing, sang, sung", or "am, is, are, was,
were, etc.". It has also eliminated the few surviving English
tense suffixes (-s, -t, -ed) and participial suffixes (-en, -ing). In
most cases one form of the standard verb has become the
Jamaican form of the verb. This verb is then used by itself or in
combination with various auxiliary verbs (or remnants of
auxiliary verbs) to indicate various tenses.
A. Basic Jamaican Tenses
1. Simple Present imsay he says

2. Present Progressive imasay he is saying

3. Past Definite im en say he said

or im wen say

4. Past Progressive im ena say he was saying

or im wena say

5. Future im a go say he is going to say

or im ao say or he will say
or im o say
or im wi say

6. Past Future .im ena go say he was going to

or im enao say say
or im wena go say
or im wenao say

7. Conditional im wooda say he would say

or im da say

8. Past Conditional im wooda en he would have

say said
B. Negative Forms of the Tenses
1. Simple Present im no say he does hot say
or im don' say
26
2. Present Progressive im naa say he is not saying
3. Past Definite im nen say he did not say
4. Past Progressive im nena say he was not saying
5. Future im naa go say he is not going
or im nao say to say
6. Past Future im nena go say he wasn't going
or im nenao say to say
7. Conditional im neva he wouldn't say
wooda say
8. Past Conditional im neva wooda he wouldn't
ensay have said
Anyone who has had to struggle to memorize the con­
fusing jungle of English stem-changing irregular verbs will
appreciate at a glance the superiority of this Afro-Jamaican
stable-stem verbal system. No wonder a child who thinks in
this language has trouble trying to translate his thoughts into
standard English archaic forms. This is especially true when, as
in many of our Jamaican primary schools, little or no explana­
tion of this constant process of mental translation is provided
by the teacher. A Jamaican schoolchild may be secretly con­
vinced that his own language is superior to the jumbled verbal
forms which he is forced, usually unsuccessfully, to memorize.
But he dare not express such an opinion in the classroom,
where the canons of standard English are still sacrosanct.
C Variant Tenses
The above chart is an oversimplified version of a more
complex reality. Jamaicans love to point out peculiar localized
versions of various tenses. But on the whole the language is
remarkably homogeneous, given the varied ethnic back­
grounds of the people who speak it. The most commonly
mentioned peculiar tenses which do not appear on the chart
are:
Mi ben deh say or which seem to be a past
mi wen da say progressive tense, variants
of ena say or wena say.

27
 Mi deh say or which some claim is a
mi da say future tense; more likely it
is a present progressive.
This last one, mi da say should be distinguished from mi wooda
say or mi did a say, in both of which the first syllable can be
gobbled up, leaving simply mi da say. In these two forms,
especially as a condensation of mi wooda say, mi da say is quite
current and common. As a present progressive (in the above
list) it is archaic and uncommon.
As the older rural forms of patois fade out, newer tense
forms more closely approaching standard English are taking
their place, especially among the young. Nowadays one
frequently hears:
mi did say I said
instead of mi en say
or mi wen say
mi dida say I was saying
instead of mi ena say
or mi wena say
mi did a go say I was going to say
instead of mi enao say
or mi wenao say
Note that the traditional negative forms of the tenses are
holding their own. One doesn't hear mi no did say, but rather
mi nen say, etc.
I will leave other such detailed questions to the special­
ists. As its title implies, this book is by no means a complete
survey of Afro-Jamaican grammar. It is an introduction. ..
D. African Cousins
The Afro-Jamaican tense system just outlined bears a
striking resemblance to a system typical of perhaps the majority
of languages of the Niger-Congo family. In this system an un­
changing verbal root or stem is preceded by the subject and a
"tense particle" (or "tense infix", "tense marker", "tense
indicator"). Here is a sample from Swahili, a member of the
28
Bantu sub-family:
Simple Present (a-a-sema) a-sema he says
Present Progressive a-na-sema he is saying
Simple Past a-li-sema he said
Present Perfect a-me-sema he has said
Future a-ta-sema he will say
Conditional a-nge-sema he would say
Past Conditional a-ngali-sema he would have
said.
«r

Recent studies have suggested that 131,000 souls, or 17%

of the total number of Africans imported into Jamaican slavery,
originated in Central Africa and therefore spoke languages of
the Bantu sub-family; 25% or 190,000 originated from the Gold
Coast area, modem Ghana and Togo; and 28% or 212,000, origi­
nated from the Bight of Biafra, modem Nigeria and the
Cameroons.* (Bantu-speaking Cameroonians may figure as part
of this last group.) The relevant ancestral languages of the Gold
Coast and of Nigeria are part of the Kwa sub-family of Niger-
Congo, characterized by an invariable verb root and frequent
use of tense particles.**

One recent scholar, S. Mittelsdorf, has made the point

that the English practice of using the uninflected verb with an
auxiliaiy verb ("He must go, he may go, he will go, etc.") is
actually structurally similar to the African model. Thus the
Jamaican system can claim both English and African ancestry:
Afro-Jamaican: imogoorim wigo (future)
English: he wiU go
Twi (from Ghana): o-be-ko*** ("he-will-go") (future)

E. The Evolution of Afro-Jamaican Auxiliary Verbs

into Tense Particles
Future research on the origins of African tense particles,
difficult as this may be in the near absence of written historical
evidence, may reveal that many of them were originally
auxiliary verbs which evolved into tense particles. Africans
* Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, A Census (Madison, 1969).
~ D. Westeranan Sc M.A. Bryan, The Languages o f West Africa, p. 93ff (Oxford, 1952).
*** Sibylle Mittelsdorf, African Retentions m Jamaican Create: A Reassessment (North­
western Univ. Ph.D. theris, 1978), p. 124-25.

29
 arriving in Jamaica would have been impelled by their in­
grained speech habits to adopt the pre-existing English auxiliary
verbs and streamline them into tense particles. Or they may
have even carried over some particles directly from Africa - at
present the scholars are debating such questions.
1. The Future Tense
The two Jamaican future tense particles, o and wi, are
perfect examples of the above process. The auxiliary verb "will"
nas been shortened to wi. The auxiliary verb "is going", as in
"he is going to say", becomes in Afro-Jamaican, im a go say. In
rapid Jamaican speech the G gets in the way, and we get im ao
say. But two vowels side by side in patois often coalesce into
one. Thus we end up with the ubiquitous im o say. The
simultaneous use of all three forms of this tense marker is a
living specimen of the process of an auxiliary verb being
condensed into a tense particle.

2. The Progressive or"’-mg” Tenses

The normal progressive particle a may have some

connection with the old English "they are a-dandng"/dem a
dance. Many "Jamaicanisms" are surviving examples of now
obsolete old English usages (Cf. Cassidy,passim). However,
since a is also a common tense partide and/or connecting verb
in various African languages, we are probably dealing with
another example of mixed Anglo-African ancestry.
As for the variant form of the progressive partide, da, as
in dem da baal/they are cfying, this could well be a contraction
of deh and a: dem deh a baaL Both the Ewe and Twi languages of
Ghana have a verb de meaning "to be"*. Such an etymology
would exactly parallel the old English form, "They are a-crying".

3. The Past Tenses

The past tense particle en is often pronounced "in", or<
even more frequently reduced to a simple nasal sound, whichj
could be phonetically indicated by the spelling i. It is i
pronounced exactly like the common nasalization of the !
pronoun im : i. Of course grammatically and etymologically the
* Mittelsdorf, op.cit., p. 119 ff. Cassidy & LePage, op.cit., under de.

30
two little words are totally unrelated. When this tense particle
is reduced to a single nasal sound, it often escapes the notice of
the inexperienced or inattentive listener. At high-speed
Jamaican speech frequencies it is a subtle sound often gobbled
up by neighbouring sounds. But careful listening attests to its
continued widespread use, especially in the negative forms of
the tenses. Among the modernizing, itis being replaced by did.
The question of the etymology or origin of this past tense
particle en is an interesting one. A common variant is the form
wen. Cassidy (1961, p. 60) suggests that this is a phopetic
variation of die auxiliary verb ben/been. This would account for
the widespread pronunciation "in", rhyming With "been". Thus
we would have:
mi ben go/ mi wen go/ all meaning "I went"
mi en go/ mi in go/ mi i go
However, another pronunciation of the particle wen, at least in
St. Maiy, is the diphthongal we-in, which does not at all sound
like "been". This suggests the common condensation of the
verb "was", wey or weh (we-), has been tacked on to the past
particle. Such problems are better left to the specialists. Again,
we are probably seeing in midstream the process of con­
densation of an auxiliary verb into a tense particle. The original
words, in a non-written culture, would soon be forgotten as one
condensation eventually emerges as the accepted tense marker.
F. The Present in the Past, an African Concept
In spite of the existence of this Afro-Jamaican system of
tense formation, it often appears to the casual observer as if
Jamaicans do not use the various past tenses as often as they use
the simple verb stem alone. This phenomenon also has an
African interpretation. In many African languages, once a past
time frame has been indicated (e.g. by yestaday, dus likl while,
etc.) the various actions taking place within that time frame can
be expressed by a present tense. This is particularly true in
narration. It is not necessary for each verb to be in the past tense
as in English.
Similarly, in Afro-Jamaican, if the context makes it clear
that a past time is indicated, there is no need for past tenses. I
prefer to think of this as "the simple tense", the basic verb stem

31
without any accompanying auxiliary verbs or tense particles. It
may be translated by a variety of tenses in standard English:
Shi lick im, den shi She hit him, then she
tump im. thumped him.

Afta im come, wi After he came, we ate

nyam i off. it up.

A wa im tell yu say? What did he tell you?

It is clear to the speaker that these actions of licking, nyamming,
telling, etc., have already happened, so there is no need for a
past tense particle. However, one could have said equally well,
A wa im en tell yu say? The point is that the use of the past
tenses is much more optional than in standard.
It is much less common to dispense with the future and
progressive particles than with the past one. However, in the
first person, the future particle wi can lose the W through
elision, resulting in something that sound tenseless:
Mi 'i gu yu, sounding like mi gi yu for '1 will give you".

(But careful listening usually reveals a slight prolongation of

the -i 'i sound here when a future is intended.)
G. Other Auxiliary Verbs, "the Modals"
Kyan, kooda, shooda, wooda, mighta, muss (mussi),
haffi, and fi are still recognizable auxiliary verbs. Only fi (from
the preposition "for"?), in the verbal sense of "should, must",
or "it is necessary", can be seen as a "modal partide".
Yufigo. You should, must go.
Dem no fi heat They must not be eaten.
Fi plan' yam, yu fi dig To plant yams, you must
one hill. dig a hill.
These modal auxiliaries are used approximately as in
English, except that several of them may be strung together

32
 Im shooda muss kyan He must surely be able to
gettru. succeed.
They precede the past and future tense particles:
Uno shooda en see im. You-all should have seen
her.

Dem mighta o go. They may be going.

However, the reverse is true of haffi and fi:

Imenficome. He was supposed to come.
Mi en haffi feed i I had to feed the hogs,
haag-dem.

Yu wi haffi go, no You will have to go, no

kya wey yu say. matter what you say.

H. Notes on the Stable Verb Stems

Usually the present tense form of the standard English
verb becomes the stable verb stem used in all tenses (e.g. tink,
say, bring, buy, etc.). In a few cases the past tense of the English
verb has become the patois form for all tenses:
M ialef. I am leaving.
Im o lef yu behin'! He will leave you behind.
Dipiknyabruki The child is breaking the
flowa-dem. flowers.
If yu no min' sharp, If you don't watch out, that
dat deh plate obruk. plate will break.
Don1laas i money! Don't lose the money!
(from'lost'')
Im o laas i fine ook-dem. She will lose the fine hooks.
There are also a few cases in which an English adjective
has become a verb stem:
Full i bucket fi mi, no? Fill the bucket for me,
won’t you?
Di puss a dead. The puss is dying.

33
 Sawasap a night awas (Drinking) soursop in the
wi sick yu. night hours will make
yousick.
Min'i rum junk yu! Mind the nun makes you
drunk!

In a few cases a past participial form of the verb (e.g.

gaan, done) has survived the crossing from English into Afro-
Jamaican and can be used to express perfect tenses or the
passive mood:
Dem gaan. They have gone.
When wi reach, dem When we arrived, they
engaan. had gone.
Satday come, dem o By next Saturday they will
gaan already. already have gone.
'I money gaan. The money is gone.
Im done i wuk. He has finished the work.
1 wuk done. The work is finished.
When mi come, im When I came she had
en done i wuk. finished the work.
By tree o'clock i wuk By three o'clock the work
en done. was finished.
Di guava-dem a done. The guavas are being used
up.
Im bex say i shuga ena He was angry that the sugar
done too fas! was being used up too
fast!
Imodonei wuk Soon he will have finished
soon time. . the work.
1 wuk o soon done. The work will soon be
finished.
I. Multiple Verbs
Another African trait which survives in Afro-Jamaican
speech is the stringing together of several verbs in a row, with­
out the need to use infinitives or participial forms:
Kyai go bring come. Cany go bring come, go
fetch (used idiomatically
of news-carrying or
gossip).
shooda muss kyan fin' should be able to find
34

I
 gwaan go heat done go on and finish eating
muss haffi done baal must have finished crying
Im run gaan lef ar. He has run away and left
her.
J. Notes on Negation

The simple and pervasive use of no for negation in Afro-

Jamaican may be a survival from the Spanish era in Jamaica
(1492-1655): Yo no se (Spanish)/ ’1 don’t know". The first
Maroons, the heed slaves formerly belonging to the Spaniards,
were the original core of Jamaica's African population and un­
doubtedly spoke an Afro-Spanish patois. English, with its
inability to say "I not know", offers no comparably simple end
uniform method of negation.

The O in no is usually altered or elided before another

vowel:
Imnaa dwi, He is not doing it.
instead of Im no a do i.
Im nen dwi, He didn't do it.
instead of Itruto en do i.
In negative sentences, the final N of the past particle nen
is elided before a vowel:
Im neh even see mi. He didn't even see me
never: Im no en even see mi.
Wi neh heat none. We didn't eat any.
never: Wi no en heat none.

The above changes are the rule. Sometimes the changes

are optional:
Imnoavnodunzaor He doesn't have any money
Imnaa no dunza. (note the elision of the V).
Other methods of expressing negation are the use of
don' and neva:
Mi neva tell im no lie! I didn't tell him a lie!
Mi neva go deh all noh. I still have not gone there.
Dem don'cook herly. They don't cook early.
35
 Coat don* nyam Goatsdon'teatmarigolds,
marigold.
Note that Afro-Jamaican, like many African languages,
uses double negatives commonly, sometimes even triple
negatives: im no waan gi nobody none.

ICThe Verb'To Be" (in a place)

"Am, is, are, was, were, will be, has been, etc." must be
the most absurdly irregular, as well as the most frequently used,
verb in the English language. Spanish, like many African
languages, distinguishes between "to be" (in a place)/ estar, and
"to be" (someone, something, or some quality)/ ser. Afro-
Jamaican also handles these two types of being in two different
says:
Wehimdeh? Where is he?
Shi deh eenai hohse. She is in the house.
Dem deh deh, They are there.
or more commonly
Dem di deh.
r deh pon 'i table. It is on the table.
Dem no deh ya, They are not here.
or more commonly
Dem no da ya.
Imdehatohn,or He is in town.
Im daa tohn.
Dem deh ohta sea, or They are out at sea.
Demdohtasea.
The pronunciation changes which result in the very
common variant forms di deh and da ya may be relics of ancient
African patterns of vowel harmony, whereby the quality of a
vowel is influenced by the succeeding voweL In the other cases j
(daa, dohta) one vowel has simply been elided or swallowed up
by the other. These vowel-harmonious and vowel-elided forms;
not only sound better, but they are easier on the tongue at the
high-speed, oral-kinetic speech frequencies so prevalent ini
Jamaica.

36
 The tense sequence of this "to be" (ina place) is regular
Uno di deh. You (pL) are there.
Uno o di deh, or You will be there.
Uno wi di deh.
Uno en di deh, or You were there.
Uno wen di deh.
Unoenaodideh. You were going to be there.
Uno nodi deh. You are not there.
Uno nao di deh, or You will not be there, or •
Uno naa go di deh. You are not going to be
there.
(But: Uno no wi di deh?) (Won't you be there?)
Uno nen di deh You were not there.
Unonenaodideh. You weren't going to be
there.
The literal meaning of im deh deh or im di deh is "he
there there", or better, "His thereness (is) there". This
construction is almost identical to a Swahili construction:
Yuko kule. He is there, literally,
Qm deh deh.) He-there there.
Yupohapa. He is here, literally,
(Imdehya.) He-there here.

(-ko, Swahili indefinite "there";

-po, Swahili definite "there".)

This device is quite logical. Why should location, be expressed

verbally, since it is not an action? Adverbs are the words
usually used for expressing location. The problem for the
English-speaking student of African languages, including Afro-
Jamaican patois, is not in understanding such constructions, for
their meaning is clear. The problem is rather in translating
one's own thoughts, which are full of endless forms of the verb
"to be", into proper African usage, throwing away the crutch "to
be".
Simply summed up, "to be" when referring to location is
expressed in Afro-Jamaican patois by the word deh, the adverb
"there". Note that when one wishes to say "he is there", one
repeats the word deh, once for "is" and once for "there". This
37
indicates that the first deh is in fact functioning as a verb.
Cassidy (op.cit., p. 60) suggests an African origin for this verb. He
points to a verb de, meaning "to be", "to be situated, to remain,
to live, to rest", in the Twi language of Ghana.* But the Afro-
Jamaican verb deh is still the adverb "there", in spite of its
functioning as a verb. This is evidenced by the following usage:
whenever another adverb of place modifies the second deh (me
adverbial deh), the first deh (the verbal deh) can be omitted
altogether. Thus:
Im deh deh or Im di deh. He is there.
Im deh dung deh or He is down there.
Im dung deh. He (is) down there.
Dem deh ova deh so or They are right over there.
Dem ova deh so. They (are) right over there.
This is equally true of the expression deh ya:
Im deh ya or Im da ya. He is here.
Im deh dung ya or He is down here.
Imdungya. He (is) down here.
In other words, one cannot simply say im deh or dem ya as a
full sentence. (For an exception, see over, 'Slim and Becca".) A
verb is needed, such as See im deh or Dem da ya. But add the
extra adverb and, lo and behold, no verb is needed: Im dung
deh, dem ova ya. Even more peculiar, if the verb "to be" in such
cases is in the past or future tense, the verbal deh can still be
dropped, leaving the tense particle without the verb:
Mi en deh dung deh or I was down there.
Mi en dung deh. I (was) down there.
Dem o deh dung yaor They will be down here.
Dem o dung ya. They (will be) down here.
Finally, note that deh is also used as a verb in certain
other expressions not exactly referring to place, but meaning "to
be" in the sense of "to exist":
Uno say no God no deh. You-all say there is no God.
Me kyaan believe say no I can't believe that ghosts
duppy no deh! don't exist!
No money no deh fi There is no money to
buyi. buy it.
Note that old Nubian, the language of Medieval Christian Nubia, had a verb da/be,
exist, there is,are. Cassidy and LePage add Ewe: de/to be

38
 Deh is also used when the idea of location is figurative,
not geographic
Mi deh pon leave. I am on vacation leave.
Yu deh pon haad wuk, You're really working hard,
eehbwai? eh, boy/
Im deh pon mi alii She is always after me
while boht i mcmey. about the money.

Finally, the most idiomatic use of deh is surely the terse

*
Slim an Becca deh? Are Slim and Becca lovers?
Sista B. and BreddaD. Sister B. and Brother D.
no deh again. have "broken up".
Note that among the modernizing the locative use of
deh is giving way to its omission:
Iteenaibox. ft Os)in the box.
It wey eenai box. It was in the box.

L. The Verb "To Be" (as a state of being-not referring to place)

When the verb "to be" connects the subject with a noun
or pronoun, it is expressed by the verb a:
Bunny a di leada. Bunny is the leader.
Mary a one faama. Mary is a farmer.
Yu a one a dem. You are one of them.
D atafim i That is mine.
This verb a must be distinguished from four other
separate words in Afro-Jamaican, all of which are expressed by
the same sound a:
A Joeadi one whoa Is Joe the one who is
'tan up agate wid standing up at the gate
adaag? with a dog?

39
 This cumbersome sentence contains the five different
words a:
1. Interrogative word A A Joe?
(seeV,B):
2. The verb a = "to be": Joe a di one
3. The tense particle who a tan up
a = ”-ing": (See VII, A):
4. The preposition a = "at, tan up a gate
in, to", (See IV, A.):
5. The indefinite article a; widadaag.
One would expect the past tense of the verb a to be en a =
"was", but we find the past tense of the verb a is usually
inverted, becoming a en, negative nen (from no a en):

Midaddyaentayla. My daddy was a tailor.

Di lan a en f i ar. The land was hers.
Minennotief. I was not a thief.
Di coh nen fi mi. The cow wasn't mine.

Note that when the verb "to be" connects the subject
with an adjective, the verb a is not used; no verb is necessary, it
is implied:
Di time col'. The weather is cold.
Difoodnonuf. There is not much food.
'I gyal tief! The girl is given to stealing.
Dem no so bad. They are not so bad.
Just as the verb "to be”/ a Is omitted in the present tense before
an adjective, in the past tense the a is omitted, leaving only the
tense particle en.*
Im en maga. He was thin.
Di time en hot The weather was hot.

In the future tense the same thing happens:4

Di time ao hot The weather will be hot
Yuomaga. You will be thin.
In these two instances we seem to have an example of tense particles revealing
their true origins as auxiliary verbs. They seem to function as past and future
tenses of the verb "to be", thus maldng the actual verb a unnecessary ...

40
In the past negative tense the verb is just nen.
Dem nen so bad. They were not so bad.
Di food nen nuf. The food was not enough.
Docta nen plentiful. Doctors were not plentiful.
Nowadays this past negative nen is often replaced by the adverb
neva (see the Reading Section, first page, where the two forms
are used one after the other):
Docta nen plentiful... docta neva plentiful.

Another very common use of the verb a is to replace the

English expletive "it is" (subject understood):
A summatime noh. It is summertime now.
Ayu! It's you!
A no wi dem a talk. It is not us to whom they
are talking.
A African English! It's African English!
A no deh so mi put i, That's not where I put it,
ayaso! it's right here!
(It's not there that I put
fo but right here!)
Another idiomatic and probably African use of the verb
a is the following, which is related to the above usage:
A run dem a run. They are running
(emphatic).
A no joke dem a joke. They are not joking.
A happy mi happy mek It is because lam happy that
mi a gwaan so. I am going on so.
A bad man yu a bad So you are a bad man in
man eena'i place? this place?
Sometimes this verb just seems to seek out the
beginning of a sentence, producing a distinctly non-English
word order
A one wicked man dat That is a wicked man.
A no fu uno dem ya. These are not yours.
A en fi im hohse, i likl The little wattle and daub
wakl an daab. house was his.
A did fi im hohse. It was his house.
41
These same sentences could all be expressed without
the a at the beginning:
Dat a one wicked man.
Dem ya a no fu uno.
1 likl wakl an daab hohse a en fi im.
'I likl wakl an daab hohse did fi im.
Other examples of the use of verbal a:
A good mek im tengle Serves him right to get
up. tangled up.
A mad uno mad? Have you all gone mad?
A love I love yu gaan I love you more than words
to bed. can say.
A bex im bex wid har? Is he really angry with her?
A im foot im lick up. It was his foot he hit
A dung deh so it en deh. It was right down there.
A en Jaaj mi gi i It was George to whom I
sinting. gave the something.
A no dat man mi a I am not talking about that
talk. man.
A no say, well den, mi It is not as if I wanted to do
en waan dwi. it after all.

42
 Practice Sentences Using
Afro-Jamaican Grammar

Verbal constructions using "deh”

in various forms
Wehimdeh? Where is he (she, it)?
Im daa yard. He is in the yard.
A ya so dem deh? Are they right here?
Dem deh pon i dressa. They are on the dresser.
Weh i gyal dem deh? Where are the girls?
Uno no daa Robin Bay You-all aren't living at
again? Robin's Bay any more?
Dem deh ohta sea. They are out at sea.
Dem dohta sea.

Mi deh pon has'e. I am in haste, in a hurry.

Weh yu en deh? Where were you?
Im no di deh? Isn't he there?
Uno nen di deh wa day? Weren't you-all there the
other day?
Smadi da ya, ya! Somebody is here, (do you)
hear?
Sittin da ya fi nyam. There is something here
to eat.
Ina dem deh time im In those times she wasn't
nen da ya. here.
No money no deh. There's no money.
 A hiry music deh pon There is great music on the
iradio! radio!
A no een deh im deh. He's not in there.
Mi deh mongs dem fi I lived with them for one
one year. year.

II. Sentences using verbal tense particles

A wayuasay? What are you saying?
A wayaa say?

Wa im en tell uno say? What did he tell you (pi)?

Mi nen nuo say dem I didn't know they were

enao come. going to come.
Mi pupa a en maga bad. My papa was very thin.
Im nen fat He wasn't fat
Im neva fat
W iagaaatung. We are going to town.
Dis ya coco kyaan This coco can't be eaten,
heat i' spring. it has sprung.
Di cucumba dem o fit. Thecucumbers will be full-
eenai moon. grown by the full moon.

Wa mek i baby dus a Why is the baby behaving

galangso? like that?
A maanin mi ago tell In the morning I'm going
shi say wi tru. to tell her that we're
through.

Im ao come een like She is going to be like her

immuma. mother.
Fayva like i day ao It looks like the weather is
change. going to change.
44
 Mi nenao see dem an I wasn't going to see them
no buy dem! and not buy them!
If di daag-dem nen If the dogs weren't yours, he
fu uno, im wooda would have shot them.
en shoot dem.
Wamek yu enao dwi Why were you going to do
(doi*)? it?
Dem heat done an gaan They finished eating and *
dem way. have gone their way.
A who en dwi? A en Who did it? Was it
Pressafoot? Pressafoot?
Dem en gaan, an mi neh They were gone, and I
heeven see dem. neva* even saw them.
Uno fi tek i paki dem You should take the cala­
mek cup. bashes and make cups.
A no lie mi a lie! I ain't lying!
Im too iez-haad, mi a She is too stubborn (hard-
tell yu, bredda! ears), I'm telling you,
brother!

Im en say mi fi gi im He said I should give him

fi im sinting dem. his things.
Den yu no muss waan You must want some of the
some ai tea? tea, don't you?

III. Sentences using the verb "a"

or interrogative "a”
Wi neva ya a wa im We never heard what he
ena say. was saying.
A wa uno a say? What are you saying?
Ano een yadem deh. They are not in here.

45
 A shi m as'i yam? Was it she who roasted the
yam?
Ano joke,yasah! It is not a joke, hear, sir!
No bada wid i, yu tink Don't bother with it, do you
me a one idiot? think I am an idiot?

Di pikny-dem a no fi wL The children are not ours.

Dat deh a fi uno. That one is yours.

A wa? A di police? What is it? Is it the police?

A hit im fi drink, yaJ It is what he must drink,
do you hear?

IV. Other idioms

Awadoyu? What’s wrong with you?
Wa mek yu so donkya? Why are you so careless
(don't care)?
Wa do ar, mek ar a cut What's wrong with her,
aryaiso? making her "cut her
eyes" like that?
Mi sleep a door a night I sleep out of doors at
time. night.
Mi sleep ai door. I sleep at the door.
No bada fas' wid mi! Don't meddle with me!
So-so crosses deh pon I have had nothing but
mi from maanin. problems since morning.
Wat a crosses! See fi mi What a bad situation! See
dying trial ya! my dying trial here!

Come een like yu waan It seems like you want to

rule mi. rule me.

46
Di gyal dis clot i Haas The girl just hit the horse in
eena im headside me side of his head like
so, baps! this, baps!
Rain hoht fi djew. A little rain is about to fall.
Mi love mi cris' bike I love my brand-new bike
gaan to bed! more than I can tell
you! I adore my brand-
new bike!
Mek wi go, tattoo Let's go, he is too greedy.
gravalicious.

Ku hoh i place stay Look how the place is a

chaka-chakaso! mess!
Doan come shegrohn Don't come fool around
mi wid yu rank me with your raw­
fish an'dem! smelling fishy hands!
Fayva like im sick wid Looks like he is sick with
heetch, im full a the itch; he is full of
fassy. little sores.
Shet uno moht, a so-so Shut up, it is only (so-so)
su-su uno ya! gossip (su-su) you hear!
Yu waan some? Do you want some?
No muss? Of course!
Ku deh! No Sta B dat Look there! Isn't that
een im stoshus big- Sister B in her classy
eel boot? high-heel shoes?
Kuya! Hoh yu fayva Look here! You look like
buguyagatoras! a damn tramp!
Tan teady, mi soon Hold still, I am coming!
come!
Mek i tan till a maanin, Let it wait till morning,
no bada hackle yuself. don't worry yourself.

47
Yu tan deh a crab up If you keep on scratching
yuself, sittin o do yu! yourself, something is
going to happen to you!
Ya I nung! Hear me now!

Ongle one dege dege They gave me only one

piece dem gi mi! skimpy little piece!

A so uno heat off i Is that how you all gobble

dahl, floops! an no off the split peas, and
braata no de? there is none left for
seconds?
A-oh! If a so i go, jus Oho! If this is what is-
as cheap mi fin' mi happening, I might as
yaad! well go home!
Wa mek uno craven so? Why are you all so greedy?
Yu no see say a so-so Don't you see I have to
bammy mi haffi a heat? be eating only bammy?
If yu a deestant smadi, If you are a decent person,
mi wi gi yu a cotch. you can stay here a little
while.
Awas beat, mi kyaan When the hours get late, I
bada go fii goat again. can't bother to go for
the goats again.

Mi nao see dem till all I won’t see them till maybe
Satday. as late as Saturday.

Im gooda all tief dem. He may even have stolen

them.

A all ten o'clock before They won't come before

dem come. ten o'clock.

Min' i jackfruit wuk Mind the jackfruit gives

yu belly! or you the runs!
Min' i jackfruit wuk yu!

48
Nyam too much rundung, Eat too much rundown
yugetrun-belly. (food cooked in coconut
juice), you will get the
runs.
Long time we no mek We haven't see each other
four-yai for a long time, i.e., our
four eyes haven't met.
Shi an teacha a pints. She and teacher are
"points", i.e., they are
very chummy.

Top 'kin puppalick pon Stop turning somersaults

ibed! on the bed!

No kya hoh im try, im No matter how he tries, he

kyaan get tru. can't succeed.

49
 A Brief Vocabulary -
Collect Your Own!

Note that all references to Cassidy below are to Frederic

G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk, 300 Years of the English Language in
Jamaica (a publication of the Institute of Jamaica, London, 1961,
reissued as a paperback in 1982). "Cassidy and LePage" refers to
F.G. Cassidy and R.B. LePage, Dictionary of Jamaican English,
2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 1980). This is the most
extensive available collection of etymological information
about Jamaican words. References to Mittelsdorf are to her
Ph.D. thesis, African Retentions in Jamaican Creole: A Reassess­
ment, (Northwestern University, 1978), available at the Univer­
sity of the West Indies Library.
an, dan than.
bakra white slavemaster, or member of the ruling
class in colonial days. Popular etymology:
"back raw” (which he bestowed with a whip).
According to Cassidy & LePage, there is a
word, mbaraka, meaning "white man, he who
surrounds or governs" in the Ibo and Efxk
languages of Nigeria. They note that it was
also used in the Gullah dialect in the U.S.
According to Mittelsdorf (p. 40) bakra may
stem from the Bantu Duala language of the
Cameroons, mbakara.

bafan clumsy; awkward. Cassidy & LePage suggest

Twi: bafang/"a child who did not learn to
walk the first 2-7 years".
baggy underpants for a woman or child.
banuny a pancake made out of cassava, after it has
been grated and squeezed to remove the bitter
juice.
bandulu abandulubiznessisaracket,aswindle.

50
bangarang hubbub/ uproar, disorder, disturbance. Cassidy
& LePage suggest Portuguese: banguele/riot,
disorder, but this could equally well be of
African origin.
bankra a big basket, including the type which hangs
over the sides of a donkey. Cassidy & LePage
giveTwi: bongkara; Fante: oangkrang.
bans from bands; a whole lot, a great deal, nuff,
whole heap.
bat butterfly or moth. English bat, the flying ro­
dent, is a rat-bat.
bex vex, verb, or vexed, adjective.
bissy cola nut. Cassidy & LePage give Twi: bis£, Ewe:
bisf.
bobo, or bubu fool. Cassidy & LePage give Spanish bobo/
dunce, fool.
batty bottom; backside; anus,

braa from bredda; brother.

braata a little extra, like the 13th cookie in a baker's
dozen; or an extra helping of food. In musical
shows it has come to be the encore.
bufu-bufu fat, swollen, blubbeiy; too big; clumsy or lum­
bering. Cassidy & LePage give Ewe: bofaa/
broad and thick; Twi: bofoo/swollen.
buguyaga a sloppy, dirty person, like a bum or tramp.
Cassidy & LePage give Ewe: yaka/disorderly,
untidy; Hausa: buguzunzumi/a big fat, untidy
person.
bulla a common sugar and flour cookie or small
round cake, sold everywhere in Jamaica.
Cassidy & LePage give American Spanish:
bollo/bread,roll.
bumbo bottom; backside. A common curse word, es­
pecially in combination with clot (doth), a
reference to the days before toilet paper.
Cassidy & LePage give American Spanish:
bombo/ buttocks.

bunks to knock or bump against, from 'to bounce",

bunks mi res, catch my rest, take a nap.

cerace a ubiquitous vine used for boiling medicinal

tea, and for bathing. It is proverbial for its
bitterness.
chaka-chaka messy, disorderly, untidy. (From Twi.)

cheap just as cheap, just as well.

chillum clay pipe used for smoking ganja by Rastafar­
ians, et al. Cassidy (p. 207) traces it to Hindu­
stani chilam, the part of the hookah that con­
tains the burning tobacco. He traces the word
ganja to the same language.
chimmy chamber pot.

cho! very common, mild explanation expressing

impatience, vexation or disappointment.
Cassidy & LePage give Ewe: tsoo!
clot 1. cloth, an essential part of most Jamaican
bad words, such as bumbo clot, rass clot blood
dot, etc. The essence of Jamaican cursing
seems to be nastiness, rather than the blas­
phemy or sexuality which is characteristic of
the metropolitan countries.
2. to hit or strike - from the verb 'to clout'.
coco A potato-like edible root, known elsewhere as
the taro or the eddo. It was brought to Jamaica
from the South Padfic. This is completely
distinct from cocoa, usually called chocolate.
Cassidy & LePage mention Hawaiian: kokote,

52
 and state that Twi: koslco, Fanti: koko, reached
West Africa from Jamaica.
come een like to seem as if; to resemble
coolie the traditional Jamaican epithet for East
Indians. It is never used for Chinese
Jamaicans. Usually in the form coolie-man or
coolie-oman. It is not considered polite today
anymore than the term nega, but it is still
used widely in rural areas. Note that in India,
the Kols or Kullis, are Austrics or Blacks. Cf.
Proto-Nilotic root kol/black.
cotch verb (cotch up), to support something else, as
with a forked stick; to balance something or
place it temporarily; to beg someone a cotch,
can be a place on a crowded bus seat or bench;
or it may mean to cotch a while, to stay some­
where temporarily.
cotta or kata a roll of doth or vegetation placed on top of
the head to cushion the skull from the weight
of a head load. Mittelsdorf (p. 40) suggests the
original is the Bantu word nkata found with
similar meaning in Kongo, Luba, Chokwe et
al. Cassidy & LePage suggest Kongo: nkata/
headpad.
crab aside from its usual meaning, it is a verb
meaning to scratch or to daw.
craven greedy.
cris' crisp; popularly used for anything brand-new,
slick-looking.
crosses problems, vexations, trials; bad luck, misfor­
tunes.
cubbitch covetous.
cuss-cuss a quarrel or fracas, with lots of cursing.

53
cutchie pipe for communal smoking.
cut yai to cut your eye at somebody is a very commorfl
means of expressing scorn or contempt!
Cassidy describes it perfectly (p. 133): on J
catches the other person's eye, then delibera|
tely turns away one's own eyes as an insult.
daal split peas, usually a thick soup, from Indian
cuisine, from Hindi. ’
dally to ride a bicycle or motorbike with a weaving
motion, as when one weaves around pot­
holes.
dasheen a big soft yam-like root, often slightly greyish;
when cooked. It is related to the coco, but one
eats the "head" instead of the tubers.
deestant decent.
dege, or adjective, little, skimpy, measly, only, as in
dege-dege two dege-dege banana. Ewe: deka/single, soli­
tary, alone (Cassidy & LePage). Cf. Swahili:
dogo/small, little, one of a widespread set of
Bantu words for "little": teke, deku, diki,
tikitiki, etc
djew, juu as a verb, rain a djew; as a noun, dew rain. It
means a light rain or drizzle.
dinki a kind of traditional dance at funerals or
"nine nights" ("set-ups"); now popular
among school children. Mittelsdorf (p. 40) sug­
gests that it comes from the Bantu Kikongo
language, a funeral dance called ndingL
donkya from "don't care"; careless, sloppy, lacking ;
ambition, etc.
a door outdoors.
duck-ants white ants, or termites. They build large nests
in trees or in building, if given the chance.
54
dukunu sweet com-meal dumplings boiled in wrap­
ped leaves. Twi: o-dokono/boiled maize bread
(Cassidy & LePage).
dundus or an albino. Mittelsdorf (p. 40) suggests Kikongo
doondoos ndundu.
duppy ghost, spirit. From Bube, a Bantu language of
the island of Fernando Po: dupe/ghost
(Cassidy & LePage).
«
dutchy dutch cooking pot, low round-bottomed
heavy pot.
fas' to be fast with, meaning to be rude, imperti­
nent, to meddle with somebody's business, to
be forward, etc.
fassy eczema-like scratchy sores on the skin; also a
verb, meaning to cause oneself to be covered
with fassy by scratching.

fayva to favour, resemble; or look like; fayva like

also means "it seems as if'.

fenky-fenky (from finicky) choosy, proud, stuck-up.

fiesty impudent, rude, out of order, cheeky.

fit when used of fruits and vegetables, it means

ready to pick, full grown, though not neces­
sarily fully ripe.

gaan to bed an adverbial phrase; following a verb of liking

or loving, it has a superlative meaning. Can
be used in any context, such as I love hafu
yam gaan to bed!

gig spinning top.

gravalicious greedy, avaricious.

hackle to hassle, bother, worry, trouble. As a noun,
hackling.
55
heetch itch. Many such words could be listed under
H, as initial H is added to scores of words at
will. However, I have listed most such words
under their initial vowel.
iez, hiez ear(s); iez-haad (ears-hard), thick-skulled,
stubborn, unwilling or unable to hear.

ignorant short-tempered, easy to vex, irate.

iry adjective, describing anything positive, good,

nice, etc. Often used asgreeting for tourists by
the pseudo-dread, "Groovy!" (Etymology?
Me-rry?)

Ital pure, without pollution, natural; without salt.

From vital?
jackass rope homegrown tobacco, twisted into a rope.
janga shrimp, crayfish. Also in Spanish: jonga, and
in Cameroon pidgin from Bantu Doulla-
Bakweri njanga (Cassidy & LePage).

jelly a young coconut, full of jelly.

jook to pierce or stick, as with a thorn or a long
pointed stick. Cassidy (p. 133) suggests that it
derives from Fulani julcka, meaning to poke
or knock down, as a fruit. Also in Cameroon
pidgin: chuk/injection, chuk-am/ pierce, prick
(Cassidy & LePage).
judgin' adjective, everyday or ordinary clothes or
shoes worn in the yard or in the bush, as in
judgin boot Also as a verb, to judge, with a
similar meaning.

kallaloo a dark, green leafy vegetable, very nutritious

and cheap.
kemps a little bit, a tiny piece, from skimps,
kiss mi neck! common exclamation of surprise.
56
kissteet to kiss one's teeth or to suck one's teeth is to
make the very common hissing noise of dis­
approval, dislike, vexation or disappoint­
ment
kreng-kreng an old-fashioned meat rack, hung up high
over the fire to catch the smoke. Cassidy &
LePage suggest Twi* kyerengkye/basket.

ku verb, look! ku ya! - look here! ku deh! - look

there! ku pan - look at
kya 1. to care; donkya, "dont' care", careless; no
kya means "no matter", as in no kya weh im
tun, "no matter where he turns".
2. to carry.
kyai to carry.
kyan can.
kyaan can't
laba-laba to chat, gab; gossip. Cassidy & LePage trace it to
Old English dialect, lout Ct. Daju languages of
S.W. Sudan: lib or lebe/to say, talk, telL
labrish gossip, chit-chat
leggo beas' wild, disorderly, like a let-go beast
licky-licky fawning, flattering, obsequious,

liUybit little bit, tiny,

maca thorn, prickle.

maga (from meagre) thin, slender.

marina a man's undershirt, guernsey; a tank-top style.

monks amongst.

57
nana midwife; nanny, or nurse. Cassidy (p. 166) de­
rives this from the Twi language of Ghana,
where nana is a grandparent, of either sex.
nyam to eat. Cassidy & LePage give Fulani: nyama,
nyamgo/to eat; Wolof: nyam, nyamnyam/to
eat; Hausa: nyamnyam/cannibal. Compare
Nilo-Saharan languages: Kaliko (C. Sudanic):
nya/he eats; Tabi (E. Sudanic): nam/he eats.
nying'i-nying'i (-ING as in "sing"), nagging, whining.
obeah traditional African "science", relating to
matters of the spirit and spirits, spells, divina­
tion, omens, extra-sensory knowledge, etc.
From Twi: obayi-fo/obeah-man, sorcery-man
(fo/man) (Cassidy & LePage).
ohtfi about to, on the verge of, as in it hoht fi rain, it
is about to rain, it looks like rain.
one-one adjective, one by one, thus any small amount.
ongle only.
paid calabash, gourd. Cassidy (p. 84) derives it from
Twi/Akan apakyi/e.
papaa pawpaw, or papaya melon.
patu owl, from Twi language of Ghana, patu.
pawn verb, to take up, pick up, or carry, as in Im
pawn im hoe an gaan.
peel-head bald-headed, usually certain chickens or
vultures.
peer avocado pear.
peenywally a kind of large fire fly, actually a type of flying
beetle.
pyu (from spew); verb used of running sores or
anything similarly dripping or oozing.
58
picky-picky 1. finicky or choosy.
2. Used of uncombed hair just starting to
turn into dreadlocks.
pikny pickaninny, child. Cassidy & LePage trace it to
Portuguese pequenino which is found in
creoles of Sierra Leone, Cameroon, etc.
pinda peanut. From Kikongo, etc. mpinda (Mittels­
dorf). *

pira a low wooden stool. Is this from Hindi? Cf.

Assamese pira/bench, seat, stool. Cassidy &
LePage have no listing of this word.
pity-me-likl a type of very tiny red ant whose bite is so hot
and long-lasting it resembles a sting.
poppy-show (from puppet show) it is used in the idiom,
tek smadi mek poppy-show, which means to
make fun of someone or shame them, mak­
ing them look ridiculous.
puppalick somersault. From "Father spanked the upturn­
ed backside" (Cassidy & LePage).
puttin' away a preposition, meaning "except for", or "ex-
cept".
pyaa-pyaa sickly, weak; feeble, of no account. Some trace
it to Amerindian (Galibi, Tupi-Guarani) lang­
uages of Guyana: pia, pian/sickly.

quips 1. noun, (from squips) a tiny piece or

amount.
2. verb, the Jamaican art of washing clothes
making a "squips-squips" sound.
rasorrass backside, rump; a common curse is to rass! or
rass clot!
Ras a title used by Rastafarians, from Amharic,
meaning "lord" or "head".

59
rat-bat the night-flying rodent known elsewhere as a
bat
raatid! or a common mild expletive of surprise or vexa­
raatid tion, as in to raatid! Although popular etymo­
logy often derives this word from the Biblical
"wrath", pronounced raat, it is more likely a
polite permutation of ras, a la "gosh" or
"heck"...
renk 1. foul-smelling, raw-smelling.
2. out of order, impudent, as in a rank-im-
poster Yu too renk!

royal orryal (the latter spelling is just the Jamaican pro­

nunciation of royal) noun, a mixed breed per­
son, as in Coolie royal, half Indian, half
African; or Chinee royal, half Chinese, half
African; just a plain royal seems to be a mix of
black and white. Also used as an adjective
with similar meaning. I can think of no com­
parable English use of the term royal except in
the world of ice cream - chocolate royal, butter­
scotch royal, etc. As fancy ice creams only
reached Jamaica in the 1970's, the usage is un­
likely to have been derived in this way!
But any Rastafarian will explain proudly that
H.I.M. Haile Selassie I is a royal, a Black of
mixed blood, as is, in some sense, the whole
Amharic nation. In this case the mixing goes
back to King Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba...

rot! flat Indian pan breads. Hindi: roti/bread

(Cassidy & LePage).
run-dung food cooked in coconut juice, obtained after
grating the dry coconut meat and squeezing it
in water, thus extracting the coconut cream.

sail adjective, broke, empty-handed, low on funds

or food, as in tings salt or i' salt

60
sal'ting 1. dishes cooked with saltfish or meat.
2. that part of the meal which is served with
the "food” (starchy food, ground food). It may
be a little meat or fish, vegetable, sauce, run-
dung, anything to wash down the starchy
"food".
3. by some strange extension sal'ting also
refers to the female organ, often simply called
saL Perhaps this relates to the distinctly phal­
lic shape of so much of the "foodkind" (plan­
tains, bananas, yams, cocos, etc.), the male
counterpart of the female sauce - the sal'ting.
Could this be a survival of an ancient African
word ancestral to Sumerian, sal, meaning
"pudendum"? Or could it be a survival of the
Sumero-gram SAL (in the unmistakable form
of a triangle with a vertical slit) which was
used for thousands of years as a logogram for
"woman" in many unrelated languages of the
ancient world? The prime agent for the spread
of this word/symbol was Akkadian, the lang­
uage of international trade and diplomacy,
also used by the Egyptian foreign office. Of
course one would have to find West African
occurrences! Cf: Somali sil/female organ.
sambo the colour between brown and black; some­
one who is a cross between a mulatto (brown)
and a black.
samfai man trickster, conman. Twi: asumangfa/magician?
(Cassidy & LePage).

sata a verb, from Amharic? in Rasta patois it

means "to rejoice, to meditate, to give thanks
and praise."
screw verb, to frown, as in serew-face.

shag home-cured tobacco, straight from the field.

sheg (up) verb, to bother, as in don' sheg rohn mi; or all

sheg up, all hot and bothered, or spoiled up
(as of work).
61
shoob to shove.
sinkl-bible the aloe vera plant From sempervive, its;
Latin name (Cassidy & LePage).
sinting something.
sipple slippery; slimy.
sittin' something.
sldl kiln, as in limeskiL
slabba-slabba big and fat, slobby, droopy.
smadi somebody.
so-so only, solely, unaccompanied, as in eat so-so
dry bread; pure, undiluted, as in so-so fooly-
nish, pure foolishness. Cassidy (p. 396) sug­
gests a derivation from Yoruba sho-sho/only.
Also African pidgins from Portuguese: so/
alone, sole, only.

spring to sprout, as of yams or cocos, making them

inedible.
stoosh upper class, high tone, hitey-titey.
stoshus upper class, high tone, hitey-titey.
su-su gossip, the sound of whispering. Possibly from
Twi: asutu/whispering, or susuw ka/to utter a
suspicion; Ewe (Gu dialect): su/to relate, tell
(Cassidy & LePage).
takarior stewed spicy pumpkin, from the Indian
tankari cuisine. From Hindi: tarkar/vegetables.
talawa handsome, good, fine, superior.
'tan' to stand; usually used in the sense of "to be".
A so im tan, "that is what he is like"; tan deh!
or yu tan deh! means "just you wait!" Tan
tedy, stand steady, means "hold still".

62
tarra-warra a polite way of expressing omitted bad words,
a verbal asterisk.
tatu a little thatched hut, often made of bamboo.
toto coconut cake. Spanish: torta/round cake?
Fante: totoe/roasted.
trace to curse or speak abusively to someone.
tumpa (from stump) as in tumpa-foot man, a one-
foot man.
tunti female organ. Can this relate to Kissi: tumta/
backside, buttocks; Songhay: tunde/ditto?

uno,orunu you-all, 2nd pers. pi. pron., from Ibo (Cassidy

p. 54). Cf: Nilo-Saharan languages: Midob
(Nubian family): unu/you and ye; Anuak
(Nilotic): uuni/ye (pL).
waday adverbial phrase, the other day.
wakl wattle, a kind of woven bamboo work used to
make house walls, etc. When covered with
mud it is called wakl n daub.
wa mek? why? This is a direct West Africanism, accord­
ing to Cassidy, who gives an Ibo example (p.
226).
wanga-gut hungry-belly.
waira-warra same as tarra-warra, politely omitted bad
words.
winjy thin and sickly looking,
wis vine, liana, from withe,
wood, or hood penis.

y* hear, or here.

63
yabba a big day pot Cassidy (p. 85) suggests this de­
rives from Twi ayawa/eaithen vessel.
yai eye.
zungupan zinc pan.

64
 The Question of Phonetic Spelling
(Part II)

The problem restated (see Part I)

The problem does not lie in the phonetic spelling of
peculiarly Jamaican words or pronunciation. These can be
spelled fairly easily with simple non-tedinical spellings ... the
problem lies in the spelling of standard tnglish words which
are pronounced approximately the same way in Afro-Jamaican
as in standard. If such words are spelled in their standard form,
the effect is a glaring (and sometimes confusing) contrast
between the phonic values used to spell the Jamaican words
and those of the English words, with their often absurd, archaic
spellings.
Our motive in working to resolve this problem should
be deeper than simply the creation of an acceptable standard­
ized method of writing the Afro-Jamaican speech. Underlying
this problem is a deeper problem which we must confront at
some point: the problem of the mono-lingual Afro-Jamaican-
speaking primaiy-school child who is expected to leam to read
and write in a language which he does not speak, a language
which also happens to be grossly non-phonetic. I am reproduc­
ing here my only surviving version of a somewhat shorter
letter I once wrote to a Jamaican call-in programme. It was read
over the air some years ago on JBC's "The Public Eye":
August 16,1979
To Doctor Aggrey Brownand Miss Louise Bennett:
I heard your discussion on Thursday last about teaching
English in Jamaica as a foreign language. I agree completely,
but I feel there is an enormous amount of work and money
that will be involved in achieving this on a national scale.
In the first place we should consider that we start off in Grade
1 doing an absurd and self-defeating thing: we try to teach a
very young child to read in a foreign language, a language
which he does not speak! How do any of them ever leam? (Of
course I am referring to children from mono-lingual patois-

65
speaking homes.) And that foreign language, standard
English, is one of the most crazy mixed up languages in the
world!
Perhaps we should follow some of the African countries and
put off teaching the metropolitan language till about Grade 3.
Let them leam to read in their own language that they speak
and think in, so that they can concentrate on pure reading
skill, learning to associate letters and sounds in a consistent
phonetic language.
Then at Grade 3 we start to break the bad news to them about
what standard English really is - a complete mess. Don't fight
it, just memorize it! If you keep asking why, you will have a
nervous breakdown. There are no good reasons why. It just is
the way it is. As we say in JA, A so it stay!
But such a plan would demand that we have a standardized
method of spelling patois, instead of the present situation
where each poet or writer makes up his own system. This is
no easy task, though Beryl Bailey has made a good start in
Janunam Creole. But there are many ticklish problems involv­
ed in how far to phoneticize it versus how for to use simple
standard English spellings, all the while trying to avoid the
creation of confusing new contradictions. Who is going to do
all this so that we can mass-produce primers?
Next, teaching English as a foreign language starting in Grade
3. This is much easier said than done. It goes way beyond the
problems of teachers' negative attitudes toward patois. Even if
all teachers had the most liberated progressive attitudes
towards our national speech, they would still need teachers'
manuals spelling it all out for them, planning the lessons, etc.
We would need our own bilingual texts specifically written for
the Jamaican language situation. It will have to be as
thorough, as massive, as total a course as any course in French
or Spanish, with drills on grammar, word order, vocabulaiy,
pronunciation, charts of verb tenses, pronominal cases,
idiomatic usage, etc.
I never learned French just by absorbing it, though I started in
Grade 5. Repeating after teacher or reading French stories is
not enough. I had to become conscious of grammar, which is a
fairly unconscious thing, even in most adults. Your own
grammar is unconscious, but you have to become conscious of
it in order to leam a foreign language. I had to first become
aware of how 1 was making verb tenses in English in order to
leam how to do it in French. I had to discover my own

66
patterns or rules of word order in order to leam theirs.
For all these reasons we need texts which give thorough and
explicit explanation of the grammar of both Afro-Jamaican
patois and standard English, side by side. At present most
students from monolingual patois-speaking homes leam
what standard English they do by absorption, rather than by
any conscious understanding. This can carry them only so far,
and the problem really shows up when it comes to com­
position, when they are supposed to write their own thing.
The child is caught between imitating standard English
phrases he has imperfectly absorbed or trying to write his own
thoughts. The result is full of "errors", unconscious patois
grammatical constructs veiled under English words. Forget
about fraidie-fraidie! Vocabulary is the least of our problems!
It is the unconscious stuff, the word order and grammar, the
idioms, that are the most deeply ingrained in thought patterns
- this is what is giving the worries. This is why so many high
school kids can't write English.
Who is going to write and finance these bilingual texts? Who
is going to retrain all the teachers to use them? We have lost
too much time already. Perhaps in the short run someone
could come up with a writing handbook for high schools,
focusing on the areas of greatest grammatical difference.
Examples would be the use of the verb "to be”, verb tenses,
irregular verbs, and word order.
In 1972 I made a little primer with magic markers. It featured
one language on one side of the page in big blue letters and the
other language on the opposite page in big red letters. A friend
used it with supposedly retarded kids in Highgate. They
teamed up in pairs to read the different colour phrases. They
loved it. I never tried to publish this book because I figured
that as an immigrant, this wasn't my calling, and somebody
else must surely be doing it.
Now it is 1979 and we are still talking superficially about the
whole thing; most of your callers just repeated the idea that of
course we should not look down on patois, we should use if,
etc. But if we are serious, the task is massive. Perhaps this is
why it is 1979 and we are still just toying with the idea. We
cannot come to terms with the enormityor the task ...
In the past perhaps such efforts have never gotten off the
ground because people secretly believed that with rising
standards of living, outward migration, improved education,
etc., patois would die out. Maybe now that standards of living

67
 are falling, the reverse is happening. Maybe now the Rasta and
reggae music is spreading patois to the youth of the English-
speaking world.
Maybe, after all, our speech is superior to standard English.
Why should our children memorize cluttered forms of
archaic language when they have pure and clear 21st century
forms of African English in their own heads? Why call it
patois? It is African English. Africa needs it too!

Jamaican self-hate, self-denial, anyone’s self-hate, self-denial,

no good comes out of it to anyone. Hordes of almost illiterate
youth who have finished standard 8 are our witness. We have
no choice but to get it together. The problem is as real as the
economic one...

Guidance, One Love, etc."

If this letter sounded reasonable in 1979, today it looks

like one more shattered dream. The financial crisis, the totter­
ing economy and cutback of government funds are leading to a
continual deterioration in the school system. We cannot even
keep up the same old system, let alone revolutionize it! But we
can still dream and lay foundations for a future new day some­
where at the end of the tunnel.
As I have stated already, the system used for spelling
Afro-Jamaican in the text of this book (and in the A version of
the reading selection) is imperfect and incomplete. It is neither
here nor there, a jumbled mixture of phonetic and standard
spellings. The B version represents a real phonetic system, a
simple and non-technical system, first published by Cassidy in?
1961 (Jamaica Talk, p. 433).

68
Description of the B Version Phonetic System
1. It eliminates silent letters.
2. It eliminates double consonants (TT, LL, SS, etc.).
3. It eliminates the consonants C (K or S), soft G (J), Q (K),
and X (KS).
4. It eliminates the system of silent E as a determinant of
vowel quality (fin, fine; man, mane).
5. It uses a simple system of ten vowel symbols: A, AA, E,
E E ,I,n ,0,00,U ,U U .
6. It eliminates all false or non-phonetic diphthongs,using
only true or phonetic diphthongs.
I have taken the liberty of making three changes
in Cassidy's vowel system. The sounds of the symbols O, OO,
and U have been reshuffled, resulting in a system closer to the
standard English spelling of these sounds. My version, the B
version, I am convinced, is less confusing to a child or to the
general public whose normal frame of reference is standard
English spelling. The following chart illustrates these modifica­
tions (marked with @ for Adams) in Cassidy's system:
Cassidy B Version
short A ah as in pat, pot* ah as in pat, pot*
longAA aah as in bard, Jam. aah as in bard, Jam.
waar/ war waar/war

short E eh as in egg eh as in egg

long EE omit** ay as in day
short I i as in pin i as in pin
longll eeasinfeed(fiid) eeasin feed (fiid)

single 0 short u as in but @ long O, as in no,

SO/
double OO omit*** @ short OO as in
book, good, put
short U short OO as in book, @ short U as in but
good, put
longUU long U as in tune, long U as in tune,
long OO as in boot long OO as in boot'

69
Footnotes on Vowel Chart

* Note that because ’’pat, pot" are pronounced the same in Jamaican, there is no need
for a short O symbol. Standard English words such as "top, knot; mob" are spelled
tap, nat, mab. This conveniently frees up one of the ten vowel symbols to accom­
modate the 11th English vowel, the short OO sound of "book, put". I have used the
0 0 symbol for this sound, while Cassidy has placed it under the U symbol. Thus
where Cassidy has buk, gud, fut, put, I have b ook, good, foot; poot I think this is a
sensible modification, as "put" is an isolated anomaly in standard English spelling.
Cassidy uses the single O symbol for the short U as in "but", while I place this
sound under the U symbol. This permits my spellings but, mud, fun, dung instead
of Cassidy's bot, mod, fon, dong. I think this is a sensible modification. For myself,
the greatest difficulty I have reading his system is remembering to read short O as
short U.

** Cassidy omits the EE symbol. In his opinion this sound (ay, the long A sound of
standard English) does not exist in the Jamaican folk speech. Instead one hears the
diphthong IE, as in mem/name (see below, p. 71). I have included the long EE
sound because it is increasingly to be heard today by those whose pronunciation is
veering toward standard.

*+* Cassidy omits the double OO symbol, which in his system would have expressed
the long O sound (oh). In his opinion the long O sound does not exist in the
Jamaican folk speech, being replaced by the diphthong UO (see below, p. 72). I think
that one definitely hears a more clipped long O sound, without die diphthong-
ization, e.g. in the terminal sounds of unemphasized "no, know, etc.". (When
these same words are spoken with emphasis, they do become nuo, etc.) I have used
the symbol O to represent this long O sound, as in English "go, so", etc.

**** The inconsistency in this vowel system, its technical imperfection, manifests itself
in the spelling of terminal vowels on short two- and three-letter words. Cassidy
himself, who introduces this system in Appendix One o f Jamaica Talk, only repro­
duces one short selection written in this system, and uses another orthographic
system, closer to standard (or my A version) in his text But Beryl Bailey has
written a 300 page Creole Language Course using Cassidy's phonetic system, and
here the problem shows up: She spells go, so, no mo, etc using the single O symbol
which is supposed to represent the short U sound in "but" (uh). Surely Jamaicans
do not always say guh suh (go so) even though their terminal vowels may be
"checked". Cassidy dearly needs a symbol for simple long O sound (oh), yet the
only symbol he has vacant is OO. How could we stomach goo for go or noo moo for
no mo? •
In the case of my version, the B version, the problem manifests itself with the letter
U, which represents the same short U of "but" (uh). Technically, I should write
duu for "do" instead of du, for we do not say "duh". However, for simplicity's sake,
1continue to write du, uno (not vuno), and yu mot yuu). Du yu main/mind?
We have been told that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. We must not
h e t over such things. The two-letter simplidty, in spite o f its inconsistency, is
much preferable to consistent ridiculous spellings. I have troubled to point out
these technical shortcomings only because no system is perfect. But this one by
comparision with the morass of standard English "mis-spellings" which it attempts
to replace, is nearly so.

70
The Treatment of Diphthongs in this Phonetic System:
The word "diphthong" is from the ancient Greek,
meaning "two sounds". It is commonly used to mean two
vowels blending into each other as one continuous sound. In
standard English "voice" and "sound" represent true diph­
thongs. Many standard spellings represent false diphthongs, two
consecutive vowels which perhaps once represented some
ancient or foreign diphthong, but are currently pronounced as a
single vowel sound: ("meat, piece, main, receive, could, tough",
etc.). These false diphthongs have been eliminated in the B
version. As for the true diphthongs, the system deals only with
Jamaican diphthongs, which, as explained below, differ
substantially from the standard pronunciations:

AI This diphthong is pronounced like English long I, as in

the pronoun "I"; Jam. bwai/boy. Not to be confused with
the false diphthong AI in standard (as in "pain").
El This is primarily heard in the variant diphthongal pro­
nunciation of the past tense particle wein (way-in), nega­
tive nein (nay-in). Not to be confused with the false
diphthongs El in standard (as in "receive, weight").
IE This diphthong is pronounced "i-ay" or "ee-ay"; Jam.
iej/age. Not to be confused with the false diphthong "ie"
in standard (as in "piece").
One normally hears this diphthong wherever one en­
counters the long A sound or standard (as in "day"), the
long E sound in the continental system: niem/name;
kiek/cake; trien/train. Where it is not found as expected,
the EE has been shortened to E: tek/take; mek/make;
gwe!/go away!; tengl/tangle; heng/hang.
The degree of "diphthongization" often depends on the
mood or emphasis of the speaker
fain a we find a way
Dwii siem wie! Do it the same way!
Wiiie dung deh! Way down there!
OA Cassidy has eliminated this diphthong, perhaps because
his single O symbol represents the short U sound of
"but". He spells buot/boat; guot/goat, (see below, under
UO). Although these pronunciations are perhaps more
71
 common, there is a Jamaican diphthong OA, with the
true diphthongal sound O-A, go-at, bo-at. Louise Bennett;
has used this diphthong to record the pronunciations
doan/don't; doah/though. (As the O symbol in the B
version represents the long O sound, this diphthong
presents no problem for my system.)
This true diphthong OA must not be confused with the
false diphthong OA of standard (which pronounces
"goat" as "gote", a single vowel sound).
OU Cassidy uses this diphthong to indicate a normal stan­
dard long O sound, in preference to his unused OO sym-j
bol. He claims that the long O sound of standard ("no, go,
so", etc.) is in fact a diphthongal sound, with a -U sound]
at the end.* Say "No!" with emphasis, in the metro-j
politan manner, and you will hear it. I rarely use this O il
diphthong, only when emphasis dearly demands a termi­
nal -U sound on the long O.
UO This diphthong occurs in traditional Afro-Jamaican pro­
nunciation whenever standard English presents a long
O sound. Say "No!" with emphasis, in the Jamaican
manner, and you will hear the -U sound (really the U ll
sound in my system) at the beginning of the diphthong.;
This "diphthongization" survives most strongly in em­
phasized words, while it is lacking where there is little
emphasis:
Nuo! Mi no waan nun. No! I don't want any.

Concluding Remarks on the Phonetic System

This system is very economical. A page of B version is
substantially shorter than its A version equivalent. With a little
practice this system is simple to understand and to use. It would
be an ideal orthography for the future, an excellent tool for
writing down the plethora of so-called Creole languages devel­
oping all over English-speaking Africa. It could facilitate inter­
national cultural exchanges among artists writing dialogue oi
* This long O sound occurs in the Jamaican pronunciation of the English diphthong
"ow" or ou" ("cow, ground, out"). Cassidy spells these cou, ground, out. In e "ow l
sound does not exist in Jamaica (see p. 11). As the B version symbol for long O hi
simply O, I spell ko, grond, ot. To me this emphasizes more dearly the difference if|
the Jamaican pronundation of these words.

72
poetry in these languages.
Unfortunately, the first impression created by a page of
writing in this orthography is that of a totally new language like
Esperanto or Newspeak. That is why I have not used the B
version in the body of the grammatical text of this book, though
I would have preferred to do so. It would have repelled the
average visitor with a casual interest in Afro-Jamaican by
making the language look unnecessarily alien and difficult to
penetrate. The majority of our visitors are either native
speakers of standard English or else have some acquaintance
with standard English as a foreign language. They are more at
home with "two" than tu, with "one" than wun. Ho bot yu? A
reasonably intelligent visitor, I have found, can muddle
through the A version without needing a translation; but the B
version can literally cause a headache to file uninitiated.

As for primary students, if their minds were the "blank

sheets" discussed by philosophers, they could easily master the
B system. But, existing as they do in a world which bombards
them with standard English spellings on TV, in ads, on labels,
etc. from the earliest age, the contradictions between the two
systems of spelling would probably cast them into utter confu­
sion. And if you have taught a child to spell do ("tho" in patois),
how are you going to force him later to spell "though"? He
could of course approach standard English as a foreign
language, as so many have glihly suggested. Most likely he is
not going to develop the proper respect for standard English, for
he will be unable to blind himself to its myriad imperfections
and contradictions. Better to stuff it blindly down his throat
from the first grade when he is too young to judge for himself.

Standard English, with all its orthographic wierdness,

continues to spread all over the globe. For at least decades to
come we can be fairly sure that those who will wield power in
our society will owe that power in part to their mastery of the
mysteries of standard English. Educational policy-makers may
pay lip service to the importance of "dialect", but will probably
continue to act as if the rapid elimination of non-standard
speech habits is the only solution to the problem of why Kofi
can’t read.

73
 Reading Selection
("A" VERSION: Using Some Standard English Spellings)

"FI DADA TALE"

(one pikny life eena St. Mary, Jamaica eena di 1940 dem...)

Dada: Well, mi really neva know much ting aboht mi mada.

When mi small like hoh uno ena grow wid Emmie come up,
when mi have sense, mi know mi a grow wid mi granmada.
Dat time dem call im Nanny Bella. So mi neva really grow wid
Mama till mi arohn maybe four to five year ol', like Keddie or
bigga, mi en deh monks Mama one a di time - till mi get mi
head bruk an gaa ospital. When mi come oht from ospital, a mi
granny mi deh monks again. An di ole lady tek kya a mi all di
while, you know, jus im likl pet, for im naa no more pikny
rohn im, as pikny or granpikny. Well, afta shi haffi lef an go
way-
Pikny: Do wa? Which paat?
Dada: Shi aten' to people - midwife - like Miss Pang, for shi
baan di whole a mi mada pikny dem. Mos' a di man eena
Islington -
Pikny: Shi baan dem?

Dada: Friendship, Roadside, eena fi mi age, a shi a dem nana,

wi call dem nana, midwife; for dem day docta nen plentiful like;
noh. Yu have one docta Annotto Bay, yu have one a Highgate,
an yu have Docta Hariy a Poht Maria Bay. No, docta neva
plentiful.
So afta leavin a di age a weh mi gaa ospital, eena di five
bracket, becaa mi did have enuf sense fi know wa happen, m i,
come back an mi deh monks mi granmada fi a long period a
time. Mi no spen' nuttin, mi no know nuttin boht mada keer,
jus mi granmada. An shi happen fi gaa place name Albion
Mountain back a weh Sista Biraie deh, go ten' to some people.
An dat time Bredda Reid - dat a mi uncle deh - an Miss
74
 Reading Selection
("B" VERSION; Phonetic Spellings)

"FI DADA TIEL"

Dada; Wei, mi riili neva nuo much ting abot mi mada. Wen
mi smaal laik ho uno ena gruo wid Emi kum up, wen mi av
sens, mi nuo mi a gruo wid mi granmada. Dat taim dem kaal
im Nani Bella. So mi neva riili gruo wid Mama til mi aron
miebi foa to faiv yiir ol, laik Kedi or biga, mi en de munks
Mama wun a di taim - til mi get mi hed bruk an gaa aspital.
Wen mi kum ot fran aspital, a mi grani mi de munks agen. An
di ol liedi tek kya a mi aal i wail yu no, dus im likl pet, far im
naa no moa pikni ron im, az pikni or granpikni. Wei afta shi lef
an go w e -
Pikni; Du wa? Wich paat?
Dada; Shi a ten tu piipl— midwaif - laik Mis Pang, far shi baan
di huol a mi mada pikni dem. Moa a di man iina Mingiun -
Pikni: Shi baan dem?
Dada: Frenship, Roadsaid, iina fi mi iej, a shi a dem nana. Wi
kaal dem nana, midwaif; far dem die dakta nein plentifool laik
nou. Yu av wun dakta Anata Bie, yu av wun a Aigiet - Draidn
-a n yu av Dakta An a Pot Maria Bie. No, dakta neva plentifool.
So afta liivin a di iei a we mi gaa aspital, iina di faiv
braket, bikaa mi did av inut sense fi nuo wa apn, mi kum bak
an mi de munks mi granmada fi a lang piriud a taim. Mi no
spen nutin, mi no nuo nutin bout mada kiir, dus mi granmada.
An shi apn fi gaa plies niem Albiun Montn bak a we Sista
Margaret - di one who dead - an Sista Vy, dem live a Trinity.
So shi stay dung deh an lef me a yaad wid di ol' man, im
usban'. Dat deh usban' deh noh was a sickly ol' man, im have a
whole heap a big bump. Come like im all fight eena one a dem
waar, come like im a bruk oht eena fassy; an im walk wid 'tick
an im han' tremble an ting.
Di ole lady no come back fi aboht two week, so mi
happen fi go way noh an fin* Wally. Caa mi an im always in
contac dem time deh. So afta mi fin' im, im kyai mi noh go
weh Manna deh - Nutsfield. An mi gaa Nutsfield di same year
breeze blow, you know -
Pikny: Hurricane? A di same time yu say yu foot did a lif up
offa di grohn?
Dada: Uh-huh, 1944. Boht tree mont mi spen' deh. An mi up
deh wid har till Christmas come an shi a sen' mi a school. Dat
time mi a nine, yu know, an mi no know a school doorway yet.
Shi sen’ mi a school fi four mont, den shi gi mi way again
when mi eena mi ten, gi mi granny, till one man beg im one
likl bwai. Jus tru mi mada lef mi fada.
Same like hoh yu see mi woulda live ya noh, jus waan
wook mi fiel', mi fada stay same way. Mi fada a en tayla, you
know, uno granfada a tayla. Im have im machine an im sew in
one-one pants. Im have im piece a lan’, two piece a lan’ im
have. Im pick im cocanut an shi bwile ile, an Mama gaa maaket
an sell pint bokl.
So afta mi daddy lef im, Mama leave an gaan hustle
ohtside noh, for shi like see di money come een, you know, shi
no like fi know say, well den, di man a live offa im own. Mama
like gaa property go wook becaa shi like har name call a di
paybfil. An mi daddy neva too eena dat becaa im no grow up an
see im fada an mada wook oht, yu unnastan, caa grung dem a
live offa, di two a dem.
Well, afta shi gi mi way, an mi da ya a dis place wid di
people dem noh-
Pikny: Coolie?
Dada: No, nega man. Di man naa no pikny, an di ooman weh
im have, have tree pikny - Sidley, Patsy and Mel. Alright den,
mi haffi move di goat dem, mi bwile di haag feedin, look boht
di coh, wata di cyabage bed, evryting.

76
unkl de - an Mis Maagret - di wun hu ded - an Sista Vai, dem
jiv a Triniti. So shi stie dung de an lef mi a yaad wid i ol man,
im uzban. Dat de uzban de nou wuz a sikli ol man, im av a ol
iipa big bump. Kum laik im al fait iina wun a dem waar, kum
laik im a bruk ot iina fasi. An im waak wid tik an im han
tremblanting.
Di ol liedi no kum bak fi abot tu wiik, so mi apn fi go we
nou an fain Wall. Kaa mi an im alwez in kantak dem taim de.
So afta mi fain im, im kyai mi nou go we Mama de - Nutfiil.
An mi gaa Nutfiil di siem yiir briiz bluo, yu no-
Pikni: Hurikien? A di siem taim yu se yu foot did a lif up afa di
g™ng?
Dada: Uh~huh, naintiin faati-foa. Bot tri munt mi spen de. An
mi up de wid ar til Krismus kum an shi a sen mi a skuul. Dat
taim mi a nain, yu no, an mi no nuo a skuul dorwe yet. Shi sen
mi a skuul fi foa munt, den shi gi mi we agen wen mi iina mi
ten, gi mi grani, til wun man beg im wun likl bwai. Dus tru mi
mada lef mi fada.
Siem laik ho yu si mi wooda liv ya nou, dus waan wuk
mi fiil, mi fada stie siem wie. Mi fada aen tiela, yu no, uno
granfada a tiela. Im av im mashiin an im so im wun-wun pans.
Im av im piisa lan, tu piisa lan im av. Im pik im kokanut an shi
bwail ail an Mama gaa maakit an sel paint bakl.
So afta mi dadi lef im, Mama liiv an gaan husl otsaid
noh, far shi laik si i muni kum iin, yu no, shi no laik fi nuo se
wel den di man a liv afa im uon. Mama laik gaa prapati go wuk
bikaa shi laik har niem kaal a di piebil. An mi dadi neva tuu
iina dat bikaa im no gruo up an si im fada an mada a wuk ot, yu
unastan, kaa grung dem a liv afa, i tu a dem. Wel, afta shi gi mi
we, an mi da ya a dis plies wid di piipl dem nou -

Pikni: Kuuli?

Dada: No, nega man. Di man naa no pikni, an i ooman we im

av, av tri pikni: Sidli, Patsi, an Mel. Alrait den, mi afi muuv di
goat dem, mi bwail i haag fiidn, look bot di ko, wata di kyabij
bed,evriting.

77
Pikny: A wa di pikny deni do?
Dada: A no fi im pikny. Mi no deh monks di ooman, a di man
dem gi mi to. Man! Wuk, yu know! An no food behin' i’.

Pikny: No food?
Dada: Becaa if food even di deh, mi neva get any; caa from
maanin mi leave gaa grung, six o'clock, aboht tree mile. Mi gaa
one place name Georgetown, an from Georgetown mi haffi gaa
Hatmone, dat is arohn five mile when mi circle rohn - kyan be
more, but mi jus average i’ at five mile. When mi come back aj
yaad, sometime a all night, for mi no know anyone deh, mi naaj
no frien'. Anvting mi do mi haffi jus a gwaan, caa all di likl
bwai boht den noh waan beat mi up all di while. All right mi ai
strangea deh, strange country yu lmbw, if yu a fohl yu try go]
eena strange yaad, evryone haffi get a pick offa ya 1
|
Pikny: Oh God! j

Dada: Yes, man, evryone waan fight im till im beat im. So, dial
man have so much bush, a jus pure wuk all di while, an when]
mi come sometimes a all di haag feedin mi haffi a eat 1
Pikny: Jeesam! |
Dada: Believe mi to God! Sometime mi haffi eat di feedin, all]
go fi di cocanut trash mix up eena di wata same way, an mi ai
come home an when di hungry a bite mi eena all dem awas a|
night ya - for mi jus come from bush, yu know, an a kyai di]
load. Di ooman a higgla an fi im pickny-dem gaan a school ah
mi haffi a kyai di load. Dat time di man promise dem say dem a
go sen' mi a school. Not a school! :
Man! Di hungry peg mi one a di night deh an mi shoob
dung mi han' eena di bucket pon mi head an feel one big lump
a cocanut an mi eat i. Mi help dung di bucket fi aboht half awa
eena di road deh, yu know, for a no place weh people walk like
pon main road, a surveya track, like from ya to Donny, pure
bush, yu know, but a track: people walk deh a day time go a fiel',
but no much a night. An mi go eat di cocanut, you know, daf
time mi go home, go home late, coudn' feed di haag ...
Pikny: An di man beat yu?

78
pikni: Wa i pikni dem du?

Dada: A no ft im pikni. Mi no de munks di ooman, a di man

dem gi mi tu. Man! Wuk, yu no! An no fuud bihain i.
Pikni: No fuud?
Dada: Bikaa if fuud hiivn di de, mi neva get eni, kaa fram
maanin mi liiv gaa grung, siks aklak, abot tri mail. Mi gaa wun
plies niem Jajtung, an fran Jajtung mi haft gaa Atlon, dat iz
aron faiv mail wen mi sirkl ron - kyan bi moa, but mi dus avrij
i at faiv mail.
Wen mi kum bak a yaad, sumtaim a aal nait, far mi no
nuo eniwun de, mi naa no fren. Eniting mi du mi haft dis a
gwaan kaa aal i likl bwai bot de nou waan biit mi up aal i wail.
Aal rait mi a strienja de, strienj kuntri, yu no, if yu a fol yu trai
go iina strienj yaad, evriwun hafi get a pik afa yu.
Pikni: OGad!

Dada: Yes, man, evriwun waan fait im til im biit im. So, dis
man av so much boosh, a dus pyur wuk aal i wail, an wen mi
kum sumtaim a aal i haag fiidn mi haft a iit.
Pikni: Jiizam!

Dada: Biiliiv mi tu Gad! Sumtaim mi hafi iit i fiidn, aal go fi i

kokanut trash miks up iinai wata siem wie, an mi a kum om an
wen di hungri a bait mi iina aal dem awaz a nait ya _ far mi dus
kum fram boosh, yu no, an a kyai i load. Do ooman a igla an fi
im pikni dem gaan a skuul an mi haft a kyai i load. Dat taim di
man pramis dem se dem a go sen mi a skuul. Nat a skuul!
Man! Di hungri peg mi wun ai nait de an mi shoob dung
mi han iinai bukit pan mi hed an flil wun big lump a kokanut
an mi hiit i. Mi help dung i bukit ft abot haf awa iinai road de,
yu no, far a no plies we piipl waak laik pan mien road, a
surveya trak, laik fran ya to Dani, pyur boosh, yu no, but a trak:
piipl waak de a die taim gaa fiil, but no much a nait. An mi go
iit i kokanut, yu no, dat taim mi go uom, go uom liet, koodn
Aid i haag...
Pikni: An di man biit yu?

79
Dada: Yes, man! Di man come een di night an a say, "How di
feedin da ya an di haag no get any?"
An mi tell im say, "Mi lef bush till mi haffi look boht di
goat dem an wata di cyabage bed an di tuhnip dem an i get late
an mi go fi feedin, but mi no bada feed di haag dem." Becaa dem
say haag no fi feed late. Ayiiii! Mi say im gi mi some lick eena di
night deh noh an -

Pikny: Oh God!
Dada: Dat time mi a bwile haag feedin, yu know; fi di haag
feedin mi haffi get scratch coco, mi haffi clean dem off an chop
dem up, put dem eena di zinc pan an bwile dem. Mi no eat no
dinna all dem deh time for dem deh people doan cook early, yu
know. An di man beat mi di night noh an mi haffi a sleep
unnaneat di cella fi get way fran im.
Pikny: Mi??? Mi da go tell -
Dada: An one big papaa di deh, for a mi pick di papaa kyai
come from bush, pick i a ole bush, like hoh fi mi grung tun ole
bush up deh noh, pick di papaa deh. An mi hungry di night
noh afta mi get di beatin an mi couldn' eat i off still, but mi eat
oht some a i, yu know.
Pikny: Dem did know say yu lef i?
Dada: Dem did know say mi kyai i come deh, man. An di man
decide fi beat mi for i di Sunday maanin deh, man. An mi run
way... •
Pikny: Go weh?
Dada: Run come dung Bailey's Vale, as far as Bailey's Vale, an
when mi come deh so, mi no know which paat fi go again.
Pikny: Yu stay dung deh?
Dada: All boht pon di road mi a walk all boht gains'
Broomanhall deh. An mi all walk eena banana walk an fin'
ripe banana.
Pikny: But see ya! Den yu fin’ none?

80
Dada: Yes, man! Di man kum iin di nait an a se, "Ho di fiidn
da ya an di haag no get eni?"
An mi tel im se, "Mi lef boosh til mi hafi lo'ok bot i goat
dem an vvata i kyabij bed an i tunip dem, an i get liet an mi go fi
fiidn, but mi no bada fiid i haag dem.” Bikaa dem se haag no fi
fiid liet... Ayiiii! Mi se im gi mi sum lik iinai nait de nou an -
Pikni: OGad!

Dada: Dat taim mi a bwail haag fiidn, yu no. Fi i haag fiidn mi

hafi get ’krach koko, mi hafi kliin dem af an chap dem up, poot
dem iinai zink pan an bwail dem. Mi no iit no dina al dem-de
taim far dem-de piipl doan kook hurli, yu no. An di man biit
mi di nait nou an mi hafi a sliip unaniit i sela fi get we fran im.

Pikni: Miiii? Mi da go tel -

Dada: An wun big papaa di de, far a mi pik i papaa kyai fram
boosh, pik i a ol boosh, laik ho fi mi grung tun ol boosh up de
nou, pik i papaa de. An mi hungri di nait nou afta mi get di
biitn an mi koodn iit i af stil, but mi hiit ot sum a i, yu no.
Pikni: Dem did nuo se yu lef i?
Dada: Dem did nuo se mi kyai i kum de, man. An di man
disaid fi biit mi far i agen di Sunde maanin de, man. An mi run
we.
Pikni: Go we?
Dada: Run kum dung Bieliz Viel, az far az Bieliz Viel, an wen
mi kum de so, mi no nuo wich paat fi go agen.
Pikni: Yu stie dung de?
Dada: Aal bot pan di road mi a waak aal bot gens Bruuman
Haal de. An mi aal waak iina banana waak an fain raip banana.
Pikni: But si ya! Den yu fain nun?

81
Dada: Yes, man, fin' banana wa pruna-man chop dung, im a
prune banana walk an all cova i up unda trash deh, ripe Gross
Michel, dem sweet yu laas!
Pikny: A true?
Dada: Uh-huh, an mi neva come back till late di night, man,
mi no know which paat fi go sleep. Mi say mi go boom unda di
cella, mi bonks mi res'. An daylight di maanin mi cut oht.

Pikny: Again?
Dada: Yes, man, early eena di maanin, till im 'tart walk up an
dung a look fi mi noh becaa mi eena di area but im kyaan see
mi. Well, one night mi haffi a gaa di yahd go look some food
noh, for mi no waan gaa nobody yahd still fi mek dem mek up
an kyatch mi fi go gi im back mek im beat mi.
Pikny: Yu shoulda go a police an tell dem say im a kill yu!
Dada: So mi go back a di yaad - im call mi back a di yaad an say
im naa beat mi, an im no really beat mi, for evrybody a say im
no fi beat mi. A tru mi no grow wid mi mada weh mi fi get no
whole heap a beatin. One a dem time deh mi en deh monks
Mama when mi daa Nutsfiel'. Mi deh monks im an im usually
beat mi for im lef all dem udda one dem pon mi fi look boht,
an mi kyaan manage Wally.
Pikny: Wa mek?
Dada: No, man, mi an Wally come like yu an Kwao, yu know,
so mi couldn' manage im noh an when im waan go fi im way,
muss eida wi fight or someting.
Well den, mi run way, a run mi run way an di man en
call mi back a di yaad. Mi daa di yaad deh again fi a long time an
mi mek ftien' wid a bwai eena one udda distric like hoh -
Pikny: Wa im name?
Dada: Mi no memba im name noh, but im know Bachus
Wood. A so mi go get tru noh, nex time mi a get fi run way
noh, mi a run way an come home.
All right, nex time di man deh gi mi an assin - mi no
memba a fi wa dis time, but a no nuttin big, a no big someting
82
Dada; Yes, man, fain banana wa prooma man chap dung, im a
proom banana waak an aal kuva i up una trash de, raip Gros
Mishel, dem swiit yu laaas!
Pikni: Atm?
Dada: Uh-huh, an mi neva kum bak til liet di nait, man, mi no
nuo wich paat fi go sliip. Mi se mi go buum unda di sela, mi
bunks mi res. An dielait di maanin mi kut ot.
Pikni: Agen?
Dada: Yes, man hurli iinai maanin, til im taat waak up an
dung a look fi mi nou, bikaa mi iina di eria but im kyaan si mi.
Wel wun nait mi hafi a gaa di yaad go look sum fuud nou, far
mi no waan gaa nobadi yaad stil fi mek dem mek up an kyach
mi A go gi im bak mek im biit mi.

Pikni: Yu shooda gaa poliis an tel dem se im a kil yu.

Dada: So mi go bak a di yaad - im kaal mi bak a di yaad an se

im naa biit mi, an im riili no biit mi, far evribadi a se im no fi
biit mi. A tru mi no gruo wid mi mada we mi fi get no huol
hiip a biitn. Wun a dem taim de mi en de munks Mama wen
mi daa Nutsfiil. Mi de munks im an im yuuzhuali biit mi far
im lef aal dem uda wun dem pan mi fi look bot, an mi kyaan
manij Wali.
Pikni: Wa mek?
Dada: No man, mi an Wali kum laik yu an Kwao, yu no, so mi
koodn manij im nou, an wen im waan go fi im wie, nuts aida
wi fait or sumting.
Wel den, mi run we, a run mi run we an di man en kaal
mi bak a di yaad. Mi daa di yaad de agen fi a lang taim an mi
mek fren wid a bwai iina wun neda distrik laik ho -
Pikni: Wa im niem?
Dada: Mi no memba im niem nou, but im nuo Bakus Hood. A
so mi a go get tru nou, neks taim mi a get fi run we nou, mi a
run kum uom. Alrait, neks taim di man de gi mi an asin - mi
no memba a fi wa dis taim, but a no nutn big, a no big sumting

83
mi do. A someting to all goat mi mussi no kyatch di goat or
one a di goat en kyatch fly an mi no tell dem. Di goat foot ena;
rotten off an a it mek di man murda mi.
Pikny: Yu tan deh mek im lick yu! If a mi, mi woulda run way!
A yu have time, mek im lick you!
Dada: Mi a run way dis time, yu know. An mi a siddung an mi
plan an mi run way from im gaa one ooman name Berta, mi go1
stay wid im. Im naa no pickny, neida im man naa no pickny,
but dem grow one likl bwai. So mi an di likl bwai di deh noh.
One maanin mi deh eena di yaad an mi look ohta di gate
so, no di man mi see ohta di road a tan up an a look een? Im
oht deh so jus a kaal, kaal, so mi aks im, "Wa yu waan, suh?"
Im say, "Come ya, man!" Mi no pay im no min', mi jus gwaaiV
do wa mi a do till im walk off, caa im a go waan come kyatch
mi, yu know. A dat mi a consida say im o waan come kyatch
mi, kyai back a fi im yaad noh gi mi one assin.
Pikny: Im see yu a get betta keer noh dan we yu ena get ...
Dada: Yes, di ooman really keer mi, but is a ooman wa waanj
beat mi too, an mi feel say mi waan run way. So one maanin
mi go fi wata, mi go fi wata an mi ya some bud pikny eena one
tree. So mi chop dung one tick eena di bamboo an mi climb di
bamboo, tek dung all tree a dem. Den mi go dung eena di gully,
kyach di wata. Which paat mi a go, weh mi kyach di wata, a
haas faadin gully, fi go up a Top Pen.
Pikny: Sohn like mi know d^t place deh.
Dada: When mi look mi see di ooman a come dung di hill wid
one nice piece a guava whip nearly di stohtness a mi likl fingal
an boht so long, wid two end. An mi say, "waiiiit - dis no so!"
An a mi one dung deh, a no say well di udda likl bwai di deh
wid mi. An mi wait till im come boht a di cocanut tree deh so,
im say,
"A wa yu ena do dung ya so long? A bud pikny yu ing|
kyach?'
An mi jus leggo di drum pan, di zungu pan offa
head, an mi gaan. When im come a yaad, dat time mi drink
di tea and tek mi wheel.
Pikny: Yu wa? Gwaan!
84
mi du. A sumting tu aal goat, mi musi no kyach i goat or wun
ai goat en kyach flai an mi no tel dem. Di goat foot ena ratn af
an a it mek di man murda mi.
Pikni: Vu tan de mek im lik yu! If a mi, mi wooda run we! A
yu av taim, mek im lik yu!
Dada: Mi a run we dis taim yu no. An mi a sidung an mi plan
an mi run we fran im gaa wun ooman niem Burta, mi go stie
wid im. Im naa no pikni, naida im man naa no pikni, but dem
gruo wun likl bwai. So mi an di likl bwai di de nou.
Wun maanin mi de iinai yaad an mi look outa giet so,
no di man mi si otai road a tan up an a look iin? Im ot de so dus
a kaal, kaal, so mi aks im, "Wa yu waan, sa?" Im se, "Kum ya,
man!" Mi no pie im no main, mi jus gwaan du wa mi a du til
im waak af, kaa im a go waan kum kyach mi, yu no. A dat mi a
kansida se im o waan kum kyach mi, kyai bak a fi im yaad nou
gi mi wun asin.
Pikni: Im siyuagetbetakiirnoudanw eyuinaget...
Dada: Yes, di ooman riili kiir mi, but iz a ooman wa waan biit
mi tuu, an mi fill se mi waan run we. So wun maanin mi go fi
wata, mi go fi wata an mi ya sum bud pikni iina wun tri. So mi
chap dung wun tik iinai bambu an mi klaim i bambu, tek dung
aal tri a dem. Den mi go dung iina i guli, kyach i wata. Wich
paat mi a go, we mi kyach i wata, a haas faadn guli, fi go up a
Tap Pen.
Pikni: Son laik mi nuo da plies de.
Dada: Wen mi look mi si di ooman a kum dung i hil wid wun
nais piis a guava wip niirli di stotnes a mi likl finga, an bot so
lang, wid tu en. An mi se,
"Wieet! Dis no so!" An a mi wun dung de, a no se wel di
uda likl bwai di de wid mi. An mi 'wiet tU im kum bot a di
kokanut tri de so, im se,
"A wa yu ena du dung ya so lang? A bud pikni yu ena
kyach?" An mi dus lego i jum pan, di zungu pan afa mi hed, an
mi gaan. Wen im kum a yaad, dat taim mi jink af i tii an tek mi
wiil ...
Pikni: Yu wa? Gwaan!

85
Dada: One ayun wheel, big truck rim wheel. An mi pick a
bunch a orange. AI right.
Pikny: Gaan!
Dada: An mi move tru di village noh, mi come tru Bonny
Gate, an mi tun tru Boynes Park, caa mi know dem place deh
noh. Well, mi run gwaan oht till mi gaa one ooman name
Berta again. Im see mi a gwaan an im say, "A weh yu come
from, man?" Im say im know mi aunty dem. Im say im ena go
mek im husban kyai mi dung deh. Caa mi waan reach home,
mi waan reach some one a mi famly dem.
Well mi deh a yaad deh wid im till im usban come up.
So when di usban come noh, di ooman neva bada mek mi go
wid im again. Mi jus stay a di yaad, kyai food go gi di usban tree
day a week, Sunday, Wednesday, an Friday.
So one a di night mi a come, an tru mi still have di
chigga eena mi foot, mi walk - mi no eena di road pon di stone,
pon di bruk stone wa dem 'pread pon i, caa dem a jook, mi walk
eena di bankin side. An mi fall dung, bruk oht all di toe nail an
di plate mash... fly ohta di, ah, come ohta di tray we mi a kyai. I’
mash becaa mi fail dung same place, so mi haffi leggo di tray fi
no lick mi face a grung - mi kyach up pon mi han'.
When mi go home di ooman gi mi one backsidin. A
good backsidin for i, yu know, man, an neva even dress mi toe,
man, nor nutting ... An mi say, "Bwai, mi a reach home a mi
yaad noh, yu know ... mi haffi reach home somehoh," an mi
did run way.
When mi a move di maanin, man, shi say, well, mi fi go
bwile tea an mi a put de tea pon faya. An mi go dung eena di
gully go pick some dandelion an some wata grass an a nice
bunch a orange an say, 'Well, dis one ya a fi yaad ..." Yu see
when shi gaan oht back a door go empty im chimmy, im ongle
ya when di wheel drop oht a road so, beng! An mi staat from
dat, yu know, suh.
Mi come tru Lookout, fin' myself drop oht dung a
Hampstead, an mi say well dis road muss lead mi dung back
pon di main, weh mi en deh one time. An mi ena look fi di big ^
hohse dem an di gate dem wey mi en pass deh already. An a so j
mi gaan dung Hampstead road wid mi wheel, go up an walk *
Ballard's Valley road an tek Heywood Hall back, man. Tru
Bachus Wood. Drop oht a Friendship, ova a mi aunty. A right
weh granfada bury. Di hohse weh unda di big mango tree, a
right deh so.
86
Dada: Wun ayun wiil, big truk rim will. An mi pik a bunch a
arinj. Alrait.
Pikni: Gaan!

Dada: An mi muuv tru i vilij nou, mi kum tru Bani Giet, an

mi tun tru Bainz Paak, kaa mi nuo dem plies de nou. Wel, mi
run gwaan ot til mi gaa wun ooman niern Burta agen. Im si mi
a gwaan an im se, "A we yu kum fram, man?" Im se im nuo mi
anti dem. Im se im ena go mek im uzban kyai mi dung de. Kaa
mi waan riich uom, mi waan riich sum wun a mi famli dem.
Wel mi de a yaad de wid im til im uzban kum up. So
wen di uzban kum nou, di ooman neva bada mek mi go wid
im agen. Mi dus stie a di yaad, kyai fuud go gi di uzban tri die a
wiik, Sunde, Wenzde, and Fraide.
So wun a di nait mi a kum, an tru mi stil av di chiga
iina mi foot, mi waak - mi no iina di road pan i stuon, pan i
bruk 'tuon we dem pred out pan i, kaa dem a jook, mi waak
iinai bankin said. An mi fal dung, bruk ot al di toniel an di pliet
mash ... flai ota de, ah, kum otai trie we mi a kyai. I* mash bikaa
mi faal dung siem plies, so mi hafi lego di trie fi no lik mi fies a
grung - mi kyach up pan mi han.
Wen mi go uom di ooman gi mi wun baksaidn. A good
baksaidn far i, yu no, man, an neva hiivn dres mi tuo, man nor
nutin ... An mi se, "Bwai, mi a riich uom a mi yaad nou yu no
... mi hafi riich uom sumho," an mi did run we.
Wen mi a muuv di maanin, man, shi se, wel, mi fi go
bwail tii, an mi a poot i tii pan faia. An mi go dung iinai guli go
pik sum dandilaiun an sum wata gras an a nais bunch a arinj
an se, "Wel dis wun ya a fi yaad;.." Yu si wen shi gaan ot bak a
doa go emti im chimi, im ongl ya wen di wiil drap ota road so,
beng! An mi staat fram dat, yu no, sa.
Mi kum tru Lookot, fain miself drap ot dung a Ampsted,
an mi se wel dis road mus liid mi dung bak pan di mien, we mi
en de wun taim. An mi ena look fi i big hos-dem an di giet-dem
we mi en pas de alredi. An a so mi gaan dung Ampsted road
wid mi wiil, go up an waak Baaladz Vali road an tek Hiewood
Haal bak, man. Tru Bakus Hood. Drap ota Frenship, ova a mi
anti. A rait we granfada beri. Di hos we una di big mango tri, a
raitdeso.

87
Pikny: Mi waan go up deh, yu know, Daddy.
Dada: An mi go dung a Uncle Dan an mi see dem. Uncle Dan
say im naa no food, im naa no money. Im en have caanmeal an
im jus eat i off. Mi climb one cocanut tree an pick jelly an mi get
di dry one-dem. An mi tun tru Mountain road, tun back pon di
road. An den mi go oht which part Harry Garvey live - a deh so
Mama en live one a di time. An Wally daddy. So mi go up deh
an tink mi o fin' Wally.
Pikny: A who a Wally daddy?
Dada: One man name Aatha. So, when mi ova deh mi go fin'
Wally an, a ova a Mohntain Mama live an im enao kyai mi ova
deh. Wi go ova a Mohntain, wi no fin' Mama. Yes! Im en daa
yaad an a do wa? Da tun some cassava head. Im have cocanut
an a juice some cassava. Anyhoh, right away im tun to wuk an
im staat to wash di ol’ toe. Two sore toe, yu know, pon di two
foot.
Pikny: An dem all got di chigga-dem?

Dada: An all some chigga eena di foot side ya-so, yu see right ya-
so, an ya so? Da one ya. Di coh shit, mi walk eena di coh shit an
di goat shit an dis ting deh-so kin'a lif up all di while. So
unnaneat i kin'a sore all dem way deh, dass why mi haffi a pick
off di skin, i get tenda; so chigga gaa di tenda spot fi go eena yu
foot.
Pikny: Laad, chigga! Chigga no deh noh?
Dada: No, man.

Pikny: Tank God becaa mi woulda muss have dem!

Dada: An im staat to gi mi, sometime, yu know mi waan likl

freedom for mi neva get any when mi daa monks dem people
deh, likl maable playin, likl gig playin or kite flyin. An mi come
back eena mi area noh monks all a di yout wa mi know long
time when wi en deh boht ya. Mi waan ups an dung some time.
Mama gaan anyweh, as im come, people tell im say mi
no daa yaad from maanin. A run Wally run dung a im daddy,
for a no deh im stay, mi haffi stay deh. Mi get beatin, man,
beatin. Pure beatin all di while an mi run way fran im.
88
 pikni; Mi waan go up de, yu no, Dadi.

papa; An mi go dung a Unkl Dan an mi si dem. Unkl Dan se

jm naa no fuud, im naa no muni. Im in av kaanmiil an im dus
iit i aaf. Mi klaim wun kokanut tri an pik jeli an mi get di drai
wun-dem. An mi tun tru Montn road, tun bak pan di road. An
den mi go ot wich paat Ari Gaavi liv - a de so Mama en liv
wun ai taim. An Wali dadi. So mi go up de an tink mi o fain
Wali.
Pikni: A hu a Wali dadi?
Papa; Wun man niem Aata. So, wen mi ova de mi go fain
Wali an, a ova a Montn Mama liv an im enao kyai mi ova de.
Wi go ova a Montn, wi no fain Mama. Yes! Im en daa yaad an a
du wa? Da tun sum kasava hed. Im av kokanut an a juus sum
kasava. Enihou, rait awie im tun tu wuk an im taat tu wash i ol
tuo. Tu suor tuo, yu nuo, pan i tu foot.
Pikni: An dem aal gat i chiga dem?
Dada: An aal sum chiga iinai footsaid ya-so, yu si rait ya-so, an
ya-so? Da wun ya. Di ko shit, mi waak iinai ko shit an i goat shit
an dis ting de-so kaina lif up aal i wail. So unaniit i kaina suor
aal dem wie de, das wai mi hafi a pik af i skin, i get tenda; so
chiga gaa di tenda spat fi go iina yu foot.
Pikni: Laad, chiga! Chiga no de nou?
Dada: No, man.
Pikni: Tank Gad bikaa mi wooda mus av dem!
Dada: An im taat tu gi mi, sumtaim, yu no, mi waan likl
friidum, far mi neva get eni wen mi daa munks dem piipl de,
likl maabl plein,likl gig plein, or kait flain. An mi kum bak iina
mi eria nou munks aal ai yuut wa mi nuo lang taim wen wi en
de bot ya. Mi waan hups an dung sumtaim.
Mama gaan eniwe, az im kum piipl tel im se mi no daa
yaad fram maanin. A run Wali run dung a im dadi, far a no de
im stie, mi hafi stie de. Mi get biitn, man, biitn. Pyuur biitn aal i
wail an mi run we fran im.
Pikni: We yu gaan? A wun kuuli man?

89
Pikny: Weh yu gaan? A one coolie man?
Dada: Mi gaa Mohntain a one man name Bradley, Mas Bradley
dem. But dem wouldn' sen' mi a school an mi en waan gaa
school. Becaa when dem udda pikny dem come home a evelin
time an a read, yu know, an a talk all story ohta dem book, mi
really feel a way, yu know ... An when dem a go oht pon school
maanin an ting, an see evrybody fix up demself an gaan, an mi
no go ...
An mi gaan becaa mi naa gaa school. An mi jus say,
"Cho! Mi a go home back a dem yaad again." Mi go home back a
yaad deh noh an Bredda Reid dis time tun di beata man noh fi
mi. Bwai, mi kyaan tek i. An im gwaan an gwaan till Mama gaa
Nutsfiel' go live an im a gwaan folia mi up wid beatin same
way. An Mama a beat mi, im a beat mi, till one day dem lef mi a
yaad, mi an Wally an Morgan. Dem no lef no - Mama no lef no
food gi wi di Satday, right? Im jus lef shuga an milk fi bwile;
porridge fi Maagan.
Pikny: Maagan did a hoh much? Boht tree, boht Kwamen age?

Dada: Boht dat, boht two-tree. Di hohse fi clean, wi fi look

wood an wi kyai wata... Tree apaatment wid one veranda.
Pikny: Yu alone?
Dada: Mi an Wally... Dat a mi alone, caa Wally naa do nuttin.
Pikny: Wa mek?
Dada: Im naa do nuttin.
Pikny: I'd a beat oht im tarra warra!
Dada: Well wi daa yaad deh an wi look boht porridge fi
Maagan an when di porridge a done, wi decide say wi o cook caa
nuf goat 'kin, coh tongue, coh head, coh tripe, whole heap a,
meat di deh, eena kreng-kreng.
Pikny: Laad! Mi wouldn' eat di coh tongue!
Dada: An wi cook a pot a food, go rohn a one grung wi ena!
look afta fi one man an wi dig one hill a yam an wi cook a pot a
food. An afta wi eat done noh - two coolie bwai live side a wi!
90
Dada: Mi gaa Montn a wun man niem Bradli, Mas Bradli dem.
But dem hoodn sen mi a skuul an mi en waan gaa skuul. Bikaa
wen dem uda pikni dem kum uom a iivlin taim an a riid, yu
no, an a taak al tuori outa dem book, mi riili fiil a wie, yu no ...
An wen dem a go ot pan skuul maanin an ting, an si evribadi
fiks up demself an gaan, an mi no go ...
An mi gaan bikaa mi naa gaa skuul. An mi dus se, "Cho,
mi a go om bak a dem yaad agen." Mi go om bak a yaad de nou
an Breda Riid dis taim tun di biita man nou fi mi. Bwai, mi
kyaan tek i. An im gwaan an gwaan til Mama gaa Nutsfiil go liv
an im a gwaan fala mi up wid biitn siem wie. An Mama a biit
mi, im a biit mi, til wun die dem lef mi a yaad, mi an Wali an
Maagun. Dem no lef no - Mama no lef no fuud gi wi di Satde.
Rait? Im dus lef shooga an milk fi bwail pari) fi Maagun.

Pikni: Maagun did a ho much? Bot tri, bot Kwamen iej?

Dada: Bot dat, bot tu-tri. Di hos fi kliin, wi fi look wood, an wi

kyai w ata... tri apaatmen wid wun varanda.
Pikni: Yualuon?

Dada: Mi an Wali... Dat a mi aluon, kaa Wali naa du nutn.

Pikni: Wa mek?
Dada: Im naa du nutn.
Pikni: Ai da biit ot im tara wara!
Dada: Wel wi daa yaad de an wi look bot parij fi Maagun an
wen i parij a dun, wi disaid se wi o kook kaa nuf goat kin, ko
tung, ko hed, ko traip, ol iip a miit di de, iina kreng-kreng.
Pikni: Laad! Mi hoodn iit i ko tung!
Dada: An wi kook a pat a fuud, go ron a wun grung wi ena
look afta fi wun man an wi dig wun hil a yam an wi kook a pat
a fuud. An afta wi hiit dun nou - tu kuuli bwai liv said a wi de-

91
deh so an come a yaad fi eat too, an aftawud wi all kyach a fight!
Pikny: An dem beat Wally an di younga one dem an yu a di
bigga one?
Dada: An mi a di bigga one.
Pikny: Dem bigga dan yu, Daddy?

Dada: Bigga dan mi, man, mi aboht twelve, and dem aboht
eighteen.
Pikny: Jeesam!

Dada: An wi beat dem up, man! Chase dem go ova a dem yaad
wid all stone di day!
Pikny: Ha, ha, ha, an you no do no wuk!
Dada: So evelin a come noh, no wuk no done.
Pikny: Maagan all dutty up?

Dada: When wi go eena di kitchen di daag dem no jump up

pon di fayaside? An dem teer dung i kreng-kreng an dem tek
oht Miss Della meat!
Pikny: Eh-eeeeeeh!

Dada: Di whole a mi dead noh, caa mi know Wally naa get no

beatin for i, yu know. *
Pikny: Wa mek?

Dada: No, man, an mi a di bigga one a di yaad.

Pikny: But see ya! Kwao woulda haffi get beatin if mi a beaten!
Dada: Well a no so Mama dwi. Man! Mi jump an get likl Saint
Vincent bush an cerace rub di floor, no bada wipe oht di hohse,
yu know, an a try fi shine i. Wally say im kyaan kyai di bucket
an mi haffi go lef di floor an go fi di wata. It no shine good, im
say im a shine i, im a sweep i oht.

92
so an kum a yaad fi hiit tuu, an aftawood, wi aal kyach a fait.
Pikni: An dem biit Waali an di yunga wun-dem an yu a di biga
wun? 6
Dada: An mi a di biga wun.
Pikni: Dem biga dan yu, Dadi?

Dada: Biga dan mi, man, mi abot twelv, and dem abot ietiin.
Pikni: Jiizam!

Dada: An wi biit dem up, man! Chies dem go ova a dem yaad
wid aal stuon di die!

Pikni: Ha, ha, ha, an yu no do no w uk...

Dada: So iivlin a kum nou, no wuk no dun.

Pikni: Maagun aal duti up?
Dada: Wen wi go iinai kichin di daag dem no jump up pan i
faiasaid? An dem tiir dung i kreng-kreng an dem tek ot Mis
Dela miit!!!
Pikni: Eee-eeeee!
Dada: Di ol a mi ded nou, kaa mi nuo Waali naa get no biitn
far i, yu nuo.
Pikni: Wamek?
Dada: No, man, an mi a di biga wun a di yaad.
Pikni: But si ya! Kwao wooda hafi get biitin if mi a biitn!
Dada: Wel a no so Mama dwi. Man! Mi jump an get likl Sen
Vinsen boosh an surasi rub di floa, no bacla waip ot di hos, yu
no, an a trai fi shain i. Wali se im kyaan kyai di bukit an mi hafi
go lef i floa an go fii wata. It no shain good, im se im a shain i,
im a swiip i ot.
Pikny: Dat time im aboht eight?
Dada: Bigga dan dat, man, mi two year olda dan Wally.
Pikny: So im da ten -
Dada: An, mi a tell yu say, no wood no look, no wata no go fa,
bwai! When mi run dung deh back fi one udda trip a wata an
come, mi feel im vice ...
Pikny: A weh dat deh yaad deh noh?
Dada: Yu see weh uno call Coppa? Yu know weh? Well a up
pon di hill weh di big mango tree heng ova di road.
Pikny: Which paat Wally use to live, weh di big longy mango
tree deh?
Dada: No ... An mi ya im vice a come oht pon di hill, an im o
come up di hill, an mi a tink say, well, mi naa go tek i tonight,
yu know.

Pikny: Yu shoulda run gwaan a bush!

Dada: Im come up eena di yaad, im puddung im basket an im
blow, ssssshhhhhh! Mi ya wen im say,
"Jeeeesus Christ!! Ku pon di state a di yaad! Dadoooooi!
Dadoooooi!"
Pikny: Wooooooiiiii! Laad God!
Dada: Mi say, 'Yes, Mama." Mi tan up back a di tilet.
'1 gwine kill yu tonight!"
Well I really feel it ...
Pikny: Mi da cut tru bush!
Pikny: An dem enao kyach im?
Dada: An mi do so, boom! Move, man! An im a cook dinna fi
Wally an Maagan dem. An mi a watch im, mi a siddung oht a
cocanut tree.
Pikny: Im mussi tink a so it ao go.
94
 Pikni: Dat taim im abot iet?
Dada: Biga dan dat, man, mi tu yiir olda dan Wali.
Pikni: So im da ten-

Dada: An, mi a tel yu se, no hood no look, no wata no go fa,

bwai! Wen mi run go dung de bak fi wun uda trip a wata an
kum, mi fiil im vais...

Pikni: A we dat de yaad de nou?

Dada: Yu si we uno kaal Kapa? Yu nuo we? Wel, a up pan di
hil we i big mango tri heng ova i road.
Pikni: Wich paat Wali yuus tu liv, we i big langi mango tri de?
Dada: No ... An mi ya im vais a kum ot pan i hil, an im o kum
up i hil, an, mi a tink se, wel, mi naa go tek i tunait, yu no.
Pikni: Yu shooda run gwaan a boosh!
Dada: Im kum up iinai yaad, im poodung im basket, an im
bluo, sssshhhh! Mi ya wen im se, "Jizus Krais, ku pan i stiet a di
yaad! Dadoooo! Dadooooi!"
Pikni: Woooooiiii! Laad Gad!
Dada: Mi se, 'Yes, Mama." Mi tan up bak ai tailet.
"Ai gwain kil yu tunait!" Wel Ai riili fiil it.
Pikni: Mi da kut tru boosh.!

Pikni: An dem enao kyach im?

Dada: An mi do so, buum! Muuv, man! An im a kook dina fi
Wali an Maagun dem. An mi a wach im, mi a sidung ot a
kokanut tri.
Pikni: Im musi tink a so it ao go -

95
Dada: Mi deh pon one bankin, an a look pon di smalla one
dem, a see wa im a gwaan wid. Im no lef no dinna fi mi. Im
cova up di pot pon di fayaside.
Pikny: Bredda Dada, yu o get beat! Wa mek Granny love bea|
so?
Dada: All right, mi di deh, mi di deh till Wally look up an see
mi an say, "See Bredda Dada deh, Mama!" An im call mi, im
say to mi say, "Come, put on some wata fi hot fi mi."
Pikny: Im waan kaych yu eena di kitchen.
Dada: Im naa kaych mi eena di kitchen - eena di hohse. So
when mi put on di wata, im di deh a siddung pon veranda, a
tek off im crepe wa im have on an a cool im foot. Mi siddung
ohta door deh.
Pikny: Yu mad??? Mi???
Dada: Mi a watch im till im say, "Di wata hot yet?" Mi say,
’Yes." Im say, "Kyai i come ya, put i dung eena di hohse deh."
Pikny: If a mi, mi wouldn' kyai no wata fi im! No winda no
deh pon di hohse?
Dada: Winda lock, yu no ya wa mi a say? A night noh an im
lock dung
Pikny: Eeee-eeeeeh! If im eva come een, mi fling di wata pon
im! I'da gaan - *
Dada: An den, im siddung pon i veranda, an mi come tru di
back. Wi have one small room, an mi come tru di small room
door an come eena di udda big room weh im deh noh come
puddung di wata. An mi come deh come fin' say dat deh door
lock already unda lock an key. Jump tru which winda? If yu
jump tru di winda yu'da back up eena di veranda, for dii,
veranda rail, from up a top come dung kin'a collapse.
Pikny: Mi'da bruk di winda wid mi head side - Mi??? Mi naa
mek im beat mi!
Dada: Yu kyaan mash up di glass winda, man, yu o cut up. Pull
96
Dada: Mi de pan wun bankin, an a look pan i smala wun dem,
a si wa im a gwaan wid. Im no lef no dina fi mi. Im kuva up i
pat pon i faiasaid.
Pikni: Breda Dada, yu o get biit! Wa mek Grani luv biit so?
Dada: AI rait, mi di de, mi di de til Wali look up an si mi an se,
"Si Breda Dada de, Mama!" An im kaal mi, im se tu mi se,
"Kum, poot an sum wata fi hat fi mi."

Pikni: Im waan kyach yu iinai kichin.

Dada: Im naa kyach mi iinai kichin - iinai hos. So wen mi

poot an di wata, im di de a sidung pan varanda, a tek af im krep
we im av an, an a kuul im foot. Mi sidung ota doa de.

Pikni: Yu mad?? Mi???

Dada: Mi a wach im til im se, "Di wata hat yet?"

Mi se, "Yes."
Im se, "Kyai i kum ya, kum poot i dung iinai hos de."
Pikni: If a mi, mi woodn kyai no wata fi im! No winda no de
pan i hos?
Dada: Winda lak, yu no ya wa mi a se? A nait nou an im lak
dung.
Pikni: Eeee-eeeee! If im eva kum iin, mi fling i wata pan im! Ai
da gaaan!
Dada: An den, im sidung pan i varanda, an mi kum tru i bak.
Wi av wun smaal ruum, an mi kum tru i smaal ruum doa an
kum iina di uda big ruum we im de nou kum poodung i wata,
an mi kum de kum fain se dat de doa lak alredi unda lak an ki.
Jump tru wich winda? If yu jump tru di winda yu da bak up
iinai varanda, far i varanda riel, fram up a tap kum dung kaina
kalaps -
Pikni: Mi da bruk i winda wid mi hed said - Mi?? Mi naa mek
im biit mi!
Dada: Yu kyaan mash up i glas winda, man, yu o kut up. Pool

97
wa? Yu kyaan pull, a slide-up winda, man, an i bolt eena di two
side-dein.
Pikny: Mi o tek sittin mash i up...

Dada: By di time yu haffi go fight dis-ya bolt and dat-deh bolt

im o grab yu same way. When mi realize mi ya di door lock
back a mi noh as mi tep een -

Pikny: Heh-eeeehU! God! Wid lock an key? Get a beatin!!

Dada: Im pick mi up an lick mi dung a grung right away, wid

di hot wata, yu know, my frien'.
Pikny: I' bun yu?

Dada: N o-
Pikny: Mi da fling i pon im, yu know, truly! Mi da all mek i
drop pon grung an -
Dada: An im siddung pon mi, man! Im tump mi till im tie mi
up, tek all mi cloze an tie mi up, yu know. An im go ohta
door-

Pikny: Mi no know wa mek yu a tan up deh ... TAN UP??? Yu

stay deh. Dat a wickedness -
Dada: An mi say to Wally, mi say, ’Wally yu kyaan pull me,
man?" An tru wi a wrestle,.di tie wa im tie jam, yu know, dat i
koodn pull. A slide Wally slide mi ova an mi foot an mi two
han' tie same way, yu know, an a so mi get to di door an mi get
oht. An im come een an a say if a Wally let mi oht, an Wally
say, "No, Mama, mi did a strain an fight im."

Pikny: Jeeesus! A Wally a tremble, Daddy?

Dada: Uh-huh. Im a tremble still say im o beat im, yu know,
but im no beat im. Im naa beat im when im do anyting, man.
Beat mi all di while. If im really beat Wally a muss im an Wally
one di deh. Aaaaaayi! Mi ohta door, mi han' tie, yu know, man,
an mi han' staat, mi finga-dem staat to swell...
Pikny: Yu ohta door? Wid yu han' tie??
98
wa? Yu kyaan pool a slaid-up winda, man, an i bolt iinai tu said
dem.
Pikni: Mi o tek sitn mash i u p ...

Dada: Bai di taim yu hafi go fait dis-ya bolt an dat-de bolt im o

grab yu siem wie. Wen mi rialaiz, mi ya di doa lak bak a mi nou
azm itepiin.

Pikni: Heeeee-eeee! Gaad! Wid lak an ki? Get a biitin!

Dada: Im pik mi up an lik mi dung a grung rait awe, wid di hat
wata, yu no, mai fren.
Pikni: I'bunyu?

Dada: N o -

Pikni: Mi da fling i pan im, yu no, truuli! Mi da aal mek i drop

pan gron an -
Dada: An im sidung pan mi, man! Im tump mi til im tai mi
up, tek aal mi doz an tai mi up, yu no. An im go ota doa -
Pikni: Mi no nuo wa mek yu a tan up de - TAN UP?? Yu stie
de. Dat a wikidnes -
Dada: An mi se to Wali, mi se,
"Wali, yu kyaan pool mi, man?" An tru wi a resl, di tai
wa im tai jam, yu no, dat i koodn pool. A slaid Wali slaid mi
ova an mi foot an mi tu han tai siem wie, yu no, an a so mi get
tu di doa, an mi get ot. An im kum iin an a se if a Wali let mi
ot, an Wali se, "No, Mama, mi did a 'trien an fait im."

Pikni: Jiiizus! A Wali a trembl, Dadi?

Dada: Uh-huh. Im a trembl stil se im o biit im, yu no, but im
no biit im. Im naa biit im wen im du eniting, man. Biit mi aal i
wail. If im riili biit Wali a mus im an Wali wun di de. Aaaaayi!
Mi ota doa, mi han tai, yu no, man, an mi han taat, mi finga-
dem taat to swel.

Pikni: Yu ota doa? Wid yu han' tai?

99
Dada: Un-huh. An mi naa have on no cloze. An mi di deh
fight an fight an fight till mi tek mi teet an pull di knot.

(HERE THE TAPE ENDS ABRUPTLY...)

Dada: Uh-huh. An mi naa av an no cluoz. An mi di de a fait
an fait an fait til mi tek mi tiit an pool i nat.

(HERE THE TAPE ENDS ABRUPTLY...)

101
 Appendix: Afro-Haitian

Some Grammatical Similarities to Afro-Jamaican

The following information was gleaned from an excel­
lent little book called You Can Leam Creole by H. McConnell
and E. Swan (Port-au-Prince, 1952).

AI: Nouns

Afro-Haitian exhibits the same method of forming

plurals found in Afro-Jamaican. The third person plural pro­
noun, the equivalent of Afro-Jamaican dem, is yo. Thus:
chwal-yo the horses
(from French cheval)
kay-yo the houses
Afro-Haitian carries this construction even further than does
Afro-Jamaican. In Afro-Haitian a similar construction is used to
express the singular; the definite article la (regardless of gender)
follows the noun:
chwal-la the horse
kay-la the house
This construction (using the French article la) seems to
be a modernized version of the original African construction,
still used in parts of Central and Southern Haiti, in which -a
or -na is used instead. Although its origin cannot be known
with any certainty, it is not uncommon to find a as the third
person singular pronoun in languages of the Niger-Congo
family. Thus Afro-Haitian actually says "horse-him" and "horse-
them", in contrast to Afro-Jamaican di haas and di haas-dem.
The singular constructions using -la and -na as the definite
article are reminiscent of a very ancient construction dating
back at least to the second millennium B.C. In the Meroitic
language of Kush on the Upper Nile, the definite article is
expressed by a suffixed -1, while in the Hurrian and Urartean

102
 languages of the Ancient Near East the definite article is
expressed by a suffixed -ni *
A2. Possession

Afro-Haitian indicates possession by a system very

similar to that of Afro-Jamaican. The French preposition "for”/
pour is contracted to pa, just as English "for" is contracted to
Jamaican fi. Pa precedes the personal pronouns to form pos­
sessive adjectives, just as in Afro-Jamaican:
«

Haitian Jamaican
pamwe fim i my
paou fiyu your
pa li fi im hers, his, its
panou fiw i ours
pa nou fi uno yours (pi.)
payo fidem theirs
However, when the possessive phrase modifies a noun, it does
not precede the noun as in Afro-Jamaican, but follows the
noun:

Haitian Jamaican
kay pamwe fimohohse my house
f am pa li f i im hooman his woman
A3. Formation of Verb Tenses
The basic Afro-Haitian tense formation system closely
resembles that of Afro-Jamaican. An unchanging verbal stem is
preceded by a tense particle, which is in some cases a French

* For some strange reason, in andent Africa and the Middle East, N and an odd type
of L seem to have been interchangeable or similar sounds. In the extinct so-called
"Asianic language family”, which includes Hurrian, Urartian, Elamite, Kassite,
Hattie et al., many examples are found of identical words written now with L, now
with N, as if the actual sound was somewhere in between the two symbols. CA.
Diop published lists of Egyptian words and corresponding Wolof words where the
same correspondence between N and L can be observed. Some of the so-called
Asianic languages may be related to the pre-Aryan languages of India, and others
may have had distant relatives in Northeastern Africa and the Nile valley, perhaps
some of the little known languages of the Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan, ana Niger-
Congo language families.

103
auxiliary verb or a derivative of same, but in others is of
unknown, probably African origin:
Past partide te from French etait/was:

Haitian Jamaican
mwetevini mienkum I came

Future partide va from French va/goes:

Haitian Jamaican
nou va vini wiokum we are going
to come
Conditional partide ta:
Haitian Jamaican
yotadi dem wooda say they would
say
A4. Conclusion

The striking similarities in these constructions in Afro-

Haitian and Afro-Jamaican would lead a future archaeologist
who happened to dig up fragments of these languages to class
them both in the same language family. The amazing similar­
ities in the Bantu language family which has spread across
Africa from the Cameroons to Uganda to South Africa has often
led to speculations as to how one nation of people could have
filled up such an enormous continent in the limited time frame
allowed by the degree of differentiation of their languages.
Perhaps limited numbers of people revolutionized the many
probably archaic and complex languages of the multifarious
peoples who inhabited the southern half of the African
continent before the arrival of the Bantu. The seeming ease
with which the oppressed Africans of Jamaica and Haiti have
similarly streamlined, simplified, and rationalized the archaic
tongues of their former slave-masters will probably be seen
from the perspective of the coming third millennium A.D. as
nothing short of revolutionary...

104
Collect Your Own Vocabulary
and Idioms

105
Collect Your Own Vocabulary
and Idioms

106
Collect Your Own Vocabulary
and Idioms

107
Collect Your Own Vocabulary
and Idioms

108
 Biographical Notes

Emilie Adams (nee Schrader) was bom in St Paul,

Minnesota, USA, in 1941. Her studies at Harvard-Radcliffe were
followed by two years working in East and North Africa. On her
return to the USA in 1964 she worked for the Civil Rights
Movement in Mississippi. She emigrated to Jamaica in 1971,
and settled in Robin's Bay, St. Mary, where she married and had
two children. She became a Jamaican citizen in 1979.

109
"1 w as feelin g lost w ith ou t the ability to understand the
langu age o f the Ja m a ica n country p eo p le. This b o o k is the key I
w as lo okin g for. It teaches me ex actly w h a t I needed to kn ow

w es

"Each tim e I s h o w the b o o k to in d iv id u als I g et such an irie

respon se. JA H k n o w I rea lly h op e everythin g w o rk s ou t to
m ake it g et p u blish ed and to be a v a ila b le to everyone ..."

Letter from Sista P to

the author, 1989

" Iw a s fo rtu n a te to read this b o o k w hen I fir s t cam e to Ja m a ica .

I t ex p lain s clea rly an d sim p ly the b a sic s o f Ja m a ica n p a to is . M ost
im p ortan tly I thin k the b o o k h as an im p ortan t role to p la y in
h elpin g Ja m a ica n s ta k e p rid e in their language and see th a t it is
n ot secon d-class."

Deborah Pruitt, Anthropologist

Berkeley, California

"As a Ja m a ica n w h o lived in the U.K. fo r m any years, I fe e l th a t

E m m ie’s b o o k offers a refreshing a p p ro a ch to ou r language and
culture. It is a b o o k th a t w ill ben efit m any p eo p le, an d w ou ld
m a ke a m arv ellou s presen t, esp ecia lly fo r W est In dians
a b r o a d .”

N eville N. Lew is
Kingston
9789766101558

m
L M H P u b l i s h i n g L im ited