Who seh wi chat patwa (patois)?
It is said that Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Guyanese, St.
Vincentians, Antiguans, all speak patois, which is the dialectal offspring of
the language of the colonial powers of these islands.
What do we really speak, and does our language have a
distinct name? Let us first find out what is patois. It is an illiterate or
provincial form of speech; broken English; jargon. Jargon is confused speech,
gibberish, or technical phraseology.
SCHOLARS OF LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY
Ever since the late 17th century, English
scholars of linguistic geography have been fascinated by the “broken English”
spoken by Jamaicans. Broken English? What about the West African languages,
namely Akan, Igbo, Wolof, Twi and others that are rooted in the linguistic
protest of enslaved Africans in Jamaica: These so-called slaves, forbidden to
speak in their native tongues, eventually developed an alternative to the King’s
English by incorporating words from their various West African languages. Those
words influenced today’s Jamaican words, such as dugu-dugu, quashie, buju, and
countless others. Yes, a lot of the words we use are African, but very few
people know about this. Why?
The word patois does not take these things into
consideration, and it undermines our unique and creative spirit as a people. The
name of our language must reflect that out of many, we have one language. Thus
the ideal name is Jamic.
Jamic must be given credency because it represents the
legacy of the Africans who formed the mode of communication, this vernacular. In
this vein, Jamic is not just our spoken and written language, it is our language
as a nation and people. Jam is short for Jamaica, and the suffix –ic, means of
or relating to; therefore, Jamic simply means of or relating to Jamaica. In this
case, it refers to the language.
It must be noted, also, that the Rastas during the 1950s to
1980s took the language and formed their own argot: Iyaric. The lingo was
developed in the spirit of self-determination, and the goal was to harness the
power of word and its sound.
SPEECH PATTERN
This speech pattern is the “Principle of Word + Sound =
Power” (W+S=P), a phonetic system that inflects specific words, depending on
their sounds, to make them more appropriate in the context that they’re used,
for instance, the word ‘downpressor’.
Professor Hubert Devonish and others of the linguistics
department at the University of the West Indies have advocated for the
recognition of our language. But is it our language that they are promoting, or
is it ‘broken English’ (as in Creole or patois?) Remember, if it is not Jamic,
it is not ours.
Interestingly, courses are being taught of “our” language
in Britain’s Birmingham City College.
Our national pride and self-determination make us,
Jamaicans, the forerunners of change from oppression; therefore, we mush
redefine ourselves. As a beginning, we must redefine the name of our language.
Bob Marley said, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves
can free our minds.”
In celebrating our 43rd Independence, it should
be made clear that we have a language of the people, for the people. We do not
speak broken English, or patois, we speak Jamic. And we do so with pride.
______________________
To contact Ras Dennis Jabari Reynolds, the author of Jabari
Authentic Jamaican Dictionary of the Jamic Language,
please email him at RasJabari [at] AroundtheWayBooks [dot] com
