The Patois user must, therefore, exhibit bravery and selflessness in the face of fierce assault, just as a brave firefighter would to rescue lives and property that are in danger. When someone insists ...

Most words in Jamaican patois, like other English Caribbean patois, are English words filtered through a distinct phonetic system with fewer vowels and different consonant sounds. Patois is written ...

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Walk into any government office, courtroom or classroom in Jamaica, and you’ll be expected to speak the official language, English. But venture into the street, tune into a radio ...

Currently, one of the topical discussion points in Jamaica is the conundrum of delayed English learning, but before this can be resolved there is an urgent need for the majority of its citizens to ...

The Bible is, for the first time, being translated into Jamaican patois. It's a move welcomed by those Jamaicans who want their mother tongue enshrined as the national language - but opposed by others ...

Clive Forrester is a continuing lecturer at the department of English language and literature at the University of Waterloo. He was born in Jamaica and previously taught a course on Jamaican Creole at ...

The battle lines have softened somewhat, but there is still substantial opposition to patois in the pulpit. Critics say it will dilute Scripture and undermine the already weak hold many poor Jamaicans ...

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- When English teacher Faith Linton first proposed translating the Bible into Jamaica's patois tongue in the late 1950s, most people who heard the idea shook their heads. Some on ...