24 guides 4 complete guides 7 topics
Guides to Jamaican Patois
Written long, edited down, and read by a native speaker before publication. Everything below is free, and none of it is a lesson.
Start with a complete guide
Four long reads, each one covering a whole subject end to end, with the shorter guides on that subject gathered underneath it.
Complete guide
How to speak Jamaican Patois, in the order that actually works
Start here, and take it in order
17 min read8 guides in the collection
Complete guide
Jamaican Patois phrases, grouped by when you would actually say them
What to say, and who you would say it to
14 min read6 guides in the collection
Complete guide
Jamaican Patois words, grouped the way an ordinary day groups them
The words, spelled the two ways you will meet them
16 min read5 guides in the collection
Complete guide
What actually differs between Jamaican Patois and English
Where the two grammars genuinely part company
13 min read5 guides in the collection
Browse by topic
Each topic has its own page, with an introduction written for it and every guide in it.
- Phrases7More than the standard twenty, with the setting each one belongs to.
- Grammar5Regular, learnable, and in several places simpler than English grammar is.
- Culture4Slavery, survival and status: the history that is still inside the language.
- Music3Lyrics repeat, so they stick — but a line rarely means what it says.
- Spelling2Two writing systems, one language: everyday spelling beside phonemic Cassidy.
- Travel1Enough to be spoken with rather than spoken to, on a visit.
- Learning Patois2Adult learners, honest timelines, and why the first fortnight misleads you.
What these guides are, and what they are not
Jamaican Patois has around three million first-language speakers and several million more people who understand it, and almost nothing written about it online is written by anyone who actually speaks it. What turns up first is a list of twenty phrases, spelled differently on every site, with no indication of when you would say them, who you would say them to, or whether anyone under forty still does.
These guides are the opposite of that. Each one is written long, edited down, and read by a native speaker before it goes anywhere near this page — a guide that has not cleared that review does not appear here at all, and does not appear in search either. Where Patois is quoted it is quoted twice: once in the everyday spelling you would see in a message, and once in the Cassidy writing system the Jamaican Language Unit publishes, which is phonemic and therefore tells you how the word is genuinely pronounced.
They are grouped by what brought you here. Phrases and vocabulary, if you want something you can use this week. Grammar, if you have worked out that Patois is not English with an accent and want to know what it is instead. Culture and music, if the language reached you through a song. Spelling, if you have tried to write it down and found four versions of the same word. Travel, if you are going. Learning, if you are teaching yourself and want to know what actually works.
None of it is a lesson and none of it costs anything. If you want the structured version — audio recorded by native speakers, review timed to when you are about to forget something, and pronunciation you practise out loud — that is what the app is for.
More than the standard twenty, with the setting each one belongs to.
PhrasesNew
There is no single word for hello in Jamaican Patois
There is no one word for hello in Patois. There is a small set of openers, chosen by who you are greeting — the four you need, with their replies.
6 min read
PhrasesNew
The greeting everybody has heard, and the reply nobody teaches
What wah gwaan actually means, why it is a question rather than a hello, how to answer it, and when a visitor using it reads as a performance.
6 min read
Phrases
Greetings, farewells, and the ones that are really questions
Jamaican Patois greetings for morning, afternoon and evening, the farewells, and why likkle more and walk gud are not interchangeable.
5 min read
Phrases
Thank you, please and sorry — and why Patois handles them differently
Tank yuh, nuff respec, beg yuh — the words for thanks and apology, and how a Patois request is softened without leaning on a please.
5 min read
Phrases
The Jamaican food words, and the sentence that gets you fed
Nyam, ackee, bammy, box food: the Jamaican food words plus the exact phrases for a cook shop, a jerk pan and a hotel dining room.
6 min read
Phrases
The Patois words for the people who raised you
Madda, Faada, Bredda, Pickney and the rest — what each Patois family word covers, who you can call it, and how to address an elder without offence.
5 min read
Phrases
Counting, asking a price and haggling in Patois
How Patois numbers sound, the several ways to ask a price, what cheap and dear really mean, and where in Jamaica a price is an opening offer.
5 min read
Regular, learnable, and in several places simpler than English grammar is.
Grammar
The verb never changes: how tense works in Jamaican Patois
Patois marks tense with four small words in front of an unchanging verb. Here is what each one does, how they stack, and the order they sit in.
8 min read
Grammar
Six pronouns, no cases, and no gender in the third person
Patois pronouns never change for case, and the third person marks no gender. The full set of six, what each one covers, and how possession works.
7 min read
Grammar
How Patois marks more than one, and when it does not
Patois marks plurals with a separate word after the noun, not an ending. How dem works, when it is dropped, and why English speakers mark it twice.
5 min read
Grammar
Saying no, not and never in Jamaican Patois
Negation in Patois sits before the verb, and stacked negatives are grammatical. Nuh, neva, negative commands, and the pair kyan and cyaahn.
5 min read
Grammar
The three jobs English gives to the verb to be, and how Patois splits them
English gives one verb four jobs. Patois splits them: a before a noun, deh before a place, and nothing before an adjective. Here is how each works.
7 min read
Slavery, survival and status: the history that is still inside the language.
Culture
Patois is a language, and the argument is about history rather than grammar
Jamaican Patois is an English-lexifier creole with its own grammar: a language, not a dialect of English. The evidence, and why the question survives.
10 min read
Culture
There is no single Patois — there is a range, and speakers move along it
Jamaican speech runs from deep creole to near-standard English. What the continuum is, what shifts along it, and where a learner is best off starting.
10 min read
Culture
Thirty Jamaican proverbs, grouped by the job they do
Thirty Jamaican Patois proverbs grouped by what they are for — caution, consequence, patience — with the meaning and the moment each one is used.
9 min read
Culture
The African words in Jamaican Patois, and the ones that only look African
Which Jamaican Patois words really come from Akan, Igbo and Kikongo, which are misattributed, and what the African inheritance is beyond vocabulary.
9 min read
Lyrics repeat, so they stick — but a line rarely means what it says.
Music
Big up yuhself, and what you are actually doing when you say it
Big up yuhself means well done, and respect to you. Where the phrase came from, how the grammar works, and how it lands when a non-Jamaican says it.
5 min read
Music
The Patois that runs through dancehall, and how to hear it
Dancehall lyrics are hard for a reason. The recurring Patois words, the deejay formulae and the sound changes that let you decode a track yourself.
8 min read
Music
The reggae vocabulary that left Jamaica, and what happened to it
Reggae carried Patois words worldwide. What the Rastafari I-words mean, which words drifted in transit, and which ones are worth being careful with.
7 min read
Two writing systems, one language: everyday spelling beside phonemic Cassidy.
Spelling
How to spell Patois, and why the same word looks different every time
Jamaican Patois has no official spelling. Why one word turns up four ways, where English spelling misleads, and when to use the phonemic form instead.
9 min read
Spelling
How the Cassidy-JLU writing system spells Jamaican Patois
Cassidy-JLU writes Jamaican Patois phonemically: one sound, one letter. The vowels, the nasal mark, the missing letters, and a passage to decode.
11 min read
Enough to be spoken with rather than spoken to, on a visit.
Adult learners, honest timelines, and why the first fortnight misleads you.
Learning PatoisNew
Duolingo does not teach Jamaican Patois. Here is what does.
Duolingo has no Jamaican Patois option. Here is why the major apps skip it, what the free material is good for, and a study plan that actually works.
10 min read
Learning Patois
How to pass Jamaican Patois on to your children
Jamaican Patois for kids: how heritage languages get lost, what helps at each age, and what to say to a child who is embarrassed to speak it.
7 min read